I am so looking forward to this one, which is a bit surprising since I am not a Tom Cruse fan, or at least wasn’t. But recently he has been doing some tasty Sci-Fi stories with interesting twists, and it looks like Edge Of Tomorrow may be another one. This movie is based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s light novel All You Need Is Kill. Since the film will be on the big screen on June 6th in the US, May 30th in the UK, you have time to read the book first and get ready for it.
There aren’t any real genre films this week, although the borderline horror film Awakened has some potential, as a young girl gets help from beyond the grave as she tracks down her mother’s killer. It won some awards while on the film fest circuit, and has a few actors I like, so it has possibilities. It is also in limited release, so don’t expect to see it everywhere. Even more not genre and of equally limited release, The Raid 2: Berandal is a violent martial arts police procedural out of Indonesia that may be worth checking out if you are an action fan. For myself, I will try to catch up with one of the genre movies of the last several weeks that I wanted to see but haven’t managed to make quite yet.
The winner in movies this week is Odd Thomas, the first big screen implementation of Dean Koontz’s wonderful series. But it is not our only entry; Walking with Dinosaurs is a quality first-person (first reptile?) animation that explores life in that epoch. And Jackie Chan dishes out his own style of channeling Indiana Jones with Chinese Zodiac, although his character is torn between having his monster payday and restoring his cultural heritage. And then there is The Punk Singer: A Film About Kathleen Hanna, a documentary with teeth.
In TV, Continuum: Season Two continues the story of time-hopping criminals and the unlikely collection of people who might (or might not) be able to stop them.
For western animation, Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher is worth looking into. Well, western animation except for the detail that the animation work itself was done by Mad House, the Japanese animation company. But the characters, background, story line, plot twists, and everything else about it is pure Marvel comic book all the way.
In Anime, Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust brings the final chapter in Rune Balot’s struggle to bring the man who killed her to justice. It has taken quite a while for all three feature length presentations to be released, since they came out with a full year or better between each one. Now that I finally can get the end of the cyborg revenge story, I think I am going to have to watch them back-to-back so I get all the details fresh.
Fairy Tail – Part 9 continues that excellent saga, complete with all the collateral damage you have come to know and love. In Robotics;Notes: Part 2 the members of the Robot Research Club have finished building their giant combat mecha, only to discover their work is far from over. Just to keep things interesting there is also a robot uprising and a renegade AI rampaging across the countryside.
The second film in the reboot of The Amazing Spider-Man has released its final international trailer. I don’t know why this franchise ended up with Sony when most of the Marvel universe became part of the Disney family, but they have been doing an excellent job with it. This one will be on the big screen in May.
Another twisted fairy tale from Disney, Maleficent opens in theaters on May 30th. Angelina Jolie looks like she is having fun being the bad guy for this one, although it’s more of a prequel, explaining the history that made her so evil, or at least hard-hearted.
Written by award winning author Lois McMaster Bujold, Miles Vorkosigan is one of the best characters in space opera, and the universe she created for him to inhabit is a real treat to visit. The background starts with a planet cut off from the rest of the human inhabited planets due to a disastrous nuclear war, then reunited within the lifetime of the protagonist’s grandfather. After hundreds of years of isolation, it is difficult for most of the population to understand the changes this means for society. Starting with the fact that contact with outside worlds brings with it major medical advances to a population who has spent dozens of generations practicing infanticide as their only way to avoid major mutation and extinction. Miles earliest memory is being lifted from his crib as his grandfather tries to murder him as a mutant (he isn’t, but the old man does not comprehend what made him as he is; he only knows anything different must be killed if humanity on his planet is to survive). The gun his parent held to the back of his grandfather’s head was the only reason he made it to his first birthday, let alone beyond.
There is some debate about the correct order to read the books, but I vote for going for the author listed chronological order, rather than the published order. The Vorkosiverse will make a lot more sense that way, starting at the point his parents met (and more than most universes, you NEED to understand how we got to this point if you are going to understand where we go from here, and why). This is quite a complex collection of societies covering a major percentage of the galaxy, and like Asimov before her, Bujold does not clutter up her universe with non-human intelligent species. There is only us people driving all these situations, each group fighting for their own interests and desires.
And as with any excellent series of stories, the protagonist throws a monkey wrench into the proceedings that no one in that world sees coming, and changes everything in ways no one ever expected. My own personal connection into this universe is the fact that Miles is a frail, breakable, and damaged physical specimen who can never win a battle by strength of arms. So his only option is to use wit, intelligence, heart, and desire to force his enemy to defeat themselves. There are already a goodly number of novels and a double handful of short stories embedded in this universe; I can’t wait to get more!
BTW, did I mention the author won some awards? She has won six Hugo Awards and two Nebula Awards. In fact, only Robert A. Heinlein has won as many Hugo Awards for Best Novel, although a few other authors have won 5.