Robert Llewellyn, the actor who plays Kryton on Red Dwarf, does some great electric car reviews on his streaming video show Fully Charged. In a way it is the anti-Top Gear show, since the things he is looking for that define a good vehicle are pretty much the opposite of what Jamie and the gang want to see. If you were thinking of upgrading your archaic gas guzzler for a modern electric vehicle his site is an excellent place to start. Since he has a huge collection of detailed reviews, each filmed from inside the car in question while he took it on a test drive (sometimes going quite a distance), you can get a pretty good idea of the pros and cons for each model.
Hulu runs an amazing collection of Anime both in its free service and in it’s Plus subscription product.Some shows are only available until the next season comes out, some only while the current season is running, and some titles last for years. As with the other streaming services there is a lot of overlap as to what is available from which service, so you will want to look at what each one offers. It may be that you only need one or two of the ones mentioned over the last week to cover your favorite shows, or maybe two at the paid service level and a few more of the free service level. I actually got my Hulu Plus subscription as the only way to watch Misfits a day after the new episodes air in the UK, and then discovered their Anime section, so I consider that Bonus!
This week Oblivion hits the big screen, with Tom Cruse returning to the abandoned Earth to extract resources. While there he discovers things that make him think he has been lied to about what is really going on, and who the war over the Earth was with. If you would prefer something a bit more silly, Scary Movie V continues that parody franchise.
There are several interesting movies this week, starting with The Sorcerer and The White Snake, the latest of many film versions of the white snake/green snake legend, two demigoddesses who take the form of human women to experience love. First written down during the Ming Dynasty, it has also been made into TV series a number of times, as well as stage plays and operas, the first performed around 400 years ago. I am looking forward to seeing how this version goes, as some of the earlier movies were quite surreal and fantastic. Jet Li is one of the costars in this production. The Four has been referred to as the Chinese X-Men, a team of extremely skilled assassins and detectives working for the Emperor to eradicate evil. Their task in this story is to stop a gang of counterfeiters, and the trailer looks quite tasty. The action sequences alone should be worth the price of admission, as each member of the team reveals their power.
Sexy Evil Genius is a psycho-thriller comedy with an amazing cast of Sci-Fi alumni including Seth Green, Katee Sackhoff, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Anthony Michael Hall. If you are in the mood for wicked fun, this may be the one for you; I know I will be checking it out. Also this week, William Burrough’s Naked Lunch, which was converted into a Fantasy/SciFi film by David Cronenberg in 1991. It stars Peter Weller, and this re-release is part of the Criterion Collection.
In TV, Merlin: The Complete Fifth Season looks to be the only new selection, and also sadly closes out this series. It was quite a fun ride while it lasted, but I think they made the proper choice of shutting it down before it jumped the final shark.
For Anime, Inu X Boku Secret Service is a seriously wacky little series where no one, not even our lovely protagonist, is completely human. The mandatory bodyguards (also not human) just magnify the weirdness for this haunted condominium. Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee Reverse rolls out part one of the second season, and if the concept of hive oriented postal workers leaves you confused, trust me when I say it should all make sense shortly. If you happen to be a fan of Gordon R. Dickson’s wonderful novels, his Half Pint Posted story, The Right To Arm Bears, will set the mood for this presentation. There is also a re-release of the 1996 Shamanic Princess for those catching up on their collections.
Nozomi Entertainment has a channel full of their own Anime for you to stream and enjoy, as does Right Stuff (even though the latter is all silly). This is yet another streaming source that gives you entire episodes of anime programs, although in this case they save the cost of installing, configuring, and running their own video servers by using the YouTube service as their delivery platform. I like the concept, and appreciate it means they get to supply us with yet more free to watch anime from an amazing range of classic productions. I end up buying the majority of my Anime DVDs from Right Stuf, simply because their prices tend to beat everybody else’s by a noticeable percentage. And as with the other suppliers, being able to watch the shows for free definitely helps me remember why they need to be part of my permanent collection.
I have never had a Viz Media paid subscription, so I know nothing about their paid services, it’s quality, etc. But they do put a bunch of stuff on streaming for free, and they have some kick ass programs, including One Piece, Naruto, and Tiger and Bunny, to name a few. Like most everybody else they stream to a number of platforms, which seems to have a bit of emphasis to the X-Box in their case. Like Funimation, they are a distribution house, which means they only carry licensed programs that they can also sell you on a disc. But they have a large enough library of product that they keep constantly updating that you will probably be pleased with the selection.