The Magicians is a new show coming to Syfy on January 25th, and if the show is half as good as the books, it will be on my DVR every week. They have a sneak peek on the website that looks like the first few minutes of the first episode, also looking good. It is based on Lev Grossman’s trilogy of the same name, a set of books praised by a lot of people, including Cory Doctorow, William Gibson, and George R. R. Martin. Let’s face it, any time three of your favorite authors tell you somebody else wrote important books you need to read, you pay attention.
American Hero is about Melvin, a reluctant Superhero who lives to party, until he tries to reconnect with his estranged son. That’s about it for genre this time around; I am thinking this weekend would be a good time to stream and catch up with some of the TV series I watch.
In Movies we get 2 great choices; Ant-Man is another Marvel masterpiece, this time bringing founding Avenger Henry Pym to the forefront, although at the point he has to pass the mantle on. The other selection is the Blue Ray version of Minions (the DVD version came out just before Thanksgiving), one of the very best animated comedy’s of 2015, or perhaps the best. TV also brings us 2 quality choices, The Transporter Refueled for a glimpse of the characters younger days, and Under the Dome: Season 3 for he Steven King fans in the audience.
Anime has Rail Wars – Complete Collection, a great series that balances out the Otaku with the MIT Hacker versions of railroad fandom. Riddle Story of Devil: The Complete Series + OVA has twelve female assassins going to a prestigious boarding school for a competition; to be the one to kill fellow student Haru Ichinose, and win their deepest desire. But the one who gets to her first ends up trying to protect her from the others, making life much more complicated for everyone involved. The Irregular at Magic High School – Yokohama Disturbance Arc brings the third and final piece of that series, and while it is quite good, they should just release the complete series with no concern about money.
Let’s not forget Aura: Koga Maryuin’s Last War, a movie which has one formerly delusional student now in charge of another equally delusional person, both of them trying to find their way out into normalcy. Finally this time around we have Haganai: I don’t have many friends, about the misfits who form the Neighbors Club, because they have no choice, on so many levels.
The band METAFIVE reminds me of David Byrne and Talking Heads more than anyone else ever has. That seems kind of appropriate, since the band was formed around Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Takahashi Yukihiro early in 2014, as those of you who saw his interview earlier this year on J-Melo already know. Don’t think he is carrying the younger members of the band, though; it is a bit of a super-group, with 2 heavy hitter veteran musicians, a singer/songwriter who already had a long list of chart climbers under his belt, and one each famous producer and equally famous DJ. This track is the studio live version of their song Don’t Move, and it is quite impressive. It is also very different than the studio version that will be released on their new album Meta coming out this January 13th. My only regret about the album is I still haven’t heard any of the other 11 songs, unless the few tracks Takahashi played on that J-Melo episode were from it; even if they were, he played by himself, so I have no idea how they would sound with the whole band playing together. Guess I will have to wait until January 13th along with everyone else to find out.
The revolutionary 1953 Arthur C. Clarke novel Childhood’s End will be hitting the small screen as a 3 episode miniseries. The first episode airs beginning on December 14th on Syfy, just before the premier of The Expanse, or you can stream it now from their web site. The peaceful alien invasion of Earth is followed by decades of apparent utopia under their rule, but most people fail to notice their goal is to change humanity forever.
Gods of Egypt looks like a lot of fun if this trailer is any indication. It will be in theaters on February 26, 2016, and this video makes me think somebody looked around for inspiration after watching the Thor films and Stargate series, landing on the rich mythology of ancient Egypt for their way to access the other franchise’s audiences. While I don’t expect this film to turn out to be an award winner, it does look like it could be silly fun.