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Something to Watch: DVDs

The Darkest Hour has five teens in Moscow when alien invaders take over the Earth, and they spend the movie trying to survive. It is not a bad little film, but I think they made a mistake when they opened it in theaters on Christmas day, as it was not exactly holiday fare.

A rather amusing family oriented TV miniseries this time is The Witches of Oz, where best selling author Dorothy Gale discovers the stories she has been writing are based on suppressed childhood memories, and Oz is real.

The other TV choices are all older programs now available for the first time, starting with Night Gallery: Season Three. Joining Rod Serling in Season 3 were Vincent Price, Mickey Rooney, Sally Fields, Sandra Dee, Bill Bixby, and Leonard Nimoy, amongst others. Logan’s Run: The Complete Series ran on TV for the 1977/1978 season and also comes out this week.

Finally, Dark Shadows: Fan Favorites pulls all the way back to the 1960s for its episodes. Dark Shadows ran for five years, but as a soap opera it ran every weekday during that time, so it had over a thousand episodes. Besides being the first TV series to focus on the emotional needs of Vampires, Werewolves, and Witches, it was also one of the few shows of its time to include time travel and alternate universes as regular plot devices in its ongoing story arc. Every one of those details is represented in this small collection.

In western animation, Marvel Knight’s Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous becomes available this week, the second release in the series.

The new release in Anime is Naruto Shippuden: DVD box set 10, which I am not going to bother to describe, on the theory that if you liked the series enough to watch the previous 9 box sets you probably already know the story thus far.

The other anime releases this week are consolidations or Blue Ray or just plain re-releases. Oh! Edo Rocket – Complete Series is a consolidation, previously available in a box set per season, now with both seasons in a single box. Infinite Stratos is a re-release, except it also includes the OVA Infinite Stratos Encore, a short sequel, together for the first time.

Iron Sky trailer

The movie Iron Sky opens today in Finland and Norway, and tomorrow in Germany and Austria. The US release dates have apparently not yet been determined, I am sorry to say. The plot is that the German rocket program was more advanced than anyone knew at the end of WWII, and the Nazi’s populated the dark side of the moon before they were defeated. 70 years later they return to conquer Earth, with no clue what kind of technical changes civilization has evolved through while they were gone. Boy, are they in for a surprise.

Something to Do: Movies

New Total Recall trailer is out! Strangely enough, I was actually considering going to a horror comedy this weekend; Detention is finally going into wide release, or at least wider than the film festival circuit it has been on for the past year. Or maybe not; some schedules have it for this week, and some for next, and next week I will definitely be at Lockout. The other main choice for this week is Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, a documentary about Comic Con. For me, documentaries rarely require the big screen to tell their story, so I may wait on the DVD for that one. But I am hoping some theater is running the trailer for the new Total Recall movie, because it looks like another great Philip K. Dick roller coaster ride of a film!

Something to Watch: DVD’s

The best movie this time around appears to be a documentary: Being Elmo: A Pupeteer’s Journey is a look behind the scenes at the creator of one of the worlds best loved puppets. And no, it is not Jim Henson, but someone who really wanted to work with him. The film itself racked up an impressive number of awards at festivals around the globe. Alien Opponent, on the other hand, is a bit silly but didn’t mean to be; I can not recommend it to anyone, really.

Top TV selection is Torchwood: Miracle Day, the joint project between Starz and the BBC. Actually, that is about the only live action TV selection this time around, except for re-releases.

The completely new Anime offering is Ōkami-san & Her Seven Companions, a fable-like fairy tale of truly silly proportions. Not that it doesn’t have its serious side, and based on the trailer and what I have read I suspect this one will be quite good.

Two favorite series are returning with new seasons. Motto To Love Ru -Trouble, the complete collection, continue the story of our teleporting alien girl and all the craziness that comes along with her for another dozen episodes. The Polyphonica Crimson S likewise continues its storyline, of musical magic working with the police, and the missing spirit companion returning, at which point our hero discovers she is really the dreaded Crimson Annihilator. How will he survive this one? The web site is undergoing maintenance, or I would have posted a link.

Take-away Zombie Apocalypse

If you live in the UK you can now order a Zombie Apocalypse for you and your friends, according to Starburst Magazine. You call a group called BuyAGift and sign up to have the experience at one of their locations, which include an abandoned shopping mall and a classic manor house. Actors portraying brain eating zombies do battle with actors portraying zombie survivalists and/or the police, and you get some orientation training and props so you can join in on the side of the living. Sounds like even more fun than those murder mystery dinners.