Not one, but two programs, one on each side of the Atlantic! In the UK, at the beginning of the year Blue Peter went looking for script ideas for a new Doctor Who episode, and it got them. So they made the mini episode based on a story put together by grade school children, and The Doctor, Amy, and Rory will be doing it for us this Thursday the 24th as part of the next Blue Peter program. On the US side, BBC America is running the Matt Smith Top Gear episode this Monday evening, as the Doctor drives a Reasonably Priced Car.
This is Tiny’s from Second Life doing Star Wars, and it is a mighty impressive presentation. If you know anything about Machinima you will no doubt have recognized the incredible effort that went into this, from the costumes, the set building, the weapons and other props, the characters and their associated animations, the camera work, the editing… Just because it wasn’t filmed in the Real World doesn’t mean that it was some silly game. A lot of the same production hurdles are faced and overcome whichever world you are creating your film in.
This week it is Battleship on the big screen, and I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it is based on the Hasbro game Battleship, and games turned into movies are rarely any good. On the other hand, it is based on a Hasbro game, and they have already turned a cheap plastic toy from the 70’s into a movie franchise that was quite enjoyable with Transformers, so I am not willing to count this one out without seeing it first.
In movies, the one this week that tells a story worth watching is not genre; Norwegian Wood is an amazing wake-up call straight to the heart, based on the 1987 novel by Haruki Murakami. I can think of a very few movies from the 1960s and 70s that had a touch of this same spirit, like Harold and Maude, King of Hearts, and Butterflies are Free. But the story this one tells is unique, and deserves a place in your awareness. The book has been translated into at least 33 languages so far, the director was nominated for an Academy Award, and the film has won awards at Venice, Toronto, and Dubai.
In genre, Chronicle is the tale of teens with superpowers who fall into the trap you would expect of anyone thinking with their hormones instead of their brains. Descendents tells the story of a virus that turns people into zombies. I don’t see anything here we haven’t already seen done to death many times over, so I will be passing on adding these to the collection. The other title available this time is Dirty Blondes from Beyond, which may at least be silly and sexy, but again shows no promise of anything actually new and interesting.
There is a TV classic becoming available for the very first time: Ghost Story: The Complete Series was William Castle’s attempt to follow his role model Alfred Hitchcock into TV. It only lasted one season, but the actors involved included Sebastian Cabot, Jason Robards, Helen Hayes, Jodie Foster, Angie Dickinson, Geraldine Page, Martin Sheen, Stella Stevens, Karen Black, Rip Torn, Mariette Hartley, and many more. Just as impressive, the writers included Richard Matheson, D.C. Fontana, Robert Bloch and Harlan Ellison. I approve of the fact that this series is being released in a MOD (manufacture on demand ) production model, meaning they don’t burn the disk until you order it. While it may not work in every player or computer (you have to be able to do DVD-R disc format, which most but not all do), it is wonderful to see any RIAA/MPAA organization facing the inevitable and embracing the decades-old changes in the media distribution system. The fact that it also means there is no waste, no warehouse full of discs no one ordered, no pile of money spent on things they can not sell, no resources turned into a finished product that might end up gracing landfills, is nothing but bonus points all the way as far as I can see. Of course, the flip side of that probably means you will be hard pressed to find it on sale anywhere, since there will be no overstocked stores looking to dump it cheap to minimize their loss; but such is the nature of change.
The other TV programs of note this week are much less fictional, but just as entertaining. Mythbusters: Buster’s Biggest Crashes is silly fun for the science/adventure geek from beginning to end, and I probably need to pick up a Buster T-Shirt by now. The Universe: The Complete Season Six is another wonderful History Channel production telling you more about the world you live in, with some high quality simulations to give you visual examples of the various processes driving the stars and galaxies. And the Smithsonian Channel: Air & Space Collection is a DVD version of their online website which I for one want in my permanent collection. If you have any doubts, go to each web site and play the videos; these ARE the Droids you’re looking for!
In Anime, The Book of Bantorra – Collection 1 is about a world where when you die, your soul becomes a book, with all of your secrets there to be read by anyone. It is the job of the Armed Librarians to keep those books out of the hands of evildoers, and they definitely have their work cut out for them. Also new this week, Cat Planet Cuties: Complete Series has sexy alien cat-girl Eris setting up her planet’s embassy in Kio’s house, with various secret agencies and enemy dog-aliens all circling round, looking for an opening. I watched this when it streamed from Japan on Crunchyroll last year and it was silly fun all the way, but see if the dog’s laugh doesn’t remind you of another famous cartoon canine.
Finally, D.Gray-man – The Complete Second Season has been released in a S.A.V.E. edition, so you can now pick up all 26 episodes for around $20 or less.
I wanted to mention a movie you may have overlooked, a quirky combination of science fiction, punk rock, generational legacies, and living your life with true heart. Fish Story is all of that and more, a wonderful visual outing from Japan that is difficult to describe but surprisingly enjoyable. And yes, this is one of those movies that will have you cheering at the end (OK, I might have even jumped up and down a few times while cheering). I don’t know if it ever got any screen time in a movie theater in North America, but it has been released on DVD, so you can pick it up at places like Amazon, or watch it streaming online at places like Netflix. There are other things out there with the same title, so you are looking for the 2009 release from Japan.
It will be a few months yet before the Amazing Spiderman reboot comes out, but a third trailer has now been released. I really liked what they did when they rebooted X-Men, because it took you right back to the core of the question facing each of our characters. It made each one a bit more human, showing what went into turning them in to the person they became, so even when you disagreed with their decisions you understood why they made the ones they did. I can only hope they do half as good a job with this one.