The best Bond theme song in quite a while, Adeles official version of Skyfall is quite amazing. It does hark back to the days of Goldfinger and finally gives that classic a run for its money. No other Bond song has come close, and it will be a few years before we know how this one will hold up, but I for one am impressed. Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter for the heads up on this one.
Coming up next year, The Prototype is a film about a dying man who uploads himself into the combat drone he is developing for the military. It seemed like a good idea at the time; he needed a way to escape death, and the drone needed a core intelligence around which to coalesce. Now, it is not so much fun. This one looks very interesting, if you are waiting for the Singularity this is another option to explore.
The folks at Noitamina TV (Midnight TV, a branch of Fuji TV), has a new show coming out called Robotics: Notes. It begins airing on October 11th or 12th depending on which time zone you live in, and is the 3rd in a series of scientific anime’s from Production IG. It takes place in the same world as Chaos; Head and Steins; Gate, two excellent sci-fi anime series. I am hoping Crunchyroll carries it so I can watch it here. Thanks to Danny Choo for the heads up on this one.
From Digital Rebel Studio and posted as part of the Mad Artist Publishing collection, Pluton Robotics is a very short Sci Fi animation that is just silly fun. Mad Artist Publishing specializes in independent animations and art reels from around the world, and helps artists get established and distributed online.
This week it is more Tim Burton animated silliness with Frankenweenie, an all star retelling of the classic Frankenstein tail. This is a great one to take your kids to, because afterwards you can have a meaningful discussion with them on the dangers of wild experiments using their high school genetic engineering labs for a little recreational recombinant DNA monster building.
There are a number of good movies this time around, with Iron Sky telling the story of Nazi’s on the moon coming back to take over the Earth decades after they fled. I can’t quite decide if this one is more action/adventure or comedy, and I was fairly surprised when it had its world premier in Berlin. Definitely in the comedy category, Dark Shadows is Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, and a bunch of their friends having silly fun. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate is the historical epic adventure entry for the week, being a remake of the Dragon’s Inn series of movies starring Jet Li. If you are a fan of Asian martial arts films you will find you recognize a good percentage of the excellent cast, but that is the only name the average American moviegoer would recognize. Winner of the Silliest Name title this time goes to Atomic Brain Invasion.
New in TV we have season two of the series Nikita, just in time to catch up with it before the next season starts on the 19th. I am guessing they dropped La Fem off the front end of the name so you wouldn’t confuse it with the last time somebody did it as a TV series. Old in TV we have The Six Million Dollar Man: Season Two, a new release for all you Steve Austin fans.
In Anime, Strike Witches: Season Two continues the aerial combat antics of the girls with the propeller boots, in an alternate history where the enemy during WWII was aliens from outer space. Rental Magica: Collection 2 brings the second dozen stories in this magical competition series, with the Astral team hard pressed to resolve their issues, including the protagonists vision problems. I can include Mayo Chiki in today’s listing because the plot line includes both martial artist ghosts and cat girls, but it is really just a high school level romantic farce leaning towards the raunchy.