Put together by the folks who created the Coraline and ParaNorman animations, The Boxtrolls looks like it will be a lot of fun. The film stars Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, which all by itself is enough to put it on my must see list. It is based on the book Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow, purportedly a children’s book but a fine example of Fantasy as well. Since it is volume 1 of The Ratbridge Chronicles (the fictional town it takes place in, based on the real town Trowbridge in Wiltshire), perhaps there will be more of these down the road. It should be hitting the big screen in September.
There are several interesting choices this week, with Transformers: Age of Extinction topping the list. Let’s face it, I would watch any Michael Bay Transformers movie, even though I never cared for the original Japanese animation series trying to promote toy sales. As the series evolved, Beast Wars came out, a story line built on evolution itself. It looks like Michael is finally incorporating that aspect of the franchise into his movies, and I can’t wait to see where he takes it.
Also this week, the truly twisted and paranoid Philip K. Dick masterpiece Radio Free Albemuth goes into general distribution! This gem has been going around the film fest circuit for a handful of years, it is nice to see it finally going into theatrical release. If you are in the mood for an After the Apocalypse kind of film, then Snowpiercer will give you major class warfare trapped on the Orient Express, with an international cast of favorite actors. If you are hoping for something a bit more light-hearted than any of these, there is a limited release of the 2004 animated classic The Incredibles, finally available in 3D.
In movies, 300: Rise of an Empire is the latest Frank Miller production driven by his graphic novels. A bit more violent than I would prefer, they are still high quality stories about human nature. I do like the cinematic style they share with that other Frank Miller project, Sin City. Speaking of style, the 2011 version of Faust by director Alexander Sokurov finishes up a tetralogy of films who’s other protagonists were not fictional: Hitler, Stalin, and Hirohito. Finally, The Chef, the Actor and the Scoundrel might be the most interesting movie released to disc this week. It is definitely an action/comedy, treating the Second Sino-Japanese War (those of us in North America lumped it in as part of WWII) as a complex backdrop into which all of the characters and plot elements fit with precision.
In TV, the Witches of East End: The Complete First Season has a supernatural mother keeping a secret from her daughters so they can lead a normal life. But that doesn’t turn out to be an option when something evil comes to destroy them all, and their only chance for survival means they must all know who they really are. This show is from Lifetime, so it will get a different treatment than other networks would grant this premise, and I look forward to seeing where they go from here. The new season begins July 6th.
In Anime, Code:Breaker: Complete Series is about a super-powered assassin employed by a secret government organization to keep everyone else in line. Then his classmate Sakura steps in to keep HIM under control, and everything cascades from there. In Leviathan: The Last Defense, Complete Collection the fairy Syrup recruits three Dragon Clan girls to form the base of the Aquafall Defense Force, and defeat the alien invaders. Meteors impacting the earth of Aquafall are sprouting monsters bent on conquering the world.
This week we have the music of Shishamo, a relatively new band who debuted in November of 2013. The first track is from that album, called approximately What she was able to do to me, and the second is I Do Not Want To Go. All three of the band members graduated from the Design And Arts track of their high school, which pretty much explains their video style. They are touring right now, and have another track coming out in July called summer festival with you, the single release for their new album.
Still another Guardians of the Galaxy extended trailer, telling us a bit more about the film. Not that I needed any more encouragement; I will be in the theater when this opens on August 1st.
The iPhone Photography Awards are exactly what they sound like: the best pictures taken with an iPhone and entered into the contest. The link I gave is to the page that displays the actual winners, but take a look through all the categories, because there are some amazing photographs throughout the collection. I have seen the quality some of the pictures I have taken have, but knowing what the resolution is, what the light levels required for different kinds of shooting are, and understanding simple composition rules like the law of thirds is one thing. It is a far cry from having the eye to compose images of this quality, often having to do it on the fly as the opportunity presents itself. My flabber is well and truly gasted by these amazing pictures, and I think every entrant deserved each award they received.