The amusing film this week appears to be The Family, a Luc Besson production about a Witness Protection arrangement that puts a mob couple (Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer) and their kids in a quiet town in France. They don’t quite fit in, to the point that their whereabouts become known to the folks they are supposed to be hiding from, and all hell breaks loose. Not genre, but the best bet for this weekend. There is also one genre movie called Cybornetics: Urban Cyborg, which, as near as I can tell, isn’t actually going to be playing anywhere near me, and based on the trailer I wouldn’t be going to see it if it was.
Star Trek Into Darkness starts us off this week, continuing the excellent J.J. Abrams reboot of the franchise. I would buy a 4K TV to watch this on, if I didn’t need to eat or pay rent for the next few years, it was just that good. I am going to count Delete as a movie, since it was a miniseries on a cable system channel about movies called Reelz. Seth Green and Matt Frewer have to save the world when the internet wakes up and decides humans are dangerous and unnecessary. The Last Keepers is a family friendly show about a young woman who discovers all the women in her family have mysterious powers; the trailer looks great and the cast is very impressive, but I couldn’t find a home page for it. I won’t bother to mention Frankenstein’s Army.
In TV, Supernatural: The Complete 8th Season looks like the best bet this week, although Castle: The Complete 5th Season is a lot of fun even if it isn’t genre.
In Anime, Blue Exorcist: The Complete 2nd Season continues the battle between demons and humans with episodes 13 through 25. Our protagonist Rin is on trial at the Vatican to determine if he will be imprisoned or inducted into their anti-demon army. Bleach: Season 18 brings us up to episodes 256 through 267 as the Soul Reapers continue their never ending battles with things that would destroy humans.
Last Exile: Fam, The Silver Wing comes out as two box sets, parts 1 and 2, totaling 21 episodes. This is the sequel to The Last Exile, in which the Earth was restored and a long war ended through Steampunk Mad Science. In this series, those who survived remaining behind on the surface of the Earth make war on the returning exiles, attempting to destroy country after country. The final new entry this week is This Boy Caught a Merman, about an unusual relationship that has more to overcome than most.
There is a re-release worth noting this time around: Patlabor: The Mobile Police TV Series collection 2 is episodes 13 through 24 of this classic series. The director (and one of the writers) on this series was Mamoru Oshii, who went on to do all the different Ghost In The Shell Cyberpunk movies and TV series, and first became famous for his work as director of the very surreal Urusei Yatsura.
The Tomorrow People is a blast from the past, completely redone for a modern audience. The CW is a great channel for these kind of projects, being willing to try out something new and give it a chance, unlike Fox and others of that ilk.
The original Tomorrow People was a British children’s show which ran from 1973 through 1979, and then got reincarnated in 1992 for a single season. The team at Big Audio Finish then turned it into a series of Radio Plays running from 2001 through 2007. I look forward to seeing how this new incarnation works out, because I have loved the concepts behind each version and series, but I do not feel any of them delivered on that promise. After what I saw the CW do with Arrow, I think there is a chance I will finally get to see some Tomorrow People episodes begin to meet their full potential. And if they don’t, hey, at least I get to see another Arrow episode!
The most impressive new broadcast TV show for me last time around was Arrow, with excellent writing, a killer cast of some of my favorite actors, kick ass production values, and an adherence to the same sensibilities that addicted me to the original comic version in the first place. Season 2 starts on Wednesday, October 9th, and I had to share a few of my favorite trailers to gear me up for the next round. If you are not already watching this show, you want to check it out. Did I mention which show it is going to share the evening with?
Based on Veronica Roth’s YA series of novels, Divergent will be hitting the big screen next year, and the first trailer is now online. Teenagers in a dystopian future is the setting, and if the first film does well, there are two more books in the series.
The Hugo Awards were handed out this weekend at Worldcon as always, which this year was LoneStarCon 3 in San Antonio, Texas. For the full list of who won and how the presentations went down, be sure to stop by the Hugo Awards site, but I figured I should mention a few on the ones I found of interest.
Best Novel was grabbed by Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, written by John Scalzi, while Best Novelette was awarded to The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi, by Pat Cadigan. Joss Whedon got Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form for The Avengers, an honor he well deserved. Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form went to George R.R. Martin and collaborators this time around for Game of Thrones: Blackwater, beating out 3 Doctor Who episode nominations and breaking the Doctor Who string of wins in that category over the last several years.
Stanley Schmidt pulled in 2 awards, and Clarkesworld, SF Signal, and SF Squeecast all won in the various Zine categories. I recommend checking out the source article for the full list with all the details and the links, but for the first time in a couple of decades I completely agreed with the winners for those works I was familiar with. Usually I am at around 40%, this one was a nice change.