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Something to Watch: DVDs, 24Jun14

In movies, 300: Rise of an Empire is the latest Frank Miller production driven by his graphic novels. A bit more violent than I would prefer, they are still high quality stories about human nature. I do like the cinematic style they share with that other Frank Miller project, Sin City. Speaking of style, the 2011 version of Faust by director Alexander Sokurov finishes up a tetralogy of films who’s other protagonists were not fictional: Hitler, Stalin, and Hirohito. Finally, The Chef, the Actor and the Scoundrel might be the most interesting movie released to disc this week. It is definitely an action/comedy, treating the Second Sino-Japanese War (those of us in North America lumped it in as part of WWII) as a complex backdrop into which all of the characters and plot elements fit with precision.

In TV, the Witches of East End: The Complete First Season has a supernatural mother keeping a secret from her daughters so they can lead a normal life. But that doesn’t turn out to be an option when something evil comes to destroy them all, and their only chance for survival means they must all know who they really are. This show is from Lifetime, so it will get a different treatment than other networks would grant this premise, and I look forward to seeing where they go from here. The new season begins July 6th.

In Anime, Code:Breaker: Complete Series is about a super-powered assassin employed by a secret government organization to keep everyone else in line. Then his classmate Sakura steps in to keep HIM under control, and everything cascades from there. In Leviathan: The Last Defense, Complete Collection the fairy Syrup recruits three Dragon Clan girls to form the base of the Aquafall Defense Force, and defeat the alien invaders. Meteors impacting the earth of Aquafall are sprouting monsters bent on conquering the world.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 17Jun14

The top choice in movies this week is pretty much a matter of what kind of mood you are into. On the one hand you have The Lego Movie, a boatload of cult silliness and geek goodness. It doesn’t actually have more superheroes in one film than any other production, but it begins to approach X-Men like numbers. If you prefer some serious (or at least less silly) live action type indi adventure, The Machine is another tale of our Evil Robot Overlords, or Evil Android Overlord, in this case. It has won a number of film fest awards, including 3 from BAFTA Cymru alone. Bottom line, I think these are both worthy of being in the permanent collection.

There is also a documentary called I Know That Voice all about the voice actors you know from many animated series like Futurama or The Simpsons I think might be quite entertaining. As someone who has taken a turn around the voice actor track myself, this one will absolutely be coming home with me. There are 2 other documentaries worth mentioning: Live from Space from the National Geographic Channel, and Adjust Your Tracking, about folks who collect VHS tapes. I find it interesting you can only get the extended version (20 extra minutes of documentary) on the combo VHS/DVD version; the DVD only version is missing the extra stuff.

I should also mention a re-release of a classic you may not be aware of. 1963’s Judex is a French film re-imagining the 1914 French movie serial of the same name. This was not the creation of Movie Serials (that was the also-French-made 1908 Nick Carter film series), which later became the basis of episodic TV series when they brought them to early TV in the 1940s. Judex may also be the earliest example of Superhero stories in any format, but I have to do some more research before I will know if that is the case or not. The story line, father murdered and ruined by evil banker, son adapts secret identity and hidden lair, gathering an arsenal of technology and a team of circus performers and criminals with special talents as his minions, has been redone many times since. It was the inspiration for things as diverse as Batman, Spiderman, and The Shadow from the US and a ton of others from Europe and Asia, including K-20: The Fiend With Twenty Faces. In fact, in 1940 the French publication Hurrah! started a comic book version of Judex, which was really a French translation of the American syndicated Shadow comic strip; so the inspiration came full circle.

In TV Teen Wolf: Season 3 Part 2 finishes off the season 3 story, and it looks like the best project MTV has been involved with for a while. If nothing else, it up-levels everything from season 2, where they didn’t seem to be really trying.

In Anime, Busou Shinki is a harem story, where the girls are female action figures with weapons… who happen to stand 6 inches tall each. Not exactly conducive to a rich social life if the male in question happens to be multiple feet in height. The other series this time around is Shiki, a horror story that now available in a S.A.V.E. version for a real good price. This one is also a commentary on the genre itself, showing off those tropes that that draw in the audience, and making every viewer pay attention and appreciate what is going on. I am not a horror fan, but this one was worth watching.

One show I have been waiting for is Red Data Girl: Complete Series, which is an absolutely brilliant TV program. A girl is raised in isolation in a shrine, and has trouble fitting in when she is finally allowed into a public school. It doesn’t help any that computers, cell phones, and other modern electronics all crash when she comes near them. Then she finds out she is the last vessel of the goddess Himegami, and that is when things start to get truly strange.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 10Jun14

In movies, Kill Zombie! is a Dutch horror/comedy. After a night in jail, four hung-over friends and one female officer emerge to discover their city ravaged by a zombie outbreak cause by a meteor shower. The other film choice isn’t genre as such, but an esoteric and visually stunning production called Visitors, a non-verbal film by Godfrey Reggio, Philip Glass, and Jon Kane.

In TV, Resurrection: The Complete First Season is based on the book The Returned by Jason Mott. I was certain it was the American remake of the 2012 French TV show Les Revenants, which won an International Emmy for Best Drama Series, but I was wrong. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is on the list this time as well, and I think this show proves Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a fitting inheritor of Carl Sagan’s cosmic mantle. This is a rather nice release schedule, since the season finale episode airs tonight at 9PM in my time zone, and I am a big believer in instant gratification.

In Anime, Maoyu is the story of the war between humankind and the Demon King. Except, as the hero named Hero discovers, the King is a Queen, and she has a plan to bring lasting peace to both realms with his help. So is this a deal with the devil or the best options for both species? Warning, for those looking for a serious combat-centric war show, this series is a Romantic Comedy/Fantasy. Date A Live: Complete Series is about the spacequakes that killed 150 million people when they first happened 30 years ago, and our protagonist has just learned that the spacequakes are caused by the Spirits, mystical creatures found at ground zero. Now he has been recruited to help save the world by sealing the Spirits powers. The complication is that Shido is an ordinary high school boy, the Spirits are all cute girls, and the only way to seal one is to make her fall in love with you. Surprise, this one is also a Romantic Comedy/Fantasy.

Deltora Quest Megaset, the epic magical quest series, is a bit confusing. It is an excellent series of children’s books from Australian author Emily Rodda that was made into either 52 or 65 episodes of Anime, depending on which Anime web site you read, but everyone agrees the box set has 52 episodes. It was supposed to have been released on May 13th, but most of the web sites say release was delayed until June 10th. When I check the Barnes and Noble web site it says you can pre-order it for the 10th, but when I go to Amazon it says there are only 12 left in stock and has May 13th as the release date, while Wallmart says it came out on June 3rd and they have lots of copies. So I don’t have a clue if it is coming out this week, last week, or last month, but probably one of those times.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 3Jun14

In Movies, the RoboCop reboot becomes available this week. This one goes all the way back to the original 1987 film for its story line, bypassing the sequels, TV shows, animations, video games, and graphics novels that have come along since. Also this Tuesday, the 10 foot tall RoboCop Statue is being unveiled in Detroit. Parts Per Billion is the story about the choices people make at the end of the world, and follows three couples through those events.

In TV, True Blood: The Complete Sixth Season keeps the South’s horniest supernatural creatures whipsawing back and forth through all the radically shifting plot twists. In addition, Falling Skies: The Complete Third Season brings the next round of Alien Invasion adventure to the shelves.

Western Animation has The Adventures of Batman: The Complete Series, which is a compilation of a bunch of shorts done in 1967 and 1968. While dated, the animation work was quite impressive for it time.

In Anime, we finally get Attack on Titan: Part 1, one of the most intense and critically received shows of 2013. Amnesia is the tale of a girl who wakes up in the hospital with no memory of how she got there, with the ghost boy who seems to know warning her not to let her visitors know she has forgotten her life. The Hentai Prince & The Stony Cat: The Complete Collection is the story of a Cat God who grants wishes, but not in the way you expected… or wanted. Finally Bleach: Season 21 brings us episodes 292 through 303.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 27May14

In Movies the winner is Journey to the West, an action comedy about a young inept demon hunter and the highly skilled female demon hunter he teams up with. This is another Steven Chow film, the man who created Kung Fu Hustle, and who is well on his way to taking over the Action Comedy crown in China from Jackie Chan. There is also Independence Daysaster, a made-for-Syfy movie that might be OK as a comedy, but doesn’t look like they expected anyone to take it seriously. While not quite genre, Eastern Bandits is somewhere between a western, a mafia flick, a war film, and a martial arts movie, and all of it is action.

In TV we have Universe, Season 7: Ancient Mysteries Solved, another great season of exploring what we know about what is out there. If your looking for some spy action, Covert Affairs: Season 4 is also hitting the shelves this week.

For western animation, Defenders of Berk Part 2 is actually season 2. They seem to have lost the core of the story/character development in the new season, going instead for mindless entertainment to boost their ratings. Perhaps the new feature film will return the franchise to its underlying values.

In Anime, Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Complete Series begins with someone trying very hard to face reality as he enters High School; a Chunibyo is a student who wants to be acknowledged as valuable so desperately that they’ve literally convinced themselves that they have secret knowledge and hidden powers. Our protagonist Yuta is struggling to leave that behind, but he didn’t count on his friend and neighbor Rikka, who knows all about his past mental state, being delusional herself. Life gets truly strange as fantasy worlds collide in this comedy. Aquarion Evol: Part Two brings episodes 14 through 26 of galaxy-crossing Mecha combat and hormone fueled silliness to the shelves. I find it interesting that there is a 12,000 year gap between the stories of Aquarion and Aquarion Evol, but luckily there is only a difference of a few weeks between parts 1 and 2 of the new series.

There are also an assortment of Lupin The Third releases this week, including Lupin the 3rd: The Hemingway Papers, but most of them seem to be re-releases of earlier series and feature films. Still, Lupin is always an enjoyable show, so I figured I should mention it. And yes, I do know that the one I linked to here has been available for a while, but it is a great series and also worth mentioning again; Fujiko Mine. Finally, Servant × Service: Complete Collection is also worth mentioning for its covert government strangeness and general eccentricity. It is a comedy, as you can tell by checking it out at Crunchyroll.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 20Mar14

In movies Vampire Academy is based on the bestselling books by Richelle Mead, and tells the story of a secret school of Moroi (mortal, peaceful Vampires) and Dhampirs (half-vampire/half-human guardians), and their ongoing battle with the Strigoi (immortal, evil vampires). Yes, it is a YA oriented film and book series, and it also has a great soundtrack. The other movie out this week is the historical fantasy Pompeii, about a few folks fighting to save their loved ones and survive the death of their city.

In TV, Warehouse 13: Season Five brings the series to an end, which means you can also order Warehouse 13: The Complete Series if you don’t have any of them yet. Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World becomes available on DVD for the first time ever, and in fact was unseen from the time of its first broadcast in 1967 until it’s rediscovery when some missing episodes were found last year. Also ending with this season, Nikita: The Complete Fourth and Final Season finishes the tale of this spy and assassin.

In Anime, Fairy Tail – Part 10 brings us up to episodes 109-120, and the Fairy Tail Guild will have to work together better than ever to defeat the enemy or risk seeing the golden age of magic destroyed forever. Of course, they STILL have a lot in the way of collateral damage going on, so every time they fight they are as dangerous to those they are trying to protect as to the evil ones they defeat.