Today is Pi Day, celebrated each year on March 14th, or 3.14, with extreme enthusiasts further designating 1:59 as a special minute; Happy Pi Day!. From one coast to the other the mathematically inclined, not to mention a boatload of teachers, will all be spreading the word about this most mathematical of days.
If you are a fan of Steampunk and Steampunk music, you will be happy to know there is a new Abney Park song posted online, Evil Man. And if you are a Steampunk fan, you want to go vote for the Steam Punk Chronicles Awards, letting them know what you favorite choice is for each category. Some of them are no-brainer’s but some are almost too close to call.
There really isn’t a genre film out this week, unless you count The FP as a fantasy. It is the story of rival gangs who settle their turf wars through video game dance competitions, and even with whatever violence they might have thrown in that still sounds more like a fantasy than anything else to me. But it does look like it might just be a cult classic of the silly variety, based on the trailer.
A glut of great DVDs this time around, starting with the Steampunk action adventure instant classic The Three Musketeers, which I loved in the theaters and look forward to adding to my own collection so I can watch it over and over. Melancholia is a beautiful and award winning movie which tells the tale of a woman who’s wedding is interrupted by the end of the world. There are also a couple of animated feature length films worth your time, including The Adventures of Tintin with Daniel Craig, Nick Frost, and Simon Pegg. Happy Feet Two also has a huge and star studded cast, and is every bit as fun as the first one.
The TV miniseries Neverland sees Bob Hoskins reprise his role as Smee in this Peter Pan prequel. A classic Tom Baker Doctor Who episode also becomes available with the release of Dr. Who: The Face Of Evil, with every one’s favorite savage Leela as the companion.
Western animation has the return of two of my favorite characters in Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention. This originally ran on BBC1 in 2010 and has our beloved duo being the hosts of a TV show about some crackling good inventions and showing off some of their own accomplishments.
New anime this week includes the Bleach – Season 12 uncut box set, continuing the soul reapers story with episodes 180-193. To put that in perspective, I think the latest episode to air on Tokyo was 367. One Piece – Collection 5 also hits the shelves bringing us the next 27 episodes of the Straw Hat Gang making friends and having adventures. these are episodes 104 through 130, out of a current total of 538. It will be a while before all of these are going to be available in the US. Also new this week, Kekkaishi DVD Set 4 brings episodes 40 through 52, which in this case actually completes the series.
I was all excited when I heard there was going to be a new Mardock Scramble release, and then anoyed when I learned it was going to be Mardock Scramble: The First Compression [Director’s Cut]. I just bought this thing back in September or so, why are they trying to sell me a different version of the one I have seen, before the ones I haven’t seen become available? And the difference between the theatrical version and the directors cut (both of which are on the new DVD, but not the original release) is 5 minutes of additional scenes. This is definitely one of the most impressive and twisty new animes to come along in a while, but I do not feel that this is treating the fan base right. They should have come out with both versions get from the get go.
Any teaser trailer which uses Donovan’s version of Season Of The Witch for it’s sound bed might just prove worth watching, and hopefully ParaNorman will be as fun as this looks like.
In order for this to make sense, you will have to be a fan of 2 different UK TV shows: Doctor Who and Top Gear. In this episode Matt Smith not only becomes the fastest Doctor Who ever on the Top Gear Star in a Reasonably Priced Car test track, he does it while channeling Malcolm McDowell in his A Clockwork Orange persona. This gets even funnier when you see Matt go head to head with The Stig!