On Wednesday we get Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, second film in the series based on Rick Riordan‘s excellent YA fantasy books. Then on Friday Elysium is the story of orbital class warfare as told by the folks who brought us District 9. Let’s face it, this is yet another weekend where I am going to have to see more than one movie. This has been an amazing summer for films so far!
The movie this week is Oblivion, a story with a lot more thought behind it than I was expecting. Not being a horror fan I will just mention Magic Magic so Oblivion doesn’t look so lonely on the page. No genre TV this time either, but Mythbusters: Collection 10 is coming out, and that show is always a hoot.
In anime Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail is a 5 episode OVA that takes us back to the world of the smugglers of the Lagoon Company. Maid-Assassin Roberta is out for revenge, the body count is growing by the minute, and the gang teams up with Roberta’s boss to try to save her. Or, failing that, at least stop the carnage. With episode titles like Collateral Massacre and Angels in the Crosshairs you can expect some serious action from this release. Haganai: I don’t have many friends means what the title says; as the story opens, our protagonist’s only friend is imaginary. But things are about to change, as she and another loner form a club for the other outcasts at their school.
Gravity is the kind of film I can believe in, something that takes amazing orbital videos and presents them embedded in a something like a story line, possibly even with a plot. Yes, I do know just how easily amused I am.
The fun for me in this super short video segment is not in the video itself, although it is built quite well. Rather, I enjoy it for the irony of the dialog, where the creator talks about trying to build a video using masking and compositing of video source material. Kind of a nice touch in a video that can only exist by using those technologies.
Yesterday I mentioned that the JAPAN FILM FESTIVAL of San Francisco was going to be running Library Wars on Friday, but they have a number of other amazing films you will also want to see on the big screen if you can make the festival (note: it started several days ago, so a time machine would be useful. But it also runs for at least another week).
They have a large selection of Anime films, but if I had to pick just one to attend it would be the US premiere of Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo, a reboot of the classic Evangelion mecha masterpiece. This is the third of four films in the new series, and things are not looking good for Earth or humanity at this point in the war. My live action pick is Space Battleship Yamato, a classic story previously done as an Anime. The groundbreaking original ushered in science fiction anime, and this live action adaptation looks pretty amazing. I like the fact that they kept to the original ship design and costuming while bringing modern special effects to the mix. There are a bunch of other great films, anime and live action both, if you are going to be in town during the event be sure to check it out.
Europa Report is the planetary adventure this week, searching for life on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon. While not the largest budget film ever, this one looks very interesting indeed. The other one I would really like to see is Library Wars, if I can just make it over to the Japan Film Festival of San Francisco. In 2019 a new law is passed, which allows the government to create an armed force to destroy objectionable printed material. Opposing this is the Library Force, teachers and librarians out to protect all books, and they too are heavily armed. I know which side I would be fighting on! Or you could just go for the action roller coaster and see 2 Guns; it’s not genre, but it looks like a lot of fun. Notice how I didn’t even mention Cockneys vs Zombies?