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Something to Watch: Discs

There isn’t much this week, no real surprise since the shopping season is pretty much over. In movies I only mention Stephen King’s A Good Marriage because of the author. Likewise, I only mention the TV show Banshee: The Complete Second Season because its from Alan Ball, who turned True Blood into a small screen roller coaster of a show. Without those mentions, I don’t think I would have anything to put there.

In Anime, Onimonogatari: Shinobu Time is the Fourth arc to the Monogatari series’ second season. Time traveling is involved, and The Darkness is coming to take everyone over. In case you were wondering, Monogatari is how you say Story in Japanese, and Oni is the word for Demon, so the second season is called Demon’s Story, where the first season Bakemonogatari means Ghost or Monster Story. The light novels these are based on are quite good; if you are a fan of them, this DVD/Story Arc is the 11th book in the series.

Something to Do: Movies

This week the Disney film Into The Woods is going to corner the musical comedy fantasy market I suspect, and I will no doubt be in the theater to check it out on the big screen. Also, The Imitation Game finally goes into wide release. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, this telling of the life of mathematical genius Alan Turing has been nominated for 5 Golden Globes, on top of the 23 awards it has already won.

Something to Watch: Discs

7 Assassins is the movie this week, about a group of assassins who have banded together to rid the government of corruption. This movie is quite good, even if it does have a death toll that could rival a Shakespearean tragedy adapted by George R.R. Martin, as the reviewer linked here said.

TV has Continuum: Season Three, with another roll of the time-travel dice pushing Kiera still farther from her original timeline. If you live in Canada you can get the Enhanced Video experience by watching it online, with original bonus webisodes, extended scenes, and behind-the-scenes content in each Continuum Season 3 episode. You can get a lot of that from Continuum on Syfy, but not all of it, and not as nicely integrated. US viewers should go for the discs to get the full effect. We also get Dominion: Season One this time around, about the war between the angels and humanity. I am sure you won’t be too surprised to learn Humanity is in trouble.

The Anime stand out this week is Sword Art Online: Extra Edition, the bit that came between the first and second season, an OVA that comes in at just 100 minutes. It sets the stage nicely for what comes next, and brings its own context and development. There is also One Piece; Season 6 Part 3, which may not sound like much but is 11 full episodes. What Japan calls a TV season is everything produced in a year, and since they go around the calendar with this series, each actual season ends up being 10 to 12 episodes long.

Time Taxi

If you are looking for something different in the way of a Sci-Fi TV show, check out Time Taxi. It is a show about choices, and how sometimes when you make the wrong one you need a do-over. It is more philosophical and intellectual than the average US show, but that is part of what makes it worth watching.

Why We Love Cowboy Bebop

I have been waiting for years for Cowboy Bebop to come out in Blue Ray, and it finally happened today. I am going to try not to watch them in one non-stop marathon. I am going to try to savor them, maybe one episode a day. OK, maybe two, and four per weekend day. And I will be listening to the soundtrack a lot, possibly the most amazing Anime soundtrack ever recorded (go Yoko Kanno!).