A ton of movies based on Philip K. Dick books have been made, but Amazon is taking a shot at doing a TV series based on The Man in the High Castle. This multi-award winning novel takes place in a parallel time line where Germany and Japan won WWII, and the number one underground hit in occupied America is a science fiction story about the Allies winning the war instead. Executive produced by Ridley Scott, this is part of Amazon’s new Amazon Pilot Season. They basically made the pilot episode, you watch it, and you rate it, telling them if you want to see more. They will turn some of these pilots into original series which you can watch on their streaming service, and I really hope they go with this one; the pilot was excellent.
Project Almanac is about a group of friends who stumble across a time machine one of their parents were working on, and finish assembling it. It doesn’t take them long to realize this was a mistake. Alien Outpost is about a documentary crew following an elite unit of soldiers in the wake of an alien invasion. Hard to Be a God has group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization. The movie is Russian, I have no idea why the official site I found for it is in Japan. At least the The Official Site of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the folks who wrote the story it is based on, is from there. In Legends from the Sky a Native American Veteran is looking for his missing grandfather after his land is taken over by an unknown federal organization looking for a UFO. Note that some of these are limited engagements and won’t be found in a lot of theaters.
The animated romantic comedy The Book of Life is being released this week, with a unique visual style from Guillermo del Toro. Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, also animated, has Aquaman having to choose sides between Atlantis and the Justice League when war with the surface breaks out. The one unanimated selection this time, The Remaining, is closer to horror than fantasy or sci-fi. I didn’t find much in the way of genre western TV this time around.
In Anime we have Log Horizon: Collection 2, continuing the story of 30,000 players trapped in the online game Elder Tales, unable to escape. We also have Lupin the 3rd: Napoleon’s Dictionary, in which the secret of the Lupin family treasure is revealed. Both of these shows are adventurous and funny, if you are not already familiar with them you might want to start at the beginning; click the Oldest button on the Crunchyroll page to start with the first episode of the first season. The first season of Lupin the 3rd is streaming on Hulu, and about half of it was done by the legendary Miyazaki; he also did the feature film sized Castle of Cagliostro, a truely excellent Lupin the 3rd outing.
The first two episodes of Haphead go live on their web site tonight, right after they show the entire first season at the Royal Theatre in Toronto tonight. It is a cyberpunk tale about a new haptic peripheral which makes videogames so immersive that people learn skills just by playing them (yes, that is pretty much their tag line). Thanks to Cory Doctorow for the heads up on this one.
There is a new trailer out for Avengers: Age Of Ultron, as if we needed any additional urging to see this film.
Wishing a happy 81st birthday today to Tom Baker, the 4th Doctor.