If you hadn’t already guessed from previous posts, I will absolutely be in the theaters for opening day of the Marvel/Disney production of Big Hero 6.
I have been looking forward to The Boxtrolls for a while now, and it is finally time to see them on the big screen. Based on Alan Snow’s children’s novel Here Be Monsters, it is one of a series. I am hoping that the film does well enough at the box office that they decide to go ahead and make the rest of them. If you are looking for something a bit grittier, The Equalizer is also coming out this week. It stars Denzel Washington, and is based on the 1980’s TV show of the same name.
You can jump over to Nickelodeon if you want to watch the next episode of the new animated version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it airs on Friday on their cable channel. I don’t know if they plan on doing this on a regular basis, or if it is just the A Chinatown Ghost Story episode that gets to be seen early on their site. Thanks to the folks at Comic Book Movies for the heads up on this one.
I am definitely looking forward to this one coming out… Go Marvel! Big Hero 6 will be hitting theaters in November.
In Movies, the animated Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return has an amazing voice cast, if the animation and story were crafted with as much care it just might be a winner. While not exactly genre, Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlaas is a historical epic, taking place in the 16th century as a man tries to get justice for the illegal acts of a nobleman. Finally, Aftermath is 9 people trapped in a basement as the world is turned into a radioactive wasteland, and it will not be coming home with me.
In TV, Haven: The Complete Fourth Season continues the excellent and strange TV show based on Steven King’s Colorado Kid. Elementary: Season 2 brings more Sherlock Holmes goodness from this side of the Atlantic. From the other side we get the UK interpretation of The Musketeers, in which the new Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi, plays the evil Cardinal Richelieu. Remember the 1999 show Now & Again? In episode one our protagonist is killed by being hit by a train, and wakes up to discover the government has installed his brain in a perfect artificial body. Their goal is to make him a black ops super spy that no-one knows exists; his goal is to return to his wife and daughter, whom he dearly loves. After all this time they are finally releasing its single season to disc. I thought it showed a lot of promise, they should have given it a second season. The Walking Dead releases season 4 this week as well.
In Anime Heaven’s Lost Property Forte was the name they gave season 2, and it is coming out in an Anime Classics edition, meaning you can now pick it up for around $25. I haven’t been able to decide if Watamote is genre because it is fantasy, or just delusional because the protagonist is living in her own little fantasy world. But since she is both a Hikkikomori and an Otaku, I guess that makes her officially part of the genre landscape, and therefore in need of a mention here. It is actually quite an amusing twisted little anime series, in the same way that Welcome To The NHK is, and worth checking out.
Disney’s Big Hero 6 already has me laughing and cheering, and the movie won’t be out for months yet. I have commented on it previously from the perspective of the Marvel property it comes from, a graphic novel/manga of the first order with a lot of links to Japans Pop Culture. And that’s without even going into the whole Pixar/Miyazaki/Disney animation connection. As a single example, did you see Totoro in Toy Story 2, and recognize that high-quality animation universe crossover?