Abney Park is one of my favorite Steampunk bands, as I have mentioned here before. They have a new CD coming out soon, The End Of Days, so I am using that as my excuse to post about their music once again. The first video is their lead singer, Captain Robert, taking a joyride over Seattle in the Airship Eureaka. I am sure it will be no surprise that the audio backing is one of their own songs. The second video is a live version of their signature song, Airship Pirates. Following that, we have The Death of the Cog, a song from another band called The Cog is Dead, singing against the invention of the digital watch which killed Clockpunk. The final band, Sunday Drivers, I could not find a decent video of in their Steampunk style, so I had to make do with an interview clip. To pull it all together, we have the Song vs. Song vs. Song initial presentation from Changing Habit; he may not be able to dance, but he does have a unique appreciation for nonstandard (i.e., non-boring) music.
There are a few Geek-friendly archives that have just gone online and are worth bringing to your attention here. The first is YouTube Time Machine, or YTTM. Set your category toggles and click on a year, and you will get presented with a bit of history that matches your configured interests and timeline. You can then either repeat the process, or click the Play Another Vid button to see another match from the same year. The archive is somewhat limited when you narrow down your topic and date ranges, but still manages to deliver some fascinating videos to watch. The collection begins with the 1860 entry First Sound Ever Recorded, and goes through the subsequent media milestones since then.
The other archival project just rolled out that I find fascinating is the Variety Archives, with 105 years of Variety issues to browse or search through. They include not only articles, but every other entry aspect, including classifieds and advertisements. This is a serious glimpse into the history of recorded media, and will be mined by many scholars both amateur and professional over the forthcoming years.
As I have previously commented here, they have found the missing 25 minutes of Metropolis in an obscure museum (virtually a private collection) in South America, restored them, and released them to the public. Being a 85 year old movie you wouldn’t expect it to get a major distribution deal, and it didn’t, but the places you can go see it are all over. One of the best is the Austin Cinema Drafthouse presentation, shown (and original score performed live in) an Art Deco Powerhouse, so the setting for watching the movie is a match for the setting in the movie. To see it on the big screen my best option is to go for the next time around at the AFI Silver, one of my favorite movie hangouts, and the place where I just finally got to see the original Day The Earth Stood Still on a screen large enough to contain it.
The new Game of Thrones trailer, the George R.R. Martin series from HBO, premiering in 2011; The new Fringe trailer from Fox, with the new season kicking off the 23rd of September. The new season 4 trailer for Chuck on NBC, with a season that promises to be the best one yet. From Syfy, Stargate Universe and Caprica. There are a whole lot more, but get ready, because the majority of the new season starts next week!
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I can’t get terribly excited about Devil, a film about some people trapped in an elevator who decide that a demon is in the metal box with them scheduled to come out Friday. I think the currently playing Resident Evil: Afterlife would be a lot more fun and certainly a lot more action. Perhaps a good Klingon Opera might do the trick instead. There is some footage of it on the BBC News, and it looks like a lot of fun.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time tops the feature length film selections for this week. This movie surprised me with its quality and how enjoyable it was, doubly so since few games turned into movies have survived the transition. This one did its franchise proud, and proved yet again that Disney is getting a serious grip on family friendly action adventure.
For live action TV, Fringe: The Complete Second Season is definitely the winner, with season 2 coming out with just enough time to re-watch it before season 3 starts on Thursday the 23rd. This is one of my favorite shows, so good that its draws an audience so huge even Fox won’t cancel it; and if they did, a real TV network would snatch it up in a heartbeat. For lovers of Historical Fantasy, Robin Hood: The Complete Series brings all three seasons of the most recent UK retelling of the classic legend to the shelves.
Anime has several offerings this time around. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumia: Season 2 continues the story of the girl who changes the nature of reality with her desires, and so draws to herself androids, space aliens, time travelers, and espers, all there to keep her happy so the wrong thoughts won’t destroy the universe. This 5 disc release does include a CD, but I haven’t been able to determine if it also includes the The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumia, a stand alone movie that may take place between the two series.
Blade of the Immortal: Complete Collection brings the full story of Manji, a wicked Samurai killer who gets cursed with everlasting life for his deeds. As time goes on, he grows tired of his ageless life, but the only way to remove the curse is to slay 1,000 evil men. So he sets out to achieve that purpose, and win his soul back from hell.
Similar and completely different to Blade of the Immortal, Corpse Princess Part 1 (Shikabane Hime Aka) is the story of Makina Hoshimura, living in the land of Zombies. When she herself becomes Undead, her only path to heaven is to kill 108 corpses and make the world a better place. Corpse Princess Part 2 (Shikabane Hime Kuro) continues the plot line with a look at the real fight underlying the events of the first season. The goal is to defeat the bad guys (the Shichisei, or Seven Stars) before they can destroy all Shikabane Hime and the entire monk organization that uses them. The combined package is 26 episodes for $80 to $100 dollars total, so it is a bit pricey for me, but the trailer looked kick ass. I am going to have to watch a few episodes online to get an idea of what I am willing to pay to add it to the collection. With this release, Funimation may now have the first Anime to hunt Smartphones and use them in a rich media mobile advertising campaign.
Ghost Hound is definitely a bit different, and not at all a happy story. Three young boys have out of body experiences because of different traumas each of them have suffered, and they strive together to understand and control it all. And then the spirits from the Other Side begin to invade the world of the living and have their own influence on the events taking place there.
There is one anime this week which is uniquely Japanese, with a plot line twist they do like no one else: one or more inanimate objects get transmogrified into human form, and the stories follow their adventures. In the case of Hetalia, the inanimate objects are nation states from just before WWII, anthropomorphisd into young children. This series puts a twist onto history that is hard to imagine ahead of time, and hard to escape once you have seen it. A bit silly, but with a true heart.
Fair warning: Dirty Pair (at least the original series) is about to be release by Right Stuff in North America. I was a little confused by the fact the web site claims it will be the first time it will be available to people in North America, since I thought I already owned it. So I went to see what I actually owned in that series. The first box I pulled off the shelf said “Original Dirty Pair” on both the front and back covers, but when you went to the box spine it said “Movie Collection”. OK, not the original series then, although I am sure it has a lot of footage from it. The next box I found that said “Original Dirty Pair” followed that up with the words: “OVA Collection”. Still not there, but good to know I already own a lot of the harder to find stuff. So I looked at the final box, and it wasn’t the original series either, but rather “Dirty Pair Flash”, which was another season/series. I was introduced to Dirty Pair (Lovely Angels) in the mid to late 90s when they were featured weekly on Showtime; I hope the original series includes some of those shows I loved, but didn’t know how to find in my collection.