This week Vice appears to be a variation on Westworld, with Bruce Willis’s character having designed a resort where anything goes. The customers can play out their wildest fantasies with robots who look and act like human beings. When one of the fembots becomes self aware and tries to escape things start getting ugly. While not genre, Blackhat is enough of a computer geek plot line to rate a mention here as well. If you are looking for something more family friendly, the animation Robodog is also out this weekend, as is Paddington.
The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power is pretty much it this week for live action films, while DuckTales, The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp does it for western animation films. The first is direct to disc, while the second hasn’t been in theaters since 1990. I could also mention John Wick, which isn’t genre but could be fun.
In Anime we get One Piece: Collection 11, because you just can’t have too many episodes about friendly pirates. A Certain Magical Index: The Movie; The Miracle of Endymion has a space elevator under construction as the setting for a battle between science and magic, with a miraculous singer as the prize. Kamijo and Index have the fight of their lives on their hands in this one. Chaos Head: The Complete Series is coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, so you can pick up this twisted expedition into paranoia for a very small price. Finally, the parallel universe romantic fantasy Amagami SS Plus brings a continuation of the original seven stories.
The band Passepied has another animated music video with the song Zeitakuna Iiwake, which may mean Luxury Excuse. As usual for this band, I enjoy them as much for the animation work as for the music, because it is always an interesting visual to go with the excellent sound.
We have entered 2015, and there are a lot of good things coming for the year. One of those things is movies, and I thought I should mention a few I am looking forward to. In January, Strange Magic brings a lot of silliness to animated war. February brings the live action/adventure Jupiter Ascending, the rather silly Hot Tub Time Machine 2, and the graphic novel spy thriller Kingsman: The Secret Service. In March we have the South African robot rights drama Chappie, the live action reboot of Cinderella, and the latest from the Divergent Series: Insurgent. That just starts the year off, there are a lot more coming after that, including the next Avengers film; it looks to be a very good year.
In Saturn’s Rings covers topics from the big bang to the near future as seen from the perspective of the Cassini-Huygens Mission at Saturn. This is an IMAX film that will be playing in museums and planetariums around the country. Hot Bot is at the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum, but could be fun. Two unpopular teen geeks accidentally discover a life-like super-model sex bot.
I wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday, from Merry Christmas to Happy Hanukkah and everything in between. I hope 2014 has been a very good year for you, and that the new year brings you one even more enjoyable.
One of the things that I enjoy about this season is the lights and festive displays. Last year I was in the UK for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, and since it took place near the end of November the city of London was fully decked out in anticipation of the holidays. I took quite a few photos there, since everywhere I looked seemed to have one holiday decoration after another. Sadly I am not a very good photographer, and a lot of the pictures I took didn’t turn out very well. So it was a good thing my companion on that journey is an amazing camera person with a true eye for what makes a great photograph; thanks to her skills and efforts, I have a few holiday images to share with you today. Enjoy the slid show, and may you and yours have a great holiday and an excellent new year.