Project Almanac is about a group of friends who stumble across a time machine one of their parents were working on, and finish assembling it. It doesn’t take them long to realize this was a mistake. Alien Outpost is about a documentary crew following an elite unit of soldiers in the wake of an alien invasion. Hard to Be a God has group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization. The movie is Russian, I have no idea why the official site I found for it is in Japan. At least the The Official Site of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the folks who wrote the story it is based on, is from there. In Legends from the Sky a Native American Veteran is looking for his missing grandfather after his land is taken over by an unknown federal organization looking for a UFO. Note that some of these are limited engagements and won’t be found in a lot of theaters.
Terrestrial Human
The animated romantic comedy The Book of Life is being released this week, with a unique visual style from Guillermo del Toro. Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, also animated, has Aquaman having to choose sides between Atlantis and the Justice League when war with the surface breaks out. The one unanimated selection this time, The Remaining, is closer to horror than fantasy or sci-fi. I didn’t find much in the way of genre western TV this time around.
In Anime we have Log Horizon: Collection 2, continuing the story of 30,000 players trapped in the online game Elder Tales, unable to escape. We also have Lupin the 3rd: Napoleon’s Dictionary, in which the secret of the Lupin family treasure is revealed. Both of these shows are adventurous and funny, if you are not already familiar with them you might want to start at the beginning; click the Oldest button on the Crunchyroll page to start with the first episode of the first season. The first season of Lupin the 3rd is streaming on Hulu, and about half of it was done by the legendary Miyazaki; he also did the feature film sized Castle of Cagliostro, a truely excellent Lupin the 3rd outing.
I am not sure how to categorize Yasuko Omori‘s music; Kawaii Punk maybe? Or perhaps Hyper-Energized J-Pop would be closer. Whatever it is, I like it, and wanted to share it here. The first track is something like absolute despair is the best condition, while the second one is Kyurukyuru, both from 2014.
This award winning short animation was put together by four very talented animators at Supinfocom Arles School of Digital Filmmaking over the course of their final year. It pulled in a ton of awards, and probably earned them job offers as well. It is another gem I found over at the CGI Bros. Channel.
The first two episodes of Haphead go live on their web site tonight, right after they show the entire first season at the Royal Theatre in Toronto tonight. It is a cyberpunk tale about a new haptic peripheral which makes videogames so immersive that people learn skills just by playing them (yes, that is pretty much their tag line). Thanks to Cory Doctorow for the heads up on this one.
The Gundam Fever Project created a simulated Gundam visit to a Tokyo office building and played it for the unsuspecting office workers. They say this is just the first in a series of such pranks. Thanks to Otaku USA Magazine for the heads up on this one.