Disney’s Tangled looks like the fun movie for this weekend, staring Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi. In fact you don’t have to wait for the weekend if you don’t want to, since it comes out Wednesday.
No actual winners on the movie front this week, although it could be argued that The Expendables counts since it was based on a comic book. Personally I prefer an actual sci-fi or fantasy story to count something as genre. There are a few that meet that requirement, like Deadland, a post-apocalyptic thriller about a man looking for his lost wife after WWIII. There are also a few Fangbanger films, Vampire Sisters and Lesbian Vampires. Please note that I did not recommend any of these movies, although Fire & Ice: The Dragon Chronicles could be interesting and has several actors I like.
TV shows didn’t fair much better, with the History Channel series Ancient Aliens: Season 1 being the only real selection from live action this week. Yes, I know the people doing the program think this is actual historical research, but until they bring in some actual physical evidence it is still science fiction. On the animation side Batman Beyond: The Complete Series becomes available finally.
For anime, the classic Ghost Sweeper Mikami – Collection 1 isn’t your Saturday morning ghostbusters type program. Reiko Mikami is very beautiful and very greedy; her sidekick, Tadao Yokoshima is a serious pervert hot for Reiko, which makes it easy for her to manipulate him to do all the dangerous jobs while she collects the money. Also out this week, the much more modern Sekirei – The Complete Series from Funimation. This series is a fun romp about a highly intelligent guy who doesn’t do well under pressure, and the bevy of combat babes who need him to unleash their special powers for the competition rounds. Once you are on the shows homepage, there is a link to let you watch streaming episodes online if you are not sure if this is for you.
AMV – Anime Music Video – Is one of my favorite art forms. It includes the obvious, animation and music, but also the detail that makes it art; the ability to combine any two of those sources into something wholly new. These are a few recent AMV builds that I particularly liked.
For the iPhone or iTouch with camera, there is now a great Augmented Reality shoot-em-up based on the Death Star attack from Star Wars. Tech Crunch gave the word about Falcon Gunner, and it does look like silly fun. Of course, you might want to consider carefully where you want to play this in public. This is the first of what promises to be a whole series of Augmented Reality games coming from Vertigore, and since they did the licensing deal you can expect the first chunk of them to live in the Star Wars universe.
If you haven’t seen the new trailer yet, brace yourselves…
I didn’t really think that Steampunk Rap was a category, but then Nerdcore caught me flatfooted as well when I stumbled across it in 2006. But I was just introduced to Professor Elemental, and now I know it exists. My favorite song out of the group so far is Fighting Trousers, from his latest release The Indifference Engine. Not his Tea Trousers, not his Time Travel Trousers, but only his Fighting Trousers will do for this song. After I got my laughing and cheering under control I found more than a few additional songs by the same artist, and a few more from related musical teams like the wonderful presentations Come Into My Parlour or Chap-Hop History. A serious tip of the hat to the Seampunk Workshop for the entry into an aspect of steampunk music I never suspected!