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Something to Do: Movies 3Dec12

There are several choices this weekend, although none of them are the action/adventure I tend to look forward to at this time of year. Bad Kids Go to Hell is The Breakfast Club meets The Ring, and there is something about the trailer that makes me think that was exactly how it was pitched to get the funding to make it. Based on the graphic novel of the same name, this is a comedy/thriller.

Dino Time is a time travel jaunt into the world of T-Rex and friends, and the kids who make the ride don’t have much time to figure out how to get home again. The animation looks quite good in this joint US/Korean production, with CJ Entertainment doing the art and story, and the US supplying some quality voice talent. I have found at least one source that believes the release date will be January 1st and another from a few days ago listed as Unknown, but most everybody else is pointing to this Friday.

Something to Watch: DVDs 2Dec12

Top movie spot this time obviously goes to The Dark Knight Rises, but if you don’t have any of the Nolan collection yet you can also pick up The Dark Knight Trilogy and save some money over getting them individually. While I can not recommend the other super hero movie coming out this week anywhere near as highly, Elf-Man should be good fun for families with small children. And for completeness on the super hero front I should also mention the Power Rangers Super Samurai: The Complete Season.

The only TV release worth mentioning this time is Mystery Science Theater 3000 XXV, with yet more silly commentary tracks overlaid on some of the worst movies ever made. I actually enjoy watching these with a group of friends, because everyone in the room starts making comments trying to out-do the ones on the DVD, which can get very entertaining.

The western animation selection this time is machinema, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.

In anime, Bleach The Movie: Hell Verse is a rescue mission for Ichigo’s sisters, to get them out of Hell and back to Karakura town. Mashiroiro Symphony: The Color of Lovers complete collection is a war of the sexes anime TV series, in which two schools, one for girls and one coed, are merged. The amusing results are generated by the women at the exclusively feminine school who don’t want to see the boys invade there campus. As near as I can tell there are no ghosts, elves, aliens, robots (giant or otherwise), mutants, cat girls, trans-dimensional visitors, time travelers, or any other kind of genre characters in this series. But at least it is a comedy, and I happen to like comedies. Umineko: When They Cry is the third season of this anime franchise to make it to the US. If you liked the earlier ones, this should also be interesting. I should comment that the pictures on the web site bare no resemblance to the plot description, so I hope I got the link right.

Xmas Special trailer

Yes, I know this has been out for weeks, but I don’t care. I just finished watching The Angels Take Manhattan, and now I can not wait to see the x-mas special. There is never enough Doctor Who in the world. And yes, I had not seen that episode before; I saved it until I was able to watch it with a friend.

Something to Do: Movies

The only genre I could find this week was Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, the fourth outing for this franchise. I thought the original film had a unique premise and was quite well done, but every entry since seems to be a formula driven way to take home a pay check for the core cast and crew. This is probably a good weekend to see something you may have missed in recent weeks, like Wreck It Ralph or Rise of the Guardians, both of which have now been short listed for an Oscar nomination.

Something to Watch: DVDs

Top of the movie list this week has to be Men In Black 3, one of the few franchises that have actually gotten better with each new movie. In fact, I might even be tempted to get a 4K 3D TV for this one after seeing it in the theater. Also this week, ParaNorman is an animated comedy about a kid who is just a bit different.

I could not find any new releases under TV, except for a mention of the 1993 made for TV version of Frankenstein possibly being released, but even there I could find no verification. Surprising, since we are deep into the Xmas buying frenzy, and I would expect them to be releasing lots of stuff to pry open our wallets.

I only see two new releases in Anime, both of them involving mercenaries wandering through historic epoch war zones. In Berserk: The Golden Age Arc; The Egg of the King the war zone is the Midland Kingdom, which based on the armor and outfits looks a lot like late Roman period England. For Intrigue in the Bakumatsu: Irohanihoheto, Collection 2 it appears to be the Shogunate era of Japan. In both series everything is in continual flux, just like any real war zone, as alliances break and shift, and the battle continues.

21 Animated Films Submitted for Oscars

21 animated films in different categories have been submitted for Oscar consideration, according to an article in the Hollywood Reporter. The offerings include computer generated, hand drawn, and stop motion productions from a variety of sources, which pretty much covers your choices of how to create animations. The Short Animated Films category alone had 56 works being looked at, which was narrowed down to a short list 10 films long, and will probably be trimmed further to result in 3 to 5 actual nominees in that category. I haven’t seen many of them at all, except for John Kahrs’ Paperman which impressed me no end. It was the short piece just before Wreck-It Ralph in the theaters, which is itself under consideration. Other contenders include Studio Ghibli’s Up on Poppy Hill, Disney’s Brave, and Peter Ramsey’s Rise of the Guardians. The number of quality animation pieces just keeps growing year after year, and there are some wonderful films in the race this time around; I can’t wait to see who gets to take home the statues.