The folks doing the Japan Night Tour in the US just announced the addition of a few more bands. The new bands are Dirty Old Men and Special Thanks, added to a list that already included Detroit 7, FLiP, Omodaka, Samurai Attack, and many more. The tour kicks off in Austin, TX, at the South by Southwest Festival, then hits other cities, including New York, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and LA. Here is a taste…
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I stopped by the KADOKAWA Anime channel, and the focus is on the new Haruhi Wii game released in Japan on Thursday. Based on the video the game play looks a bit simple, but perhaps that is just level one. Word is that the Kadokawa site will be streaming the first episode of season two of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan at 10PM on February 13th. That is Tokyo time, convert for your local time zone. The group at LITA, the Library and Information Technology Association (part of the American Library Association), has put together a video singing the praises of the Hi-Fi Sci-Fi Library and posted it on Libraryman. Nerdcore at its finest!
It looks like there will be Science Fiction at Sundance this year, not one but three films. The news is a little late, since the festival itself started on the 15th, and the story was posted nine hours ago; but the films themselves look very worth checking out. Moon is told from the perspective of the single human (and his robot, voiced by Kevin Spacey) on the Lunar base. Cold Souls sounds to have something of the sensibility of Being John Malkovich meets Kiln People, with Paul Giamatti playing himself and loosing his soul to Russian smugglers, but not in the way you would expect. Finally, The Clone Returns Home rounds out this trio with a story about memory and family and all that comes with it. I am going to have to watch for these on IFC’s Video On Demand, since they probably won’t play to every theater in the country.
BBC America will be airing the new mini-season of Torchwood only a few hours after it airs in the UK, according to Wired. Word is the five episodes will air on five consecutive nights sometime this summer. I was happy last year when they ran it a week after the episodes played only a week behind the British showings; this is even better! Apparently John Barrowman is also writing a Torchwood Comic that will be appearing in (surprise) Torchwood Magazine.
Just before Christmas I mentioned here that Keanu Reeves wanted to be part of a live-action retelling of Cowboy Bebop. Sunrise made it official today with the announcement that it will be made, and it will star Reeves. Yeah! If you prefer, you can read about it in English. A week from tomorrow has some interesting movies hitting the big screen. The one I have been waiting for is Inkheart, based on the excellent book by the same name. Coming out on the same day is Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, the prequil for this Vampire/Werewolf cycle. If you are looking for something different, also out on the 23rd is Outlander, the story of a spaceship that crashes amongst the Iron-age Vikings. And for something completely different, there is Chandni Chowk to China, the story of a chef mistaken for a legendary martial artist, and filled with all the singing and dancing that Bollywood could cram in.
Their isn’t a whole lot to the Alien Trespass Home Page quite yet, but then there isn’t much to the movie except pure silly fun; I can’t wait. They have cranked out a tasty trailer, though. If you like Anime, you have a one-shot opportunity to see Sword of the Stranger on the big screen on Thursday, February 5th. It is another Fathom Events showing, you can check the event site to find out where your closest theater is. The day after that you can see Neil Gaimon’s Coraline if you are in the mood for more animation, or Chocolate if your mood leans to more Kung-Fu Adventure. Also out that day is Push for more Action Sci-Fi, and Fanboys for the Docu-Comedy selection. One or two of them are under limited release, so I am mapping out my theater strategy now.