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Something to Watch: DVDs, 10Jun14

In movies, Kill Zombie! is a Dutch horror/comedy. After a night in jail, four hung-over friends and one female officer emerge to discover their city ravaged by a zombie outbreak cause by a meteor shower. The other film choice isn’t genre as such, but an esoteric and visually stunning production called Visitors, a non-verbal film by Godfrey Reggio, Philip Glass, and Jon Kane.

In TV, Resurrection: The Complete First Season is based on the book The Returned by Jason Mott. I was certain it was the American remake of the 2012 French TV show Les Revenants, which won an International Emmy for Best Drama Series, but I was wrong. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is on the list this time as well, and I think this show proves Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a fitting inheritor of Carl Sagan’s cosmic mantle. This is a rather nice release schedule, since the season finale episode airs tonight at 9PM in my time zone, and I am a big believer in instant gratification.

In Anime, Maoyu is the story of the war between humankind and the Demon King. Except, as the hero named Hero discovers, the King is a Queen, and she has a plan to bring lasting peace to both realms with his help. So is this a deal with the devil or the best options for both species? Warning, for those looking for a serious combat-centric war show, this series is a Romantic Comedy/Fantasy. Date A Live: Complete Series is about the spacequakes that killed 150 million people when they first happened 30 years ago, and our protagonist has just learned that the spacequakes are caused by the Spirits, mystical creatures found at ground zero. Now he has been recruited to help save the world by sealing the Spirits powers. The complication is that Shido is an ordinary high school boy, the Spirits are all cute girls, and the only way to seal one is to make her fall in love with you. Surprise, this one is also a Romantic Comedy/Fantasy.

Deltora Quest Megaset, the epic magical quest series, is a bit confusing. It is an excellent series of children’s books from Australian author Emily Rodda that was made into either 52 or 65 episodes of Anime, depending on which Anime web site you read, but everyone agrees the box set has 52 episodes. It was supposed to have been released on May 13th, but most of the web sites say release was delayed until June 10th. When I check the Barnes and Noble web site it says you can pre-order it for the 10th, but when I go to Amazon it says there are only 12 left in stock and has May 13th as the release date, while Wallmart says it came out on June 3rd and they have lots of copies. So I don’t have a clue if it is coming out this week, last week, or last month, but probably one of those times.

Jodorowsky’s Dune

Possibly the best Sci-Fi movie never made, Jodorowsky’s Dune spent years assembling the most amazing cast and creative talents, before finally falling by the wayside. The team he assembled included Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine and Salvador Dali for the actors. It was set to a musical score by Pink Floyd and the art/design work was put together by H.R. Giger and Moebius (Jean Giraud). Because of this project, many of the folks involved became entangled with other Sci-Fi masterworks which would have been much poorer for their loss. Even though we will never get to see this version of the film, the documentary telling us how close we came is finally becoming available. You can see it on the big screen if you are lucky enough to be in one of those cities. For myself, it doesn’t look like I made it unless I do a 3-hour drive, so I will wait for the Blue Ray/DVD to come out instead on July 2nd.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 3Jun14

In Movies, the RoboCop reboot becomes available this week. This one goes all the way back to the original 1987 film for its story line, bypassing the sequels, TV shows, animations, video games, and graphics novels that have come along since. Also this Tuesday, the 10 foot tall RoboCop Statue is being unveiled in Detroit. Parts Per Billion is the story about the choices people make at the end of the world, and follows three couples through those events.

In TV, True Blood: The Complete Sixth Season keeps the South’s horniest supernatural creatures whipsawing back and forth through all the radically shifting plot twists. In addition, Falling Skies: The Complete Third Season brings the next round of Alien Invasion adventure to the shelves.

Western Animation has The Adventures of Batman: The Complete Series, which is a compilation of a bunch of shorts done in 1967 and 1968. While dated, the animation work was quite impressive for it time.

In Anime, we finally get Attack on Titan: Part 1, one of the most intense and critically received shows of 2013. Amnesia is the tale of a girl who wakes up in the hospital with no memory of how she got there, with the ghost boy who seems to know warning her not to let her visitors know she has forgotten her life. The Hentai Prince & The Stony Cat: The Complete Collection is the story of a Cat God who grants wishes, but not in the way you expected… or wanted. Finally Bleach: Season 21 brings us episodes 292 through 303.

Game Creator Contest

There is an Indie Game Maker Contest that starts today and runs to the end of June, and the software to build your game is available dirt cheap this week only. The grand prize is $10,000, and the development system and the games run on Steam, for the best in online game play. To get your game development software hit the Humble Bundle site and pay what you think is fair for the package. They have tiers for those who exceed a certain minimum, with more content added as various levels are passed, but those amounts are very small. In addition, every project Humble Bundle has on offer is tied to a couple of charities, and you can select who gets what percentage of your purchase/donation. This is another variation on crowd funding, and one that I have been really impressed with, since it allows you to access some excellent stuff (including a Book selection for those of us addicted to reading) for not a lot of money. Their offerings change every week, which does put you under something of a time constraint, so you might want to consider joining their mailing list to be reminded each time new stuff comes out. I should also mention that Steam also provides the Steam Workshop, where you can learn how to create, and then upload and share your own game content for games like Duke Nukem 3D, Lords of Football, Skyrim, Legend of Grimrock, Left 4 Dead II, and a few hundred others. Any of these projects is worth checking out; all of them together? That’s a no-brainer in my book.

Sailor Moon Done Right

The folks over at Viz have licensed not only the new Sailor Moon series, but all the original series as well. They are bringing the classic ones back, uncut and unedited for the first time to North America. You will be able to buy them on DVD/Blue Ray combo packages put out two box sets per series, or you can watch them streaming on Hulu and Neon Alley. with two more episodes each week. By the time they are done, they will have put out a full 200 episodes of the various original series, and without editing out any of the dialog or relationships deemed not appropriate for a Saturday morning cartoon show. Heck, they are even keeping the character’s actual names this time, rather than changing them to something American. The first handful of episodes are already on line, with more coming every Monday. Thanks to the folks at Otaku USA for the heads up on that one, who got it from Anime News Network.