Skip to main content

Something to Watch: DVDs 9Jul13

The movie The Host was a surprisingly enjoyable story of alien invasion, sort of Heinlein’s Puppet Masters redone as a fem-centric YA story with an ending based on collaboration rather than conquest. Which makes sense, since it is also a romance, but much better done than the authors other movie series with all the sparkly vampires.

In TV we have season 4 of Warehouse 13, a fun little series full of artifacts with strange powers. Too bad Eureka isn’t still around to go with it, I loved the crossover episodes they did.

In Anime, Blue Exorcist: Complete 1st Season is the ultimate in inter-generational infighting; Th son is becoming a world-class exorcist going after demons. The father is Satan, infiltrating his minions into the world of humans. Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack! is more scientific, with mechanically augmented sea creatures attacking the land dwellers. Our protagonist leaves Okinawa and heads to Tokyo to see if her boyfriend is OK, only to discover the city overrun by the mechanized monsters.

The Zero Theorem not-Trailer

I watched a beautiful trailer for Terry Gilliam’s latest masterpiece The Zero Theorem and I would love to post it here, but it was watermarked Not For Distribution, and while I couldn’t make out all the small print below that I got the impression it was to be used to shop the film around to find a distributor. As soon as I find a version that can be shared here I will post it; in the meantime, I thought you might like to here him speak a bit about it, and about the state of the film industry today.

Something to Watch: DVDs

Top movie selection this time around absolutely has to be Tai Chi Hero, the sequel to the amazing Steampunk Tai Chi Zero. This film series is very hard to describe properly, but it is a world of fun, and I recommend it highly. 6 Souls might be interesting as well, I suppose.

I didn’t find any TV series this time around, but Anime did slightly better with three entries. Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere: Season Two continues the national maneuvering for power and position, and I mean that quite literally. It looks like we finally get to see the Armor of Deadly Sins in action this time around as well. Natsume’s Book of Friends: Season 4 finds our protagonist still tracking down the Yokai (monsters, spirits) listed in his grandfathers book and giving them back their rightful names. But now he must also consider his future, and make some hard decisions. Finally, Ruin Explorers is a 4 episode OVA about two highly trained magic users who can’t spell right (I am pretty sure the pun is intentional) in a race to collect three artifacts before their opponents beat them to it. This one looks pretty amusing for old school Anime, it is vintage 1995.

New Ghost In The Shell: Arise!

It is true, there is a new Ghost In The Shell project with an all new series of videos and a new story line. This one is called Ghost in the Shell: Arise! and it is made up of four 50 minute episodes. It looks like it will bring all our favorite characters back together again in that same cyberpunk universe we have enjoyed so many times before. Episode 1 hit the big screens in Tokyo last week, but I figure it will be at least the end of July before the DVDs get released here and we get to enjoy them. There may be a few rare theaters that will throw this on the big screen in the US, but I haven’t found any yet. If you find one of them, give me a shout; I would really like to be there!