The primary selection this week is Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, based on the second book in James Dashner’s Maze Runner YA series. There are 5 books so far, so if it does well enough at the box office there may be three more films coming. For those wondering, I linked to the Japanese page for the movie because the US site set off my Site Adviser with warnings about aggressive linking. For those who were hoping for something sillier this weekend also brings us Cooties, in which a virus turns the elementary school kids into killer zombies. The teachers, led by Elijah Wood, have the fight of their lives trying to escape while three of them have an ongoing verbal battle trying to resolve their love triangle. I think I might go for silly this time around.
In movies we have Cinderella, a new live action take by Disney on the classic story. If you are looking for something a bit sillier you might want to check out Lego Star Wars: The New Yoda Chronicles Complete Collection. TV has Sleepy Hollow: The Complete Second Season, and Fox actually signed off on season 3. And I suppose I should also mention The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Eighth Season, even though I don’t personally watch it.
In Anime the The Irregular at Magic High School: Nine Schools Competition Arc siblings Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba are at two different levels, Practitioner and Engineer, but the lowly engineer is changing the way the science of Magic is applied, and overturning the way everyone from the Military to the Yakuza thought the world worked. This show is following a rather unusual release pattern in that they are not putting it out by season, but by story arc. Since it ran for two seasons but was made up of 3 separate story arcs of different lengths that can become a little confusing, and it doesn’t help any that this set is priced around twice as much per episode as the usual initial release run. I will be waiting for a better deal and the complete series in a single box before I pick this up. If I feel the need to watch it again before that time comes I will stream it. Also out this week is The Comic Artist & His Assistants, which isn’t exactly genre, but rather a recursive story about creating one of the media formats the stories are told in.
The summer Anime season is winding to an end, and three clear winners have caught my attention. Gate remains my favorite, with the action and international espionage in the Special Zone and Japan torquing up with every episode. I really hope they are planning a second season of that one, there is a lot of story yet to tell in that universe. Charlotte kicked into high gear in episode 9, when the introduction of a new power completely changed the nature of the story. And while it still reminds me a lot of Attack On Titan, God Eater is very definitely its own story, and quite an exciting one. At this point those are the shows I am watching as soon as they become available, often checking several times during the day to see if they are ready yet.
The Hallways trailer for American Horror Story: Hotel is slick, and they just announced adding Lady Gaga to the cast (or at least I just heard about it). It hits the small screen on FX on Wednesday, October 7th.
If you haven’t checked them out before, the folks at Humble Bundle are worth a look. They come up with various bundles of items and offer them on a pay what you want basis, then split the proceeds between the content creators and one or more charities chosen by that creator (if it is more than one charity, you can direct them to apply your money to just one of them, or give a specific percentage to each of them). If you pay more than a fairly low average payment, that unlocks some additional goodies in the same collection while increasing your total charitable contribution. As each bundle hits various total target amounts contributed, additional swag is added to the bundle, pretty much the same reward system used by Kickstarter, where both your individual contributions and the total group contributions up the ante on the deal.
Most often but not always the stuff Humble Bundle has on offer are games, books, and audio dramas. They have a couple of good ones this week, with their Books choice being Neil Gaiman Rarities. Besides his very first published story, it also has one of his Babylon 5 screenplays and a boatload of other rare tales and collections. As you noticed if you took the first link I posted here, the main package this week is about $200 of Tom Clancy classic games, while the Weekly Bundle and Mobile Bundle each have a selection of games as well. Every few days something gets added, or a selection changes, so you want to check back often. As for me, I am going to grab the Neil Gaiman bundle this week, going high enough over the base amount to both maximize my charitable contribution and make sure I get all the extra stuff as each target is reached. This is my kind of win-win, and they keep doing it, over and over.
This week we get Listening, a film about some of the potential consequences of inventing mechanically induced telepathy. I assume it is an Indi film since I could not find a major distribution company associated with it, since it has won a number of awards on the film fest circuit, and since it will only be in a limited number of theaters. If you aren’t near one of those theaters it will also be available on demand from iTunes, so you can watch it anywhere you are. Another option is the non-genre Bollywood film Hero, about a Mumbai gangster and the police chief’s daughter. It is an action/romance film complete with dance numbers, for those looking for a change of pace.
'Hero' Hindi Movie Official Trailer 2015 Sooraj… by sohailshoukat2704