This one is a bit silly, and very Otaku. Van Von Hunter rolls with the tag line “Putting the Van in Vanquished“, and is a live-action comedy mocumentary. It takes place in Hollywood and Tokyo, with a hero who is out to vanquish evil and save the world… sort of. Watch it now at Crunchyroll.
In about a week or so, the new Steampunk Luc Besson movie gets released in France, Adele Blanc-Sec. The trailer looks killer, so if you want to see it (and I recommend you do so) visit Eurocorp YouTube and get ready for a great movie! Here is the English subtitle version…
This weeks offering, Afterlife, is a thriller on the edge of horror, but it does have a great cast in the form of Christina Ricci, Liam Neeson, and Justin Long. I am undecided if this will be worth time in a theater chair, but it may be a moot point since it is in limited release. There are two movies about the history of music coming out this week as well, also in limited release but well worth mentioning. Who Do You Love tells the story of Chess Records, who made records from people like Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Etta James, and Chuck Berry available to the public in the 40s and 50s, introducing America to the blues and leading to the birth of Rock and Roll. The other film is When You’re Strange, a documentary about the Doors narrated by Johnny Depp, and including footage never before seen.
The TV show that stands out this week is Blood Ties: The Complete Series. While all of this had been previously released in two series boxes, it is nice to have everything available in a single package.
The silly montage of copyright-free footage taken from vintage porn and 1950’s Sci-Fi films know as Sex Galaxy will also be hitting the shelves. If you are an MST3K fan, this should be right up your alley.
On the Anime front, Ah My Buddha – The Complete Collection is a good choice, with enough action to keep it interesting. The fan service built into the premise (he only gets strong enough to banish demons when he sees naked women) never really delivers, since naked women without nipples are obviously not really naked; think Sophia Loren in a bodysuit in that 1960’s movie.
Lucky Star Complete Collection is an entirely different critter on several fronts. To begin with, the young women in this series are the focus, not the eye candy. In addition, it tells a high-school tale that almost works for guys as well…
Rental Magica – Collection 2 takes us back to the world where multiple systems of magic work, each with its own set of practitioners (all of whom are in competition with each other), based on the book voted “Best Action Story” by Japanese fans as part of the 2007 Light Novel Awards (the Manga came after the book).
Hidamari Sketch × 365 – Complete Collection is also being released on Tuesday. I probably shouldn’t mention it here, since it has virtually no Sci-Fi elements, but the artist in me couldn’t resist.
Todd Miro has put together an absolutely brilliant article explaining quite a bit about how today’s movies ended up looking the way a lot of them do, and posted it at Into The Abyss. If you’re into making your own movies, particularly if you process them through a computer (and who doesn’t these days), there will be bonus material for you in this one.
The countdown is on for the new Doctor Who; in the UK, it happens on BBC1 this Saturday, April 3rd, here in the US we will be a few weeks behind on April 17th on BBC America. For those in the US who can’t stand the wait, there will also be a Premiere Screening and Q&A Event in NYC on April 14th, with the questions being answered by Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Steven Moffat. Remember, this is the season where Neil Gaiman Is Confirmed as an episode writer. So what, you may be wondering, makes this well-known information worth posting on April Fools Day, when it is obviously not a joke? This wonderful little article at SFX, called Tie-Fi, where they present A brief pictorial history of the bow tie in sci-fi. I couldn’t stop laughing, and yet it is so true! Grin if you got ’em…