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Something to Watch: DVDs

Choice off the week for movies has to be Paul, the wonderful Pegg and Frost romp across the American southwest in the liberation of aliens assault. It isn’t the only silly fun option, though, as the film Your Highness also becomes available on Tuesday. The film Super may also be a comedy, but not silly; more in the black comedy range, with some serious issues lurking just beneath the surface. I’m thinking all three of these need to follow me home this week.

In TV, the Tom Baker era Dr. Who: The Sun Makers is the only offering of note this time around. Companions Leela (Louise Jameson) and K9 round out the primary cast, with Leela’s eternal question of why can we not kill them? being prominent.

In western animation, Mars Needs Moms is the Disney feature film with an all star voice cast and some quality animation work.

In Anime, Soul Eater: Parts 3 & 4 is being released in a combined box set under the title Soul Eater: The Weapon Collection at a considerable savings over buying the two seasons separately. Parts 1 and 2 were released a bit ago in a combined edition as well, under the title The Meister Collection, which means by shopping around you can pick up the entire 4 season series for about $50.

Battleships trailer

There have been a lot of games converted into movies, most of them have been science fiction, and a lot of them have been bad. Somehow I never visualized the classic board game (later adapted for the computer) Battleships being turned into a movie, nor would I have expected it to be sci-fi. And yet, it appears both of those things are true, at least as far as their first trailer for the film is concerned (some, like Topless Robot, disagree with this conclusion).

Something to Do: Movies

No doubt about it, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has to be the movie of choice for the week, doing an excellent job of letting us know exactly how the whole thing got started. As with all the best tragedies it was born from the best of intentions, with a lofty and laudable goal; curing one of the major plagues of our time, Alzheimer’s. If the trailer is any indication this one should be edge of your seat time adventure.

If you are looking for lighter fare, The Change Up may be what you are looking for. It is a familiar enough trope; two people are each jealous of the others situation, and through magical intervention swap bodies. Hopefully the writers find some humor to bring to the table that isn’t as well used as the stories premise.

The documentary choice this week is a major slice of history. Magic Trip was filmed back in 1964 but never seen until now, as Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Neal Cassady, and the Merry Band of Pranksters made their epic road trip to the New York Worlds Fair.

Something to Watch: DVDs

In movies there don’t seem to be a lot of choices this week; Stake Land pretty much looks like it, and I am not terribly enthused about this one. However, there is a box set that should be fun: Mystery Science Theater 3000: MST3K vs. Gamera XXI has all 5 Gamera films with the famous MST3K audio overlay going on.

In TV, The Colony: Season 2 is a very interesting show, if you haven’t seen it. It is sort of the Discovery Channel reality TV version of the BBC’s Survivors, the setup is post-apocalyptic and the goal is to prosper in the face of adversity as a team. Unlike the wimpy broadcast TV equivalents, this program includes full tilt combat situations as part of the environment and resolution process. The other TV program of note is about a different battle: Ed Sullivan Presents: Rock N Roll Revolution is all about the British Invasion of the 1960s, and how America fought back. Of course, that battle took place on the dance floors and for the first time ever for a purely cultural clash on TV (there had been a number of political clashes on TV before that). The one notable Ed Sullivan Show performance that should be on the disk but is missing appears to be The Doors Light My Fire.

The western animation selection this time is Rio, a delightful little film put together by Blue Sky Studios, who did the entire Iceage series of animations. The choreographed areal dance/music sequences are some of the best I have ever seen.

For anime, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Part 5 continues the steampunk and sorcery parallel timeline story as brothers Elric and Alphonse struggle to regain what they have lost. With this one they also finish up the Brotherhood storyline, which was much closer to the original Manga than the first anime series was.

Womanthology

Are you a comics or graphics novel fan? Do you have any idea how much work, effort, and talent goes into creating even a single issue of a single title? If you comprehend that, did you notice how many of the best artists and story tellers are women in this male dominated marketplace? 140 of those women got together to work on the Womanthology Project, a massive graphics novel anthology created under the direction of Renae De Liz. I urge you to check out their new project, and contribute whatever you can through their Kickstarter Interface; since 100% of their proceeds will go to charity they need our donations to create this work in the first place. I should probably list the project participants and tell you what all else they have created, which is a big percentage of the comics you are reading today, but why should I when I can let a few of them speak for themselves in the videos below. That should give you a basic idea, and a few of these links should allow you to learn more. Thanks to The Nerdy Bird for the heads up on this one.

Something to Do: Movies

Cowboys & Aliens is the major release this weekend, and you can believe I will be there to see it on the big screen. Not since the days of the Radio Ranch (1935, Gene Autry versus the aliens living underground and hiding from the cowboys) have we seen a story like this. If you are not already familiar with it, check out the Phantom Empire series, which you can watch online. It is nice to see these classic stories coming around again to entertain us all.

Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D is an animated movie built from the Machinema underpinnings of a world class game, much as Final Fantasy was. You get one shot at seeing it on the big screen, on Tuesday, the 26th of July (yes, that would be tomorrow) at 7:30PM local time. It is being presented as a one time movie event, part of the Fathom Events package, where a live presentation happens in one location, and gets broadcast via satellite to movie theaters across North America. They also use this for Opera, Sporting Competitions, Business Meetings, and church services, so it is nice to know they are using it for something worth the bandwidth.