Sounding a bit like everybody’s favorite virtual idol, Passepied just released a new CD this week, and the first track is a song called S.S from that release. They have been around since 2009, getting their major label deal with Warner Bros. Japan in 2012, doing some great music fusing a lot of different styles, but centered around pop and impressionistic. The fact they named themselves after the last movement in Debussy’s Bergamasque Suite pretty much says it all. Their music videos are also a treat, the lead singer having graduated art school influences them all, and I just had to grin about the Power Rangers in this one. The second track I included is an older song of theirs Yūyake wa inochi no umi, which makes their impressionist influences more obvious. And yes, that third video is from them as well, originally posted in December of 2012.
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A new Wolverine trailer is out, and it looks like Marvel has another excellent entry into their universe. Somewhat Torchwoodishly, somebody intends to make the character mortal, taking away his ability to heal and regenerate. This one will be in the theaters on July 26th, if you were wondering. Of course, I liked the last Wolverine movie, and it seems a lot of other folks did not, so you might want to mistrust my reaction.
Posted by the Nerdist Channel, the Animal Fighting Championships is done to the song Underdog by the band Wallpaper. They filmed it on a super high speed Phantom Flex camera to get that amazing high quality HD slo-mo effect. Chris Hardwick and the gang at Nerdist find some amazing stuff.
Former Star Wars producer Kaleb Lechowski wrote and directed the short film R’Ha, which you can watch below. He is now teaming up with Matthew Graham to turn it into a feature length film, according to SFX in one of their Link-A-Mania entries. Matt was the person who created two of the more interesting British TV shows, Life On Mars and Eternal Law. Not the first movie to start out as an independently produced short which was then shopped around in hopes of getting a backer, but with the state of modern desktop video production suites this kind of thing is getting better and better.
The obvious winner this week is Man of Steel, the latest in a long tradition of Superman movies. I have enjoyed many of them, and sat through the turkeys in the hopes they might get better, and I will be right back in the theater for this one. Strangely enough, the best trailer I have seen for it is from a cell phone company.
A couple of real winners in Movies this week, starting with Oz: The Great and Powerful. This Disney built prequel was a true homage to the 1939 movie on so many levels, as well as to Frank L. Baum’s wonderful but scary universe. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is another excellent selection, and I am definitely going to have to go for the unrated version with the extended footage. If those weren’t enough the Korean historical epic Masquerade tells an exciting tale of a commoner who becomes a king in the 16th century.
While there doesn’t seem to be any true genre TV this week, Burn Notice: Season Six comes awfully close. Hey, it’s got Bruce Campbell, that ought to qualify it right there.
In Anime, Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne is the story of a helpful high school girl who agrees to pilot a giant robot to kill aliens who are trying to invade the Earth. So yes, now that you ask, this one is a comedy, and I believe they are working on a movie to go with this 12 episode TV series. Bleach: Season 17 has the Soul Reapers battling their own weapons, which are under the control of a power with his eye set on the world of the living. This brings the US anime release up to episode 255, but I think the current Japanese episode is 640. We have a ways to go to catch up.
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings has season 1 at 13 episodes, season 2 at 12 episodes, plus the OVA. It is a 3-way battle between ninjas, samurai, and pirates, each group trying their best to conquer the country, until the Demon King shows up to threaten everybody. Then the warring parties join forces to eradicate their common foe. While I am not sure if Mysterious Girlfriend X is genre or not (I am only about a third of the way through the series, it could still go either way), it is sufficiently bizarre to be worth checking out.