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Something to Watch: DVDs

No movies to speak of this week, beyond Robotropolis, which is a remake of Westworld without the budget.

In TV, the 1980s spinoff series from the movie of the same name, Starman: Season 1 stared Robert Hays as the alien, come back to Earth to visit his kid. I still love the movie, the TV show was not as impressive but still might be worth watching again, if only to see if it got better with perspective. Ernie Kovacs: The ABC Specials also comes out this week, and that period of his career holds some of his most creative work. If you got the huge Ernie Kovacs DVD collection that came out last year like I did, you already have these. If you were waiting for something resembling a best-of, this would be it.

We do have a treat in Western Animation: Shaun the Sheep: Shear Madness. The folks at Aardman have a new movie coming out in the next few weeks as well, Pirates, Band of Misfits that also looks to be pretty funny. The other western animation this time around is Young Justice: Season 1, Volumes 1-3, which is still funny, but more action oriented.

In Anime, Someday’s Dreamers – Complete Collection looks to be the humorous choice, being the story of a magical girl who can’t spell very well, and who moves to Tokyo for some advanced training. Winning the ward for most redundant title this week is Legend of the Legendary Heroes, with both Part 1 and Part 2 coming out at the same time. This one is a much more serious story of war and power.

Re-released in a more cost effective package, Tsubasa, RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE – OVAs Collection S.A.V.E. edition completely changes the way you view that set of universes, as the two OVA series tells you what lay underneath the tale you thought you understood.

Looper trailer

The movie Looper is a movie about a bounty hunter in the present who gets paid to kill time travelers arriving from the future. And one day, the guy who arrives is an older version of him, and all sorts of hell breaks loose. They do have a nice tag line: Hunted By Your Past, Haunted By Your Future. Bruce Willis is the older-me time traveler, this one will be hitting the big screen on September 28th.

Tomoyasu Hotei

I love the mix you can get sometimes between modern and traditional music, when the right people are involved. In this case it is heavy metal guitar and Taiko Drums, with the guitar played by Tomoyasu Hotei. The first song is Battle Without Honor or Humanity, the second is Devil’s Sugar, and the setting is live in front of a famous Buddhist temple. If they sound familiar, there is a good reason. The first track alone has appeared in the movies Shin Jinginaki Tatakai (where it originally was used), and then in Kill Bill, Hotel for Dogs, Shrek the Third, Transformers, and Team America: World Police. If you don’t see many movies, it was used in the games Dance Dance Revolution and Gran Turismo HD, as well as a number of TV shows and radio programs.

Taiko Drums are traditional Japanese instruments used in temples and festivals, and often played in groups. Taiko actually means “wide drum” or “great drum” in Nihongo, so calling them Taiko Drums is a bit redundant, but that is the usual English usage. The third track is a traditional Taiko performance and trust me when I say the recording did not capture the depth of sound those drums are producing, nor could your speakers reproduce it. One of the most moving episodes in the 2011 season of J-Melo was their broadcast of the live performance by the surviving members of the Fukushima Taiko competitive team. If you don’t have J-Melo available from your cable company or satellite provider, you can watch it and the rest of the programming online from NHK World; just check their schedule to see when your shows will be on.

Something to Do: Movies

Lockout hits the big screens this weekend. Written and directed by Luc Besson, who obviously loved Escape From New York, since this is pretty much the same story except it takes place in an orbital prison. This one looks like good mindless fun from the guy who brought us things like The Fifth Element and Angel-A.

Something to Watch: DVDs

The Darkest Hour has five teens in Moscow when alien invaders take over the Earth, and they spend the movie trying to survive. It is not a bad little film, but I think they made a mistake when they opened it in theaters on Christmas day, as it was not exactly holiday fare.

A rather amusing family oriented TV miniseries this time is The Witches of Oz, where best selling author Dorothy Gale discovers the stories she has been writing are based on suppressed childhood memories, and Oz is real.

The other TV choices are all older programs now available for the first time, starting with Night Gallery: Season Three. Joining Rod Serling in Season 3 were Vincent Price, Mickey Rooney, Sally Fields, Sandra Dee, Bill Bixby, and Leonard Nimoy, amongst others. Logan’s Run: The Complete Series ran on TV for the 1977/1978 season and also comes out this week.

Finally, Dark Shadows: Fan Favorites pulls all the way back to the 1960s for its episodes. Dark Shadows ran for five years, but as a soap opera it ran every weekday during that time, so it had over a thousand episodes. Besides being the first TV series to focus on the emotional needs of Vampires, Werewolves, and Witches, it was also one of the few shows of its time to include time travel and alternate universes as regular plot devices in its ongoing story arc. Every one of those details is represented in this small collection.

In western animation, Marvel Knight’s Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous becomes available this week, the second release in the series.

The new release in Anime is Naruto Shippuden: DVD box set 10, which I am not going to bother to describe, on the theory that if you liked the series enough to watch the previous 9 box sets you probably already know the story thus far.

The other anime releases this week are consolidations or Blue Ray or just plain re-releases. Oh! Edo Rocket – Complete Series is a consolidation, previously available in a box set per season, now with both seasons in a single box. Infinite Stratos is a re-release, except it also includes the OVA Infinite Stratos Encore, a short sequel, together for the first time.