Originally scheduled for release Friday, now on Wednesday, Transformers: the Dark of the Moon hits the big screen. I am expecting the same non-stop thrill ride Michael Bay provided us in the first two movies, and while Megan Fox won’t be in this one, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley looks like she can fill that gap rather nicely.
There are an assortment of movies coming out this week on DVD, and all seem to be action fantasy films. Starting with the visually stunning The Warrior’s Way, which is a definite east meets west entertainment. We haven’t seen martial arts in the wild west like this in quite a while, this time starring Korean actor Dong-gun Jang and not so Korean Kate Bosworth. While it is a bit more violent than it needed to be, it is still quite a lot of fun. The other extreme violence with amazing visuals release for the week is Sucker Punch, but it is not quite as much fun. The medieval entry is Season of the Witch with Nick Cage and Ron Perlman. From Japan comes Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, the story of a man who transforms into something else cause of experiments his father conducted on him. Finally, a modern retelling of a fantasy classic we have seen many times before, Beastly was trimmed back to a PG-13 specifically to pull in the target audience, the same audience that hung out for Twilight.
The winner in the TV category this time around is Warehouse 13: Season Two. This tasty series is sort of The X-Files meets Friday the 13th (the TV show, not the movies) with a liberal dose of steampunk thrown in. Season 3 kicks off on July 11th, and they have even announced a spinoff program, all about H. G. Wells and her work with Warehouse 12, solving crimes in the 1890s. One documentary program of note is the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens: Season Two, while the other is the Discovery Channel’s How The Universe Works. My personal favorite is the Discovery selection, which is cosmos-level science at its finest, But History’s program covers some interesting, if much more speculative, topics.
The western animation choice this time is Reboot: Seasons 3 & 4, for those who purchased seasons one and two the first time around. Bob works to protect Mainframe, while Dot, Enzo, and Fong all do their best to help: Warning: Incoming Game. If you have the Reboot: Definitive Mainframe Edition released at the same time as seasons one and two you already have all of these, but they are also re-releasing the Definitive set (the original run already sold out). This was both one of the earliest examples of CG 3D animation used in a continuing TV series, and the best and earliest conversion of computer processes into characters and personalities for such a series I am aware of. Even a few decades later, this is an impressive body of work, and whether you come to it for the quality animation, the great characters and storyline, or the fact that it is the direct successor to the original TRON movie plot and implications, this one is well worth your time to check out.
There are two selections worth bringing home in the new Anime category this week, the first being Rideback: the Complete Series, where an ex-dancer and her robotic motor cycle go head-to-head with a repressive government. While the bot-bike is a semi transformer, it has no free will or higher brain functions as far as I have seen to this point, but is just her ride and tool. The other new series is High school of the Dead – Complete Collection, where the zombie apocalypse attacks the schools, and the student body fights back with every home made weapon it can get its hands on. Both of these are a lot of fun, and I recommend them.
Also worth a look is Magical Witch Punie-chan in an OVA format. This one is a bit different than you might have been expecting; in order to gain the throne in her home Magical Kingdom, she has to spend a year going to school on Earth. No big deal, until you realize that everyone on the planet, from her classmates to her own magical familiar, is out to kill her with extreme prejudiced. And then there is Queen’s Blade 2: The Evil Eye Series – Part 1, where cat fights and fan service vie for your attention. One of my favorites, as you might suspect.
There are also a couple of re-releases this week; Galaxy Express for 2 incarnations, and Gungrave – Complete Collection for a single full round of weapons at full deployment.
Hell Girl has been streaming for a while, but now Anime Network has added Maria Holic to the online streaming collection. The Anime Network YouTube site starts out with a very nice Angel Beats trailer, which should be online sometime soon (actually already online if you get your feed from the Anime Network paid service). All of which means you have a good site to watch some quality Anime from, whenever you are so inclined. Enjoy!
I don’t see any movies this week in wide release I am excited about, but I have to mention Cars 2 simply because Pixar always does an amazing job with their animation. However, if you are in Seattle, the new Philip K. Dick movie Radio Free Albemuth will be having its theatrical world premiere at the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, kicking off their annual awards presentation. Wish I was on that coast.
The top movie this week is The Adjustment Bureau, yet another Philip K. Dick story given the big screen treatment. I thought the early 1960s stylization of the sets and costumes was a good choice, since that matched up with the era it was written in. Another good one is The Eagle, the dramatization of what might have happened to the Ninth Legion in 120 AD. To counterbalance those, we have Van Von Hunter, a silly live action movie based on an American comic but filmed by Tokyo Pop (you may have recently seen their movie Priest), a now defunct American production and distribution company for predominately Japanese properties. The other counterbalance is Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, just to prove silly movies still sell. I have never been able to figure out why these kind of movies made in the US are so offensive to me, and yet I love Gojira and the like from Japan. Actually the US release of Godzilla with Jean and Mathew was a favorite as well; maybe it’s the monsters.
For TV, Medium: The Final Season becomes available, as well as the full series in a single box set. While I am aware this series was based on someone’s real life, to me it will always be Fantasy.
New Anime this week starts with Bleach Uncut Box Set 9, another handful of episodes in this long running series about the world of the Soul Reapers. When I say a handful, I mean just that; episodes 146 through 156 are included here, only 11 of them. At this rate, it will be a while before we catch up with the current production run, which is somewhere around episode 275. The Kanokon OVA Collection is all about summer break and how the relationships evolve as the Fox Goddess and Wolf Goddess continue to vie for the heart of the human Kouta.
While not actually Sci-Fi or Fantasy, You’re Under Arrest is one of my favorite Anime series, and the Complete Full Throttle set is also the complete season 3. It has been a while since the last season, and this one starts off with one partner having returned from forensics training in the US, while the other one just finished JSDF (Japanese Self-Defense Force) Ranger training, which is as close to Green Beret as makes no difference. If you thought these two were dangerous to everyone anywhere near them before (criminal or not), wait till you see them now! And Kekkaishi – Part 1 has two childhood friends battling it out to see who gets to be the destroyer of monsters using barrier magic. While both are doing their best to protect their people, they are not the same gender, so some romantic tension gets added to the story.
Finally, this weeks classic series re-release is Blue Gender, where our protagonist wakes up from a few decades of suspended animation to discover that instead of the cure for his terminal disease that he was expecting, humans are being hunted as food by giant insects. As usual with such releases, you can pick up this quality series for dirt cheap if you shop around, $20 being the est price I found.
The first production images from Disney’s John Carter of Mars were published in the LA Times, along with an excellent interview with Andrew Stanton. Andy wrote and directed Wall-E and Finding Nemo, and now we will get to see what he can do with a live action Sci-Fi classic. The disappointing part is that he does not intend to show any footage at Comic-Con this year, but word is we may get to see a trailer at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 come July.