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Something to Watch: DVDs

There are several fun movies coming out this week, starting with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which was a nicely done interpretation of the graphic novel. If you are looking for something a bit more lighthearted, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World also will be on the shelves this Tuesday.

In TV, Lost Girl: The Complete First Season finally brings the story of this confused succubus trying to find her own way to live home for US fans. For those scratching their head thinking they paid a higher price but already own this and other seasons, it was initially released as an Import from Canada, and only now is being released officially in the US market. That is due to contractual obligations with Syfy, who are a few years behind on running the show for the American market. Sanctuary: The Complete Series is also a Canadian show you may already own, in this case because each of the individual seasons had been previously released. But this is its first release in a single box set. On the other hand, Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman: Season 3 is brand new, even if it is speculative science rather than speculative fiction.

For western animation, Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season Four continues that saga.

The anime Aria the Scarlet Ammo is coming out as a limited edition release and takes place in a Tokyo reminiscent of the one in Burst Angel, in that the police are overwhelmed and certifying select individuals to take out criminals on their own. The underworld have their own group of strong arm folks to attack folks so certified, or training for it, and our protagonists life changes forever when he is saved from them by Aria. Majikoi: Oh! Samurai Girls complete collection shows what happens when small bands of Samurai form at the local high school in self defense as combat springs from chance encounters. One such band of descendents of famous warriors gains two additional girls to the group and all hell brakes loose.

Naruto Shippūden: The Will of Fire is a feature length film adding to the Naruto epic of ninja adventure, and with it the risk of a fourth Great Ninja War.

Arrow, Beauty off to great starts

I have only seen two episodes so far, but Arrow grabbed my attention right away, pretty much from the opening sequence of the first episode. I don’t know if they are going to be able to sustain the tempo and evolve the story the way it should be, but I already care about several of the characters and can’t wait to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the revival of George R. R. Martin’s Beauty and the Beast also started nicely if at a somewhat slower pace, much as the original did. I have only seen one episode of that so far, but Kristin Kreuk has already made the Catherin roll her own. I am less impressed so far with Vincent, but Jay Ryan made a strong enough first showing in the roll that there is hope for him to grow fully into the part (or maybe, just for me to get used to him in it). Of course, it is hard to imagine anyone outdoing Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman as Vincent and Catherin, but I am going to enjoy watching this updated version.

Firefly Reunion Special

The Firefly Reunion Special will be airing on November 11th at 10PM (except no one is willing to state in which time zone that is: EST? PST? GMT?) on the Science Channel, and I for one intend to be watching! But they recorded 3 hours of footage for this one hour special, so for the Firefly 10th Anniversary: Browncoats Unite special they are releasing another 30 second or so clip online for every 5,000 tweets they get using the hashtag #FireflyNov11. Which means we only need to send out 600,000 tweets to see all of it, as long as you also watch the special on the TV channel. I am ready!

Mister Rogers

While some folks might scratch their heads wondering why I am posting this, the answer is very simple. We need to nurture that sense of wonder at the earliest possible age if we want to see the next generation take us to the stars, and before we can do that, we need to nurture the children of that generation grow into the best possible version of themselves they can be. Nobody understood this the way Fred Rogers did, or understood all the implications of treating a child with love and respect so they would learn how to give as well as receive it. He also understood the need for producing children’s television with a desired end result of something much more important than selling the most number of boxes of sugared cereal without any regard of what that programs content would end up teaching the child. The children really are our future, and Fred was willing to go up before congress to get the funding needed to do the right thing.

Swing of Change

Another wonderful music-based animation from the folks at Esme Movies. I don’t know where these folks get their inspiration from, but the music is always quality and the animations are always quite well done. If you have the time, you might want to sample their entire collection.

Something to Do: Movies

Steampunk Japan style comes to US screens this Friday when Tai Chi Zero finally gets released here. The basic plot is Kung Fu vs. the evil railroad barons, and as you can see from the trailer it should be quite entertaining. Of course, it may be a bit of a challenge to find a place showing it if you do not live in or near a major city this being a foreign film and all, but I suspect it will be worth it.