We lost Dan Obannon last week, screenwriter for Alien and Total Recall, but before those he wrote a little gem in film school called Dark Star…
This week: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus!
Also out this week, the Robert Downey Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes on the big screen. I mention Downey because there is another one coming soon from the UK with Gareth David-Lloyd.
Last chance to release disks and have them available for Xmas. So who waited this late before moving? Top movie released this week has to be District 9; it is an incredible and surprising movie, and it is hard to believe it was made on a tiny budget. Top documentary out this week is definitely It Might Get Loud, which brings three amazing guitar players together. From TV, Kyle XY Season 3 hit the shelves Tuesday.
For Anime TV, Spice & Wolf: Complete First Season arrives, the story of a traveling trader and a wolf goddess. If you want to watch a bit of it to see if you like it, visit the official Funimation site. A single volume finishes up the first season of Ah My Buddha volume 6, kind of the Monk’s spirit power strip club version of Ah My Goddess. In live-action the movie Maid-Droid is also being released in the U.S.
Avatar delivered on its promise of game-changing technology to tell its story, and it had quite a story to tell. Which pretty much everybody already knows, but sometimes the urge to play Master of the Obvious quite overcomes me. And if the trailer is any indication, the next Iron Man movie should be a monster. M.C.Frontalot found this Enhance! gem on youtube…
Avatar finally comes out this weekend! The trailers have been amazing, the interactive app has been fun, and the hype has been overwhelming. I have pretty much been waiting all year for this film, and I am glad it is finally time to watch it.
Also showing on the big screen this week is RiffTrax: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza, with special guest Wierd Al Yankovic. The program is live on the 16th, with an encore replay on the 17th; feed your zip code into each date to find the closest theaters to you.
Appearing live in Virtual Reality this week is Cory Doctorow on Copper Robot, doing a real time interview in the Second Life Seaside Theater, over at World2Worlds Island. That happens on Wednesday, the 16th, 8PM SL time (11PM EST, since 2nd Life time is California time). If you already have the free 2nd Life software installed, this is the SLURL that will launch it and take you straight to the event. If you are trapped behind an office firewall and can’t get into the metaverse, you can watch it in real time at Copper Robot, or grab the podcast after the event to listen to at your leisure.
Next week brings both The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Sherlock Holmes to the big screen. I’m going to have to see each of them, and maybe swoop back for a second pass at Avatar.
Disney’s animated feature The Princess and The Frog goes from limited to wide release on the 11th, making it available to people outside of New York and LA.
I haven’t found anything else new worth seeing, but that’s OK; next week Avatar is finally on the big screen!