I love Radio Plays and Audio Books, and wanted to mention these for anyone who does not already know of them. Escape Pod is a podcast that delivers a weekly free Sci-Fi audio story, and has been doing so since 2005. It is so successful at it that it is listed as a qualifying professional sale at the SFWA. In addition it has generated two spinoffs, Pseudopod for Horror fiction, and PodCastle for Fantasy fiction. You can subscribe to their podcasts, download the MP3 files from their sites, or got to the Escape Pod Archives searchable collection at Wikipedia.
CBR, or Comic Book Resources, has an excellent column called I Love Ya But You’re Strange you should check out if you are a comics fan. They collect up instances of unusual situations in comic books. Like the time Superman, Batman, Spider Man, and Captain America got together to print comic books, or when Superboy’s robot teacher got him laid. It is quite amusing as well as educational; if you drill down you learn quite a bit about how things came about, as well as getting a glimpse of some of the panels.
Yes, Robocop has been remade yet again, or is in the process at least, and I for one am looking forward to checking out the results. The Robocop 2014 regeneration looks to be a bit slicker than the original, which should allow them to make the sleaze and corruption even more obvious.
The amusing film this week appears to be The Family, a Luc Besson production about a Witness Protection arrangement that puts a mob couple (Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer) and their kids in a quiet town in France. They don’t quite fit in, to the point that their whereabouts become known to the folks they are supposed to be hiding from, and all hell breaks loose. Not genre, but the best bet for this weekend. There is also one genre movie called Cybornetics: Urban Cyborg, which, as near as I can tell, isn’t actually going to be playing anywhere near me, and based on the trailer I wouldn’t be going to see it if it was.
Star Trek Into Darkness starts us off this week, continuing the excellent J.J. Abrams reboot of the franchise. I would buy a 4K TV to watch this on, if I didn’t need to eat or pay rent for the next few years, it was just that good. I am going to count Delete as a movie, since it was a miniseries on a cable system channel about movies called Reelz. Seth Green and Matt Frewer have to save the world when the internet wakes up and decides humans are dangerous and unnecessary. The Last Keepers is a family friendly show about a young woman who discovers all the women in her family have mysterious powers; the trailer looks great and the cast is very impressive, but I couldn’t find a home page for it. I won’t bother to mention Frankenstein’s Army.
In TV, Supernatural: The Complete 8th Season looks like the best bet this week, although Castle: The Complete 5th Season is a lot of fun even if it isn’t genre.
In Anime, Blue Exorcist: The Complete 2nd Season continues the battle between demons and humans with episodes 13 through 25. Our protagonist Rin is on trial at the Vatican to determine if he will be imprisoned or inducted into their anti-demon army. Bleach: Season 18 brings us up to episodes 256 through 267 as the Soul Reapers continue their never ending battles with things that would destroy humans.
Last Exile: Fam, The Silver Wing comes out as two box sets, parts 1 and 2, totaling 21 episodes. This is the sequel to The Last Exile, in which the Earth was restored and a long war ended through Steampunk Mad Science. In this series, those who survived remaining behind on the surface of the Earth make war on the returning exiles, attempting to destroy country after country. The final new entry this week is This Boy Caught a Merman, about an unusual relationship that has more to overcome than most.
There is a re-release worth noting this time around: Patlabor: The Mobile Police TV Series collection 2 is episodes 13 through 24 of this classic series. The director (and one of the writers) on this series was Mamoru Oshii, who went on to do all the different Ghost In The Shell Cyberpunk movies and TV series, and first became famous for his work as director of the very surreal Urusei Yatsura.
An all girl rock band from Tokyo, Sugar’N’Spice definitely kicks butt. This is the title track from their most recent album The Hybrid Age, you can listen to a bunch more of their music on their Facebook page.