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Something to Watch: DVDs, 18Jun13

The prime movie this time is Jack the Giant Slayer, where Jack accidentally opens a gateway to a land of giants, who immediately invade the world they were driven out of long ago and attempt to take it back. Also coming out is The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, aliens exiled to Earth for delinquency who just keep getting in trouble once they arrive. This one is campy silliness with some fun musical numbers and several surprises in the cast you might enjoy.

In TV, Wilfred: The Complete Season Two brings more strangeness between a man and his neighbor’s anthropomorphic dog. In both TV and western animation, Kung Fu Panda Legends of Awesomeness: Good Croc, Bad Croc is the first release of the Panda-centric TV show. The production house changed, the original films were a joint production of Disney and Chinese animation works, and most of the voice actors are different than the films as well, but there is still some good stuff here.

In Anime, last year’s Kill Me Baby brings a truly bizarre series of events to a normal high school filled with anything but normal students. Things like escaped bears, several separate groups of assassins, a family of ninjas, voodoo curses, and killer mosquitoes, to name just a few.

Saiyuki: The Complete Collection brings 50 episodes of Demon fighting goodness. Long ago demons and humans lived together in peace, but now some renegade demons are trying to manifest a great evil. A small group of disparate souls come together to oppose them, and the fight is on! This classic anime series is from 2000, and if you shop around to can pick this one up at a decent price. Finally, Chrome Shelled Regios has been released in a S.A.V.E. edition, so you can pick up the entire series for just around $20.

New Wolverine trailer

A new Wolverine trailer is out, and it looks like Marvel has another excellent entry into their universe. Somewhat Torchwoodishly, somebody intends to make the character mortal, taking away his ability to heal and regenerate. This one will be in the theaters on July 26th, if you were wondering. Of course, I liked the last Wolverine movie, and it seems a lot of other folks did not, so you might want to mistrust my reaction.

R’Ha into movie

Former Star Wars producer Kaleb Lechowski wrote and directed the short film R’Ha, which you can watch below. He is now teaming up with Matthew Graham to turn it into a feature length film, according to SFX in one of their Link-A-Mania entries. Matt was the person who created two of the more interesting British TV shows, Life On Mars and Eternal Law. Not the first movie to start out as an independently produced short which was then shopped around in hopes of getting a backer, but with the state of modern desktop video production suites this kind of thing is getting better and better.

Something to Do: Movies, 14Jun13

The obvious winner this week is Man of Steel, the latest in a long tradition of Superman movies. I have enjoyed many of them, and sat through the turkeys in the hopes they might get better, and I will be right back in the theater for this one. Strangely enough, the best trailer I have seen for it is from a cell phone company.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 11Jun13

A couple of real winners in Movies this week, starting with Oz: The Great and Powerful. This Disney built prequel was a true homage to the 1939 movie on so many levels, as well as to Frank L. Baum’s wonderful but scary universe. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is another excellent selection, and I am definitely going to have to go for the unrated version with the extended footage. If those weren’t enough the Korean historical epic Masquerade tells an exciting tale of a commoner who becomes a king in the 16th century.

While there doesn’t seem to be any true genre TV this week, Burn Notice: Season Six comes awfully close. Hey, it’s got Bruce Campbell, that ought to qualify it right there.

In Anime, Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne is the story of a helpful high school girl who agrees to pilot a giant robot to kill aliens who are trying to invade the Earth. So yes, now that you ask, this one is a comedy, and I believe they are working on a movie to go with this 12 episode TV series. Bleach: Season 17 has the Soul Reapers battling their own weapons, which are under the control of a power with his eye set on the world of the living. This brings the US anime release up to episode 255, but I think the current Japanese episode is 640. We have a ways to go to catch up.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings has season 1 at 13 episodes, season 2 at 12 episodes, plus the OVA. It is a 3-way battle between ninjas, samurai, and pirates, each group trying their best to conquer the country, until the Demon King shows up to threaten everybody. Then the warring parties join forces to eradicate their common foe. While I am not sure if Mysterious Girlfriend X is genre or not (I am only about a third of the way through the series, it could still go either way), it is sufficiently bizarre to be worth checking out.

Primeval New World starts tomorrow!

Beginning tomorrow Primeval New World hits the Syfy Channel. If it gets enough viewers in the US, they may make a season 2 after all. If you are not already aware, this spinoff from the UK program brings the time travel anomalies to North America, and the cast includes a few favorite folks from Eureka as well as a member or two of the original series, at least in guest spots. I followed what the Canadian fans had to say, and it was very positive, but there just wasn’t enough of them. I am hoping it picks up enough fans here that they decide another season would make the company some money.