This Friday the movie of choice is Super 8, yet another J.J. Abrams project by way of Steven Spielberg. Something escapes a train wreck while being transported from Area 51, and a group of kids catch some footage of it on a super 8 camera. Also out in extremely limited theatrical release (but available On Demand starting today; check your local interactive guide) is the Norwegian film Troll Hunter, about a group of students investigating a government cover-up of trolls in northern Norway. This one is a mocumentory in the Blair Witch style, Norwegian with English subtitles.
The Wild Hunt has been making the round of Film Festivals for a year or two picking up some awards in the process, had a limited theatrical run, and is finally coming out on disk this week. A LARP reenactment gamer group is deep into their dungeons and dragons when a jilted non-gamer comes looking for his ex-girlfriend to win her back. Things get ugly when the line between game and reality gets blurry. Winning the award for strangest movie of the week is Rubber, the story of a tire that comes to life and terrorizes the countryside. That works with a whole car and has in several previous movies, but a single tire just doesn’t weigh enough to harm anyone larger than a chihuahua.
While not really genre, I have to mention Burn Notice: Season Four, if only because they have that whole McGuiver technology thing going on, and their tech is dead on target. Plus I love the show, of course; The new season kicks off on June 23rd.
In western animation we get Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. The trailer looks interesting, they are going to give us some info on the origin of the Green Lantern Corp, and Nathan Fillion gets to play Hal Jordan. Obviously the timing on this never-before seen feature length animation is to tie in to the movie release in the theaters, and I’m in.
Moribito: Guardian of Spirit – Complete Collection is a difficult story, with a warrior woman who needs to save one more soul before she dies, and a prince who may be that soul trying to save his kingdom. Together they may be each others salvation.
Revolutionary Girl Utena – The Student Council Saga is the first of three box sets of remastered video with a newly created Dolby Digital 5.1 Japanese soundtrack of this classic series. Containing the first 12 episodes, it has a ton of additional improvements and upgrades; this is more of a special edition set than anything else. Which makes it kind of amazing that if you shop around you can pick it up for as little as $30, especially considering this is in limited production, with only a certain number of them being made.
This may be the best fan-made Anime I have ever seen, and certainly the best Doctor Who fan built Anime. We are talking Classic and Retro here; the Doctor in this one is Jon Pertwee, and the Master is Roger Delgado, using some excellently edited sound bytes from the 1970s episodes. On the Anime side, Bubblegum Crisis, Dirty Pair, and Macross all contributed to the animation style, although I don’t speak quite enough Japanese yet to vouch for the Nihongo quotes (but I expect they are as well done). I do suspect a lot of them are from those series, which puts our Doctor Who influences from the 70s and our Anime influences from the 80s, and gives us a nice familiar jumping off point to explore this totally new combo creation from them. Did I mention this may be the best fan-made Anime I have ever seen? It even uses the old-school minimal animation sequences with the modern flash minimal animation sequences. They may sound the same, but you create them using totally different techniques. Thanks OtaKing 77077, also known as Paul Johnson for creating this incredible animation!! He has a number of Tutorial animation videos as well, you should watch them all!
I recommend watching it full screen, in case you were wondering: it is just that good.
Outcasts is coming to BBC America on Saturday, June 18th, and they just turned loose a new trailer for it. Now if they would only pick up Misfits.
More like talking about the program than a trailer, this segment has some behind-the-scenes footage as well as some clips from the show, and a whole lot of the cast and creator going OMG!!! Despite the fact this came by way of Spoiler TV, it is not so much spoiler-ish as self promoting. I am so ready for the new season, and can’t wait to see if they do as amazingly as they did on Children of Earth. Thanks to Blaster for the heads up on this.
If you have Turner Classic Movies in your cable or satellite lineup, they are running a Dino-marathon tomorrow starting at 8PM eastern (as always, check your local listings). They kick it off with the original 1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, which pretty much began the whole monsters smashing Tokyo genre. They follow that with 1957’s Rodan, where a giant pterodactyl smashed up Tokyo, and then for something a bit different 1964’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, where Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah smash up each other and a lot of Tokyo. They round that out with 1970’s Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero in which aliens try to use Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra to take over the Earth, during which process Tokyo gets smashed up. Next they present two films in which Tokyo suffers no damage: Dinosaurus! (cavemen vs. dinosaurs in modern times) and the Valley of Gwangi (cowboys vs. dinosaurs).