This is the second Brave trailer, and it is even more fun then the first one was. I have definitely added this to my list of must-see animations for this summer. Thanks to SFX for the heads up on this one.
Best movie selection this week definitely goes to Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s stunning Steampunk homage to a pioneer in the film industry and to movies in general. This one blew me away in the theaters, it won a Golden Globe and it is nominated for 11 Academy Awards; we will find out tonight how many of those it is taking home. If you only get one DVD this month, this is the one that gets my strongest recommendation. On the other hand, if you just want something silly, Johnny English Reborn would be the way to go. Once more Rowan Atkinson delivers a world class comedic performance, this time bringing his anti-007 character back to life.
In western TV, Todd & the Book of Pure Evil: The Complete First Season is the live action offering, and I do like their tag line: Fighting Evil, with Mixed Results. They are actually about to launch season 3 elsewhere, in the US season 2 kicks off on Fear.Net on March 13th.
In western animation, the feature length film Justice League: Doom pretty much covers all the choices.
In anime, Fairy Tail – Part 4 continues the story of the battles between guilds of wizards out to earn a living and prove who is best with episodes 37 through 48. I was not completely certain that Princess Jellyfish – The Complete Series is genre. But it has hopeless nerds with bizarre hobbies and crippling social anxieties, coupled with a late night jellyfish rescue mission; plus it is based on an award winning Manga (the award being Best Shojo Manga), and the anime was made by the folks behind Baccano, Hell Girl, and Durarara. Taken all together, how could I not include it here? You can watch some episodes online at that link and decide for yourself if it deserves to be added to your collection; when I did and discovered all the primary characters were Otaku, it went on the must watch list right away. And for pure Otaku recursiveness, Bakuman – Second Issue brings 6 more episodes of an Anime all about making a Manga, and it doesn’t get much more recursive than that.
The trailer isn’t triple X, in fact it is safe for work. The movie itself is a XXX parody of Tomb Raider, and according to several sources it actually looks like it could be fairly entertaining. This is being released to DVD sometime in February, so you might want to keep your eye out for it. Thanks to the folks at Kotaku for the heads up on this one.
The reboot of Spiderman might be noticeably better than I was thinking it would be. At the very least, this trailer is definitely looking good and showing the Spidey humor that the McGuire incarnation sadly lacked.
The first track is from the band Unlimits, and while I may not be good enough yet to follow the dialog I can sure follow the attitude! The presentation after that is the band Special Thanks doing their song NEVER GIVE UP. And to round it out, we have Blue Sugar Spirits doing their hit モノクロ. Trust me when I say you are going to like this music. And then Special Thanks comes back one last time, to do their song You say GOOD BYE. If you have trouble finding these at your local brick and mortar, check Amazon, iTunes, and iTunes Japan (you can pick up gift cards to use on iTunes Japan from places like JBox, which do take American credit cards).
The two main offerings this time are Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and The Secret World of Arrietty, bringing entertainment to two different audience segments. I enjoyed the first Ghost Rider movie enough that I don’t mind a sequel and expect to enjoy it. On the other hand, any animation from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli is a work of art on a par with Disney at its best, and even Disney thinks so; it is why they are the North American distributors for them. This one is their version of The Borrowers, and as always it is beautifully executed. While they don’t have a theme park, they do have their own museum which you should visit the next time you are in Japan. There are a few other movies this weekend, such as No Sanctuary, but I am going to be lucky to have time to see the first two.