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Terrestrial Human

Something to Watch: DVDs

Finally available this week is The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the Terry Gilliam masterpiece. If you didn’t get to see it in the theater you should watch your copy on the largest HD TV you have access to, because the visuals are truly amazing. The other must-have movie this week is Luc Besson’s Banlieue 13 – Ultimatum, the sequel to District 13. If you missed the original, they are also being released as a 2-DVD set; both of these are non-stop thrill rides in the tradition of The Transporter.

If you are looking for a few laughs, check out Transylmania; the humor is a bit lowbrow (a bit?) but still kind of fun. Probably on a par with Venus Ranger: Complete Collection which also comes out this week.

For TV series, the modern remake of Terry Nations The Survivors, Complete Seasons 1 and 2 becomes available, and if you were wondering how faithful it is to the original 1970’s series, Survivors: The Complete Original Series 1975-77 is also being released. For American TV, Tales from the Darkside: The Third Season is being released both as a stand alone and in a packaged set with the previous two seasons.

In Anime, Gintama – Collection 1, a story about how the lives of Samurai changed in Feudal Japan after the aliens landed and took over. This one looks like a lot of fun, but be aware collection one gets you started with the first 13 episodes, and there are over 200 episodes and counting so far. Also, the Augmented Reality hijacking of the convenience store and high school where Evangelion took place has been canceled due to huge mobs of fans flooding the area. The rest of the promotion for the release of the next Evangelion reboot, You Can Not Advance, will take place as scheduled, and the release itself is next month.

New Iron Man 2 Trailer

We have seen little bits and pieces of this before in other trailers, but here finally is the full Iron Man Suit in-a-briefcase sequence. There are only a few weeks left before Iron Man II hits the big screen, and I am ready! Also just released is the new trailer (the 3rd one in the set) for M. Somebody’s live action version of the Anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Every previous movie he has made has bored me to tears where it wasn’t abusing my Suspension of Disbelief (which actually requires some vague basis in reality in order to function), but if this trailer is indicative of the film quality and not merely all the good bits, perhaps he will have finally made something worth watching.

Multiple Doctors, Smith and Jones are back

This has been a week for multiple Doctors. We just had the wonderful rollout of Matt Smith as The 11th Doctor on BBC America in The Eleventh Hour, and I had already commented on how BBC7 was running Tom Baker reading classic 4th Doctor stories. Starting yesterday, just before the Tom Baker reading BBC7 started running Wally K Daly’s Before the Screaming Begins, which has as one of the voice actors Patrick Troughton; the 2nd Doctor. If some of the older incarnations are unknown to you, io9 just put together a great article called Everything you need to know about Doctor Who. And while it is not very Doctor-like, I should also mention that Smith and Jones signed up to come back for one more Men in Black movie, this one in 3D.

Somthing to Do: Cons

The best Media Con this weekend may be Sci-Fi Expo in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Richardson. Guests include Adam Baldwin, Jamie King, Mira Furlan, Richard Hatch, Bruce Boxleitner, and many more. Of course, if you are a 12 to 14 year old girl, you might prefer the Twighlight Con in Arlington, VA instead.

EerieCon is a readercon in Niagara Falls, NY, with GoH’s Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, and it has everything you would expect at such a con. Also this weekend, Conestoga XIV takes place in Tulsa, OK, with GoH S. M. Stirling, and again all the fun stuff one goes to conventions for. And let’s not forget Jordancon in Atlanta, focused on Robert Jordan and the world of fantasy.

This one may be in a category all its own; the Full Moon tattoo and Horror Festival in Nashville is just what its name implies.

There are a boatload of Anime cons this weekend, including Tora-Con II in Rochester, NY, Kami-Con 2 in Tuscaloosa, AL, and Anime Detour in Bloomington, MN.

Something to Do: Film Festivals

One of my favorite film fests is coming around again: Sci-Fi London takes place from April 28th until May 3rd. Being held in the UK, there will of course be the obligatory Doctor Who screening, in this case the 1966 feature film staring Peter Cushing as the Doctor, as well as a Lab event called The Birth of the Modern Doctor Who. One of the most notable films at the event is Radio Free Albemuth, yet another Philip K. Dick tale turned into a disturbing movie (don’t you hate it when a film forces you to think?) about current events. Another film about a future that is already here is the intriguing 8th Wonderland, about a virtual country populated in the real world through social networking. Then there is TiMER, a nice Sci-Fi romantic comedy, and Dones (think The Office with drones from other planets), both of which have a solid link to the Buffyverse and a good grasp of humor. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg; there are a lot of movies worth seeing at this event.