Thanks to Japanator, I was turned on to this wonderful AMV featuring the visual input from Full Metal Panic: fumoffu. The series is funny as hell, with a military minded giant mecha driving high school age combat veteran without a clue about how to act in non-combat situations assigned to guard a high school girl. If nothing else, his threat evaluation skills need retraining and his responses could be a little less lethal. After watching the AMV, I am ready to break out the series and watch the entire thing again, starting with season 1, episode 1.
Terrestrial Human
It had to happen sooner or later… the Beastie Boys do the singing, Spike Jonze put the video together, the Abominable Snowman tags along as muscle, and the Zombies do the dying. The production is just cheesy enough to be camp, and looks like it was fun to build.
There have been a lot of games converted into movies, most of them have been science fiction, and a lot of them have been bad. Somehow I never visualized the classic board game (later adapted for the computer) Battleships being turned into a movie, nor would I have expected it to be sci-fi. And yet, it appears both of those things are true, at least as far as their first trailer for the film is concerned (some, like Topless Robot, disagree with this conclusion).
Not really a lot to be said about this one; it is the kind of thing that happens when you combine a singing program, some animation software, a good imagination, and some serious skill sets. This was put together by Vocaloid artist Oster Project using music from her her fourth album, Cinnamon Philosophy. Thanks to Crunchyroll for the heads up on this one.
The finalists have been announced for the 2011 Parsec Awards. These awards are given out to honor the best in speculative fiction podcasting in each of a number of categories. Part of the requirements to be eligible include being available for free through an RSS feed, so if you are the ind of person who likes a good audio book or radio drama, this is a great source of new programming to add to your mobile player and personal collections. And for each representative program linked on the list you can subscribe to the feeds and get a ton of additional programs. The awards themselves will be handed out in about a month.
No doubt about it, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has to be the movie of choice for the week, doing an excellent job of letting us know exactly how the whole thing got started. As with all the best tragedies it was born from the best of intentions, with a lofty and laudable goal; curing one of the major plagues of our time, Alzheimer’s. If the trailer is any indication this one should be edge of your seat time adventure.
If you are looking for lighter fare, The Change Up may be what you are looking for. It is a familiar enough trope; two people are each jealous of the others situation, and through magical intervention swap bodies. Hopefully the writers find some humor to bring to the table that isn’t as well used as the stories premise.
The documentary choice this week is a major slice of history. Magic Trip was filmed back in 1964 but never seen until now, as Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Neal Cassady, and the Merry Band of Pranksters made their epic road trip to the New York Worlds Fair.