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For live action, 20th Century Boys 2: The Last Hope, part 2 in the trilogy, is the clear import winner for this week. The gang continues to do their best to save the world from improbable attacks, and succeeds even against the scriptwriters assaults. The sad part is, staying true to the original Manga is what bogged the story telling down, but they got it going again in time to retrieve the film. If they shoot some properly selected extra scenes, they even have a chance to redeem the slower parts of the movie; I for one would love to purchase a Directors Cut version of the DVD that brought it all back into center focus.

Loosely based on the game of the same name, the movie Zombie Apocalypse is hardly worth mentioning here. But there don’t seem to be any other US movies worth commenting on, so there it is.

In the realm of animation, there are actually a few good choices this time round, from rather diverse sources, and in somewhat different styles. If you can only get one of them, I recommend Shaun The Sheep – A Woolly Good Time, created by the team that brought you the various Wallace and Grommet movies. There is little to no dialog in these animations, and everything is G rated, but neither of those details will prevent you from laughing your ass off. These 6 episodes appear to be from the 2007 run of the Brit TV series.

Halo Legends gives you seven stories from the gaming universe that go beyond the original Red-Vs-Blue structure I loved so much. The animation itself borders on Machinima, blurring the lines between the 3D game enviro and that of the animation studio.

The live action movie release to consider this week is The Time Traveler’s Wife, and yes, this is a love story, much in the tradition of Richard Matheson’s Time And Again. This close to Valentines Day, it seems appropriate, and it is a fairly decent treatment of the book.

The animation to be aware of is Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic, but be warned this animation is not for children, nor is it work friendly. The structure is the same as Animatrix, with a separate writing, directing, and production team (all leaders in the field who have created Anime classics) for each segment. This has not been released in theaters that I am aware of, although a limited number of lucky viewers got to see it on the big screen at various film festivals around the world. The DVD is being released in parallel with the game (the game company commissioned the film), both of which are based on the original epic poem.

The TV collection to look for this time around is SG-U Stargate Universe: 1.0; they lost the annoying blue vampires and re-invented the franchise as a Battlestar-style lost in space adventure. The Stargates have been relegated to the same role as Trek’s Transporters, and the galaxy spanning communications system introduced near the end of SG1 are used to keep the episodes from being limited to the ship, the landing zone of each planet, and the characters trapped on the ship. I personally loved SG1, and found any episode of SG-Atlantis that had the blue guys in it unwatchable (which did leave them with 20 or 30 good episodes over their 5-year run). So far I find SG-Universe to be about half way between the two, but if they stop trying so hard to be the new BSG (which they are failing at) and go back to the core strengths of SG1 (good mix of humor to go with the OMG moments, excellent dialog, and retain the good ensemble chemistry they have to bolster the dynamic tension), this series has the potential to equal or surpass the original.

On the anime front, Soul Eater Part 1 bears a style resemblance to Dead Leaves, both for the graphics and the audio, and looks like it could be a lot of fun. You can watch Soul Eater episodes online at that link to give you an idea if it should become part of your permanent collection. Gaogaigar Season One Litebox comes from the folks who built Godanner and Betterman, and shows you how that team started out. And while Naruto Shippuden: Volume 6 is also coming out on Tuesday, I will be waiting for the next season-long box set before plunking my money down; there are just too many episodes in the series for me to be able to afford any other choice.

One of the best movies of 2009 (certainly in the top 5) is coming out on Tuesday: Cold Souls. This one isn’t an action/adventure tale with Sci-Fi special effects wallpaper like so many others, but the core premise of the story is science fiction, and the rest of the film explores the consequences spinning off from that premise. Because it was in such limited release in the theaters a lot of folks didn’t get the chance to see this on the big screen. Do not miss it now; the acting is amazing, and the story itself is wonderfully presented.

The other movie worth noting is Zombieland, yet another comedy about the living dead; at this rate, they could become almost as numerous as TV shows about Vampire Cops/Detectives.

Speaking of TV, also this week are the final David Tennant Doctor Who episodes, >Dr. Who: End of Time Parts 1 & 2 and Doctor Who: The Water of Mars. If you haven’t already acquired the other two Who Specials, Doctor Who: The Complete Specials box set gets released Tuesday as well.

the only new Anime I found coming out this week is Skull Man: Complete Collection, which looks like it would make a good double feature with Red Garden (if you have 12 hours to watch a double feature). I just wanted to mention last weeks Sands of Destruction again, because they have a great tag line: Destroying the world solves everything.

The movie release of choice this week is Surrogates, a fun little action/adventure outing starring Bruce Willis as a man who has to avoid wearing his robot body while hunting down a killer.

If you didn’t have a chance to see it in the theaters, RiffTrax LIVE: Plan 9 from Outer Space hits the shelves Tuesday, along with several other RiffTrax titles, including Planet of Dinosaurs and Voodoo Man, as well as several collections of shorts.

Naruto Shippuden releases both Box Set 1 (you can select the regular or special versions) and Volume 5 of the series. These are a somewhat older crew of Ninja’s than the original series gave us. Speaking of Ninja’s, Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny volume 2 also gets release this week. And the one that looks most interesting to me is the Sands of Destruction Complete Series.

Of the new movies this week, Gamer is the one I find most interesting; a game in which real people are the game pieces with technology that makes the Running Man game show look friendly. I’m going to take a pass on Pandorum, since it is horror rather than Sci-Fi. Although I am partial to silly horror, like this weeks release of Bikini Frankenstein.

The live action TV series release for this week is Defying Gravity: The Complete First Season. Unless someone else picks it up it is also the complete series, since the network canceled it just as it was getting interesting.

Update: After I posted this, they rescheduled the release of Ponyo to March 2010, the third time the DVD release date was pushed back.

Topping the Anime and the Animation list for Tuesday’s DVD releases will be Ponyo, yet another world-class creation from Hayao Miyazaki and distributed by Disney in this hemisphere. This is from the same group who will be bringing you Alice in Wonderland later this year, another class act. Not, of course, to be confused with the Alice the Sci-Fi Channel just ran, which was also well done.

For Anime TV shows to add to the collection I can recommend Yokuwakaru Gendai Maho, a good new Magical Girl animation. However it turns out, it is off to a great start! Another one worth consideration is Rin: Daughter of Mnemosyne, a six part OVA about an immortal private detective under attack by supernatural enemies. And season one of Linebarrels of Iron is also out Tuesday, a somewhat confused Mecha/Harem/High School action/comedy.

Best choice for DVD’s this week has to be Duncan Jones’s Moon, filmed on a tiny budget but delivering a huge and powerful story. The creative use of miniatures at a time when everyone is making CGI effects is an entire tale unto itself.

A project that did focus on CGI and Animation to get its results was The Celestial Railroad. The classic Japanese story of riding a train through the Milky Way was used as a good jumping off point for creating a program to project onto a planetarium dome at IMAX resolution, and it is now available in Blue Ray.

For TV, tonight’s season 3 premier of Chuck kicked the series off in the right direction, even if a few details (like the whole Prague decision sequence) were beat on harder than they needed to be. And yes, if you missed it you can watch it online at that link. Later this week, the Discovery Channel Sci-Fi Science series gives you the info you need to build your own working light saber. If you haven’t already been following the series, then last week you missed how to build a Starship. Some of the top physicists in the world are involved with this one, so it is not just fictional speculation, but the real deal.