Junkyard was a short story written by Clifford D. Simak and published in Galaxy Magazine in 1953. NBC converted it into a Radio Drama in 1956 for the program X-Minus One. That show is now in the public domain and available to anyone who wants to listen to it or download it for their own collection. They dramatized some of the best classic science fiction short stories from Galaxy Magazine by an amazing array of authors, including L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, and Philip K. Dick, to name just a few more. These particular examples of the show are courtesy of the good folks at SFF Audio, who are an excellent source of such programs.
Another trailer has been released for Minions, the new animated adventure telling the story about what they got up to while waiting for Gru to come along. Quite frankly, these little guys are about 80% of what made me fall in love with the Despicable Me franchise in the first place, so I have been very much looking forward to this film.
The Fantastic 4 is an excellent comic that got turned into several less than spectacular movies. They are trying again, and this version has the potential to be better than the others when it comes out this August.
We have 3 movies to pick from this week, and I am thinking I need to see at least 2 of them. First off is Jupiter Ascending from Andy and Lana Wachowski. I love a good space opera, and this one has the fate of the Earth at stake if things don’t go well. I can’t wait to see how this one turns out, and I will probably go for the IMAX 3D version. Seventh Son is a supernatural thriller that also looks quite entertaining, with an apprentice hero facing a major evil witch during his training. Finally, the historical fantasy Outcast has a western Knight teaming up with the children of a deposed Chinese Emperor to defeat a tyrant. That one came out last year in Asia but get’s its North American release this Friday.
In Movies, Dracula Untold is a rather interesting variation of the Vampire legend, with Vlad Tepes portrayed as a good man doing whatever it takes to save his people and family from destruction. The twisted comedy Hector and the Search for Happiness stars Simon Pegg as a psychologist who needs to find out if happiness even exists any more. If it does, he will bring it to his patients, family, and friends. In western animation Big Hero 6 is out in Streaming format, the Blu-Ray and SD versions will not be coming out until the 24th; it would have been my favorite movie of 2014 if it hadn’t shared the year with Guardians of the Galaxy. In Documentaries we get Video Games: The Movie, with some of the most famous gamers, geeks, and nerds on the planet talking about how the industry got to this point and where it goes from here. No genre TV series to speak of this week.
In Anime, Genshiken: Second Generation is being released as a complete collection; The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture has new otaku recruits, while the graduated old guard is adjusting to life as productive members of society. While this is listed as the second season, to me it counts as the third and a half. During the first season, there was an ongoing discussion of their favorite Anime show, Kujibiki Unbalance, and they included several bonus episodes of that series on the discs. Then they released the series Kujibiki Unbalance itself, and those discs had bonus episodes of Genshiken, enough of them to make up their own OVA release. So with two full seasons and an OVA under their belts, this should really be called season 3.5.
In Golden Time: Collection 2 Banri Tada lost all his memories, and is haunted by the spirit of his former self. The two of him are fighting it out to see who gets to decide how his life will go. Leviathan: The Last Defense pits three girls and a fairy against alien monsters attacking Earth by riding in on meteors. It is not as doomed as it sounds, because the girls are half dragons.
You’re Being Summoned, Azazel is about a detective who summons demons to do his dirty work. The demons in question are lazy and depraved, and take a lot of oversight to keep them on task. Finally, One Piece – Collection Box 2 is out, compiling episodes 104 through 205 into a single package.