Disney’s Tangled looks like the fun movie for this weekend, staring Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi. In fact you don’t have to wait for the weekend if you don’t want to, since it comes out Wednesday.
No actual winners on the movie front this week, although it could be argued that The Expendables counts since it was based on a comic book. Personally I prefer an actual sci-fi or fantasy story to count something as genre. There are a few that meet that requirement, like Deadland, a post-apocalyptic thriller about a man looking for his lost wife after WWIII. There are also a few Fangbanger films, Vampire Sisters and Lesbian Vampires. Please note that I did not recommend any of these movies, although Fire & Ice: The Dragon Chronicles could be interesting and has several actors I like.
TV shows didn’t fair much better, with the History Channel series Ancient Aliens: Season 1 being the only real selection from live action this week. Yes, I know the people doing the program think this is actual historical research, but until they bring in some actual physical evidence it is still science fiction. On the animation side Batman Beyond: The Complete Series becomes available finally.
For anime, the classic Ghost Sweeper Mikami – Collection 1 isn’t your Saturday morning ghostbusters type program. Reiko Mikami is very beautiful and very greedy; her sidekick, Tadao Yokoshima is a serious pervert hot for Reiko, which makes it easy for her to manipulate him to do all the dangerous jobs while she collects the money. Also out this week, the much more modern Sekirei – The Complete Series from Funimation. This series is a fun romp about a highly intelligent guy who doesn’t do well under pressure, and the bevy of combat babes who need him to unleash their special powers for the competition rounds. Once you are on the shows homepage, there is a link to let you watch streaming episodes online if you are not sure if this is for you.
At first I wasn’t even going to mention movies this week, since the dreadful The Last Airbender was the obvious title. But then I discovered Metropia is also being released this week, a rather dark and disturbing story about mind control in near future Europe. Even the animation work in this one helps set the mood for a tale that is fully worthy of Philip K. Dick, to the point where I expected to see it was based on one of his stories (it isn’t). Also, Avatar (Three-Disc Extended Collector’s Edition) is the DVD they should have released in the first place with all of the missing footage. But it is still not in 3D, so I suspect their goal is to try to get everyone to buy the movie three times.
In sort-of non fiction we have The Seekers Guide to Harry Potter, the reviews of which have been underwhelming. I will be giving this one a pass, but thought it should at least be mentioned.
In live action TV this week we have Heroes: The Complete Series for those who haven’t bought each season as it was released. While on the topic of live action television I would like to express my displeasure with Syfy for not only canceling Caprica, but stopping showing episodes with several unaired. Likewise kudos to Space TV for continuing to run them; too bad I don’t have that channel on my cable lineup.
In anime we have one release, Our Home’s Fox Deity. If you enjoy humorous demon fighting this is worth checking out. I suspect things are sparse this week because everything is being held back for the holiday shopping season.
First, the latest US trailer; then, from the Netherlands version of Disney, another Tangled trailer (they call it Rapunzel for some obscure reason). In this country the movie will be out Thanksgiving weekend, in that it will be December 1st.
There is a new Tron: Legacy trailer out today, quite different than the previous two and possibly the best one yet. This movie will be kick ass, I have been waiting for a few decades for them to build the sequel.
This weeks winner is the Dreamworks film Megamind 3D. Staring Brad Pitt, Will Ferrell, and Tina Fey, this looks to be the second animation of the year where you will be rooting for the bad guy (yes, I am referring to Despicable Me). This one looks like a lot of fun. Also out this weekend the Bollywood Time Travel comedy, Action Replayy.