Recently I have been using my Friday post to talk about something you can watch streaming over the net, but this time I had to shift gears for a moment to mention Comet, an indi film that was released on disc this week. The write up I read sounded like an ordinary romcom, but now that I have seen the trailer I realize it is anything but. Even without the indications of parallel timelines crossing each others paths like Sliding Doors, the visuals are amazing, and the acting looks interesting too. I think I am going to have to check this one out.
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The Fantastic Four teleported to an alternate universe, which changed them at the physical level in some very unexpected ways. Dr Michio Kaku gives his own take on the science of inter-dimensional travel (and a few other topics) in this brief set of videos about the new movie.
The latest urban fantasy in the series, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation will be pulling in the largest audiences this weekend. I don’t really think Extinction is going to pull the audience away in any great numbers, and documentaries like A LEGO Brickumentary never seem to have a large audience either, but both will also be in the theaters beginning Friday.
This week we get the award winning White God, a movie about dogs in organized revolution, which shares an attitude with the recent reboot of Planet of the Apes. It is unusual and has a lot of critical acclaim, and while it is in Hungarian it has English subtitles, so you won’t have any problem following the story. The other film is the animated Justice League: Gods & Monsters, from an alternate universe where Zod is Superman’s father, Batman is a Vampire, and Wonder Woman is the daughter of Ares, God of War. For a western animation, this one is rather dark.
TV has Helix: Season 2, a show that may have been vying with Lost for the Serious Weirdness in Television Award. We also get the Disney made-for-TV film Descendants, a comedy/fantasy involving the children of Cruella De Vil, Maleficent, the Evil Queen, and Jafar. It doesn’t come out on Tuesday, though, but goes on sale Friday the 31st, the same day it airs on the Disney Channel.
In Anime, Windy Tales is about a teacher who knows how to control the wind, and the students who learn everything from Air to Zephyr from them. While the show came out in 2004, I can find no reference to previous North American releases. No Game, No Life is about a couple of Neets who’s only connection with the world at large is through online gaming. They are good enough at that to end up representing humanity in a game that will determine the fate of the world, even though they can barely function enough to leave their home. Naruto Shippūden: Uncut Set 23 takes place during the 4th Great Ninja War, and finds the allies fighting against reanimated friends and enemies. This set brings episodes 284 through 295 home, while I believe they are up to episode 419 in Japan. Galilei Donna is about three dissimilar sisters who suddenly find themselves with one thing in common; an attempted kidnapping on the same day. It turns out they are descendents of Galileo Galilei, who left behind a treasure that the sky pirates are determined to have.
009 Re: Cyborg reactivates a group of cyborgs to try to save the world from a threat stranger than human. Speaking of strange, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Season 1 is an action adventure comedy series that is downright silly at times, but still has some serious moments. Inari Kon Kon has a girl given the power to shape shift after she saves the life of a familiar to a goddess. Finally, Recently, my sister is unusual finds Mitsuki haunted by a ghost who she must help pass on to the next world.
Wake Up! is an amazing collaboration between Asian Kung-Fu Generation and Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, two of my favorite bands out of Japan. The track after that has Mongol.800 as the featured band/vocalist playing with them, and after that comes one featuring 10-Feet as their musical partner. Let’s face it, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra has been around forever, and they have created some world-class collaborations in that time. Enjoy!
A bored Shinigami decides it might be interesting to see what a human would do with his powers, so he drops his instrument of mortality at the feet of Light Yagami to see what happens. Light doesn’t believe the book has the power to kill at first, but as his situation becomes more desperate he finds himself trying it out, in the hopes he might survive after all. That is the setup and premise of Death Note, and the new live action version of the story is streaming on Crunchyroll. It is part of the current summer season of shows from Japan, and is now up to episode three. If you would prefer to watch the original Death Note Anime before starting the live action presentation, it is streaming at Hulu.