It is almost time for John Carter to hit the big screen, and the center point the entire series of stories pivoted around was the relationship between John Carter and Dejah Thoris. So here is another nice little teaser that focuses on that story aspect, and thanks to Disney for modernizing her character to be even more independent than Burroughs portrayed her as. I have been waiting for this movie since I first read A Princess of Mars when I was 14, and yes, I did manage to track down the other volumes in the series and read them all by the time I was 16. And then I reread them, in the correct order, and after that I tracked down everything else Burroughs had written. He grew up in Virginia in the 1800s after the American Civil War, so the racism built into his 25 Tarzan books as basic assumptions made my skin crawl (and do NOT get me started on the sexism built into every story he ever wrote), but his Mars and Venus series were rousing tales once you learned to spot and toss out that aspect of his writing, separating it from the core stories. And now you don’t have to, because Disney is doing it for you; do NOT miss this film if you love science fiction!
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I can’t wait to see Joss’s version of a Marvel movie, meaning the Avenger’s film due out later this year. But the good news is there is a new trailer for it… enjoy! My favorite quote from this one has to be We’re Not A Team… We’re A Time Bomb! How Wheedonesque!
This is the second Brave trailer, and it is even more fun then the first one was. I have definitely added this to my list of must-see animations for this summer. Thanks to SFX for the heads up on this one.
This time around it is an animation from the folks who made Despicable Me: The Lorax is a Doctor Seuss story brought to life. I find it interesting that Danny DeVito plays the Lorax in the English, Spanish, and Russian language versions of the film. Also out this week, although only at film festivals, is A Monster in Paris, which looks very Beauty-And-The-Beast like…
Best movie selection this week definitely goes to Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s stunning Steampunk homage to a pioneer in the film industry and to movies in general. This one blew me away in the theaters, it won a Golden Globe and it is nominated for 11 Academy Awards; we will find out tonight how many of those it is taking home. If you only get one DVD this month, this is the one that gets my strongest recommendation. On the other hand, if you just want something silly, Johnny English Reborn would be the way to go. Once more Rowan Atkinson delivers a world class comedic performance, this time bringing his anti-007 character back to life.
In western TV, Todd & the Book of Pure Evil: The Complete First Season is the live action offering, and I do like their tag line: Fighting Evil, with Mixed Results. They are actually about to launch season 3 elsewhere, in the US season 2 kicks off on Fear.Net on March 13th.
In western animation, the feature length film Justice League: Doom pretty much covers all the choices.
In anime, Fairy Tail – Part 4 continues the story of the battles between guilds of wizards out to earn a living and prove who is best with episodes 37 through 48. I was not completely certain that Princess Jellyfish – The Complete Series is genre. But it has hopeless nerds with bizarre hobbies and crippling social anxieties, coupled with a late night jellyfish rescue mission; plus it is based on an award winning Manga (the award being Best Shojo Manga), and the anime was made by the folks behind Baccano, Hell Girl, and Durarara. Taken all together, how could I not include it here? You can watch some episodes online at that link and decide for yourself if it deserves to be added to your collection; when I did and discovered all the primary characters were Otaku, it went on the must watch list right away. And for pure Otaku recursiveness, Bakuman – Second Issue brings 6 more episodes of an Anime all about making a Manga, and it doesn’t get much more recursive than that.
The trailer isn’t triple X, in fact it is safe for work. The movie itself is a XXX parody of Tomb Raider, and according to several sources it actually looks like it could be fairly entertaining. This is being released to DVD sometime in February, so you might want to keep your eye out for it. Thanks to the folks at Kotaku for the heads up on this one.