Stan Lee’s World of Heroes posted this insane Super Hero Speed Dating video yesterday, and had me rolling on the floor. Being the nice guy I am, I had to share it with you; Happy Valentine’s Day!
Terrestrial Human
While I would love to share the trailer for the next live episode of Primeval New World, episode #7 or #11, depending on where you live I believe, it is not available in the US yet, so that’s not an option. What I can share is some compiled footage put together for/by Miranda Frigon, who’s character is central to the story so far. As is appropriate to a story about time travel, I do not believe these outtakes are anything like in correct temporal sequence, but at least they give us a teaser into the worldview of this story.
Over the years, Disney has done some of the best educational work ever assembled, translating complex concepts about science and history into forms we can all easily understand. This is one of my all time favorites from that collection, a story about the history of space science, and how we came to understand how it works. Mind, Disney did nothing about resolving the scientific questions, but it sure explained them so we all understood, and gave us a fun little animation to watch while doing so. I like it a lot, and appreciate the education it has given so many, including me.
There are actually two release dates this week, and they both have some serious winners. On Valentines Day we get the box office monster A Good Day to Die Hard, because I am sure some movie executive somewhere said to themselves “Yeah, that is such a romantic chick flick, but there are 2 other films worth noting. The romantic fantasy Beautiful Creatures (based on the book of the same name) takes place in a small southern town where a newly met couple must uncover some very dark supernatural secrets. Unfortunately, Love & Teleportation is in such limited release that you have to be attending the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival if you want to see it.
When we get to Friday proper, Escape from Planet Earth brings all the animated silliness anyone could wish for. Meanwhile, The Power of Few runs multiple story lines in parallel, and one of them involves the Shroud of Turin being stolen so someone can clone Jesus. All in all, quite a good weekend for movies.
Robot & Frank is a great little indi film about the robot Frank’s kids get for him, to help him around the house. But Frank see’s a chance to come out of retirement, and starts teaching the bot how to be a cat burglar. This one absolutely has to come home with me this week. In The Man with the Iron Fists the Emperor’s gold is stolen, and everyone in China is out to claim it for themselves. Aladdin and the Death Lamp is one of those Syfy Channel made-for-TV movies that they would be better off not making. However, I can’t wait until the production company that they formed with Universal Pictures comes out with their first movie, based on the first Wildcards book, with both George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass involved with the project.
Skyfall has to be mentioned, because Bond is the character that made Spy stuff so out there it became genre. For the documentary fans we have two items, the first being 50 Years of Bond Cars from the mainiacs with Top Gear. There is also an offering called Jedi Junkies, all about Star Wars fans. It includes the usual collection of interesting people, of whom my favorite has to be Olivia Munn.
In TV we have Weeds: Season Eight which, while not genre, is a twisty little series. I am amazed so many of the characters lived to make it to the final season, but I don’t hold out much hope many of them will survive it. The other TV show of note is Duck Dodgers: Dark Side of the Duck Season 1; any program that has Marvin the Martian as a regular character definitely gets my vote.
In Anime, InuYasha: The Final Act – Set 2 finally brings the saga to a close. I think. This series has been running for a very long time, there is no rule saying they couldn’t continue it if they wanted to. Also this week, New Fist of the North Star – Complete Collection brings us more story for that show, but not a lot. This one is a 3 episode OVA. What the two shows have in common is they are both old school anime of a style common in the 1980s and 1990s, probably because that’s when each series originated.
This is almost more scary than fun, with the first being a protest song about one of the big issues of today, student debt. The second song of this set is from Duel Core, a great Nerdcore tune centered around the concept of Drink All The Booze, Hack All The Things.