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Things to Do: Movies, and Cory Doctorow in the Metaverse

Avatar finally comes out this weekend! The trailers have been amazing, the interactive app has been fun, and the hype has been overwhelming. I have pretty much been waiting all year for this film, and I am glad it is finally time to watch it.

Also showing on the big screen this week is RiffTrax: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza, with special guest Wierd Al Yankovic. The program is live on the 16th, with an encore replay on the 17th; feed your zip code into each date to find the closest theaters to you.

Appearing live in Virtual Reality this week is Cory Doctorow on Copper Robot, doing a real time interview in the Second Life Seaside Theater, over at World2Worlds Island. That happens on Wednesday, the 16th, 8PM SL time (11PM EST, since 2nd Life time is California time). If you already have the free 2nd Life software installed, this is the SLURL that will launch it and take you straight to the event. If you are trapped behind an office firewall and can’t get into the metaverse, you can watch it in real time at Copper Robot, or grab the podcast after the event to listen to at your leisure.

Next week brings both The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Sherlock Holmes to the big screen. I’m going to have to see each of them, and maybe swoop back for a second pass at Avatar.

Things to Watch: DVDs

The pick of the release week is the first in a series of movies; the name of this one is The 20th Century Boys 1: The Beginning of the End. It has been making the film festival rounds, and has been doing killer box office back home. With luck, they will be releasing the remaining two films in this set here soon.

I can’t believe they allow them to keep making these things, but as long as they do, I will keep buying them: Robot Chicken Season 4 is coming out Tuesday. In case you have not added any of these to your collection yet, they are also releasing season 1-4 as a box set. This is some of the most sick and twisted humor available today, from the minds of Seth and Seth.

In the Anime department, two old favorites get released in HiDef this week; Samurai Champloo: The Complete Collection, and Basilisk – The Complete Series. Each of these is an incredible job of storytelling in their own very different ways, with some of the best animation you have ever seen. Hell, even the soundtracks are world class. If you were thinking these are both historical action/dramas from the Shogunate period, one involving Ninjas and one Samurai, you would be right. They have a break with reality in the mystical and martial arts powers wielded by some of the combatants, and that is enough of an excuse to allow me to list them here (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

Previously unreleased Anime for this week includes El Cazador de la Bruja – Season 1 Part 2, which is even more interesting because this is the third series of Bee Train’s Girls With Guns set. Noir and Madlax were the first two series in the collection, which should tell you where this one is coming from. There is another Bleach volume out (number 23), but as usual I will be waiting for the box set before adding it to the permanent collection.

For another live action, we have Chai Lai Angels: Dangerous Flowers, the Thai version of Charlies Angels from the creators of Ong-Bak. Chai Lai translates to “gorgeous”, and this action-comedy has plenty of both (action and comedy).

There is a documentary hitting the shelves Tuesday as well that I thought was worth a mention: Fallen Idol: The Yuri Gagarin Conspiracy. They got the story pretty close to the way I heard it, so I suspect this will be worth watching.

Murmurs, Rocks, and Apprentice’s

CBS has decided to try out a Time-Travel pilot for a new series called Murmurs, from the guy who wrote the new Bionic Woman. The premise centers around an organization called The Commission who’s job it is to keep history from changing; think Time Cop.

If you like your shows outdoors, you can enjoy rocks falling out of the sky as the Geminid Meteor Shower peaks on the 13th and 14th (it has already started). While it may be a bit cold for viewing in some places, that does help clean things out of the atmosphere.

Finally, the first trailer for the new version of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is out, and it might just be a fun film.

Things to Watch: DVDs

For live action, J. K. Rowling’s next brilliant book has been turned into the next brilliant movie of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That film is the pivot point for this weeks releases, it seems to me.

In Anime this week, a show with a truck full of pigs, flying saucers, and crazy dream sequences comes along, and what are you going to do except cheer it on? School Rumble – Complete Series includes season 1, season 2, and the OVA, and nowhere in it does anything rumble.

Another new Anime this Tuesday is Naruto Shippuden volume 4 with still more tales on Ninja prowess. While I am a big fan of the nine-tailed fox, I will be waiting for the seasonal box set on this one, so I can see all the episodes at once (plus it’s more cost effective).

Moribito volume 8 also becomes available; the Public Broadcasting homepage of it can be found on the NHK.

Also out this week, Monster – Box Set 1 takes you into the What-If world that asks which decision would you make, when faced with a true human monster?

Red Dwarf Radio, Doctor Who Special

Starting tomorrow, Sunday December 6th, BBC7 will be running Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, the book by Grant Naylor (who is actually Rob Grant & Doug Naylor) that tells the story about how Dave Lister ended up as part of the crew of the Red Dwarf. If that wasn’t enough, the story is read by Arnold Rimmer himself – Chris Barrie. The segments are 30 minutes long, so it will take six of them to read the whole book. There are three more Red Dwarf books and I for one am sincerely hoping they decide to present them all.

There are only 3 David Tennant Doctor Who specials left, and BBC America will be playing The Water of Mars on Saturday December 19th. Yes, it is the Beginning of the End; and Children in Need had a taste to share…