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Things to Watch: DVDs

These came along just a hair too late to take advantage of the holiday gift giving season, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some wonderful selections available.

From the world of Live Action, A Princess of Mars goes into public release. This is a Hi-Jack Movie example, starring Tracie Lords, not to be confused with John Carter of Mars coming out in 2012, even though the first story in ERB’s Mars series was The Princess of Mars.

Also in Live Action, Lesbian Vampire Killers is being released in the US under the shortened name Vampire Killers. The cast includes a former Doctor, Paul McGann, and if you were wondering they kill lesbian vampires, rather than being lesbians who kill vampires (that’s a different movie).

The dark animation of the film 9 puts Shane Acker onto a playground dominated by Tim Burton stories, with rag dolls out to save the world after the apocolyps strikes.

From the Anime choices, the one I have been waiting for is Genshiken 2 volume 3, which completes the third series of The Society For The Study Of Modern Visual Culture. This is the true Otaku Anime series, as the fact that each volume includes an episode of the story the characters are watching on TV tends to tell you. And yes, that means on the Genshiken series disks they had the Kujibiki Unbalance OVA episodes built in as extras to the disks. When they followed that up with the second series, Kujibiki Unbalance (official page HERE, in case you want to grab any extra videos or radio play goodies), the Genshiken OVA was embedded in the extras. I assume the Kujibiki OVA 2 files are embedded in the Gensiken 2 disks (I don’t know, since I haven’t bought them yet), but I was sad to learn there would be no boxed set of the third series.

Season 1, part two of Dragonaut comes out this week. To avoid Earth’s impending destruction from an extinction level event (an asteroid impact from a rock many kilometers along each axis), a Dragon’s Egg has been cloned and grown, the resulting DRAGONs paired up with human pilot astronAUTs. But as with any good plot line, there are complications (it would be boring otherwise), and as I really liked what they did in the first half of the season, I look forward to seeing how this works out.

And then there is Baccano, the Copmplete Series, a truely unique anime with almost as many primary charactors as there are episodes. While it starts out a bit confusing, the various story lines all come together by the end of the series as long as you pay attention. This one is worth the price of admission, and very much worth getting all at once, since you have no time to forget various subplot details while waiting for the next disk to be released.

There is also season 2 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle coming out with this Tuesdays collect of Anime TV series. This one is the companion series for XxxHolic.

FYI, there are a few leaning-to-documentary programs I should mention here, like Time Warp 2, for the Science crowd (of which I am a member). But I won’t.

Things to Watch: DVDs

Last chance to release disks and have them available for Xmas. So who waited this late before moving? Top movie released this week has to be District 9; it is an incredible and surprising movie, and it is hard to believe it was made on a tiny budget. Top documentary out this week is definitely It Might Get Loud, which brings three amazing guitar players together. From TV, Kyle XY Season 3 hit the shelves Tuesday.

For Anime TV, Spice & Wolf: Complete First Season arrives, the story of a traveling trader and a wolf goddess. If you want to watch a bit of it to see if you like it, visit the official Funimation site. A single volume finishes up the first season of Ah My Buddha volume 6, kind of the Monk’s spirit power strip club version of Ah My Goddess. In live-action the movie Maid-Droid is also being released in the U.S.

Things To Do: Cons

Anime South runs from the 18th to the 20th in Destin, FL. Besides the usual Cosplay, Panels, Viewing Rooms, and Maid Cafe, they have some unusual events, like Anime Speed Dating and the Anime Tractor Pull. Musical guest Eyeshine seems to be touring the Anime and Sci-Fi Con circuit this winter, so they may be playing near you sometime soon.

Also this weekend, Tsunami 16 2009 happens in Merida, Yucatan Mexico. Unfortunately the homepage, while one of the most visually stunning images I have seen for an Anime con, is just that: a JPG image. A bit difficult to click on anything and get more information.

Things to Do: Movies, and Cory Doctorow in the Metaverse

Avatar finally comes out this weekend! The trailers have been amazing, the interactive app has been fun, and the hype has been overwhelming. I have pretty much been waiting all year for this film, and I am glad it is finally time to watch it.

Also showing on the big screen this week is RiffTrax: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza, with special guest Wierd Al Yankovic. The program is live on the 16th, with an encore replay on the 17th; feed your zip code into each date to find the closest theaters to you.

Appearing live in Virtual Reality this week is Cory Doctorow on Copper Robot, doing a real time interview in the Second Life Seaside Theater, over at World2Worlds Island. That happens on Wednesday, the 16th, 8PM SL time (11PM EST, since 2nd Life time is California time). If you already have the free 2nd Life software installed, this is the SLURL that will launch it and take you straight to the event. If you are trapped behind an office firewall and can’t get into the metaverse, you can watch it in real time at Copper Robot, or grab the podcast after the event to listen to at your leisure.

Next week brings both The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Sherlock Holmes to the big screen. I’m going to have to see each of them, and maybe swoop back for a second pass at Avatar.

Things to Watch: DVDs

The pick of the release week is the first in a series of movies; the name of this one is The 20th Century Boys 1: The Beginning of the End. It has been making the film festival rounds, and has been doing killer box office back home. With luck, they will be releasing the remaining two films in this set here soon.

I can’t believe they allow them to keep making these things, but as long as they do, I will keep buying them: Robot Chicken Season 4 is coming out Tuesday. In case you have not added any of these to your collection yet, they are also releasing season 1-4 as a box set. This is some of the most sick and twisted humor available today, from the minds of Seth and Seth.

In the Anime department, two old favorites get released in HiDef this week; Samurai Champloo: The Complete Collection, and Basilisk – The Complete Series. Each of these is an incredible job of storytelling in their own very different ways, with some of the best animation you have ever seen. Hell, even the soundtracks are world class. If you were thinking these are both historical action/dramas from the Shogunate period, one involving Ninjas and one Samurai, you would be right. They have a break with reality in the mystical and martial arts powers wielded by some of the combatants, and that is enough of an excuse to allow me to list them here (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

Previously unreleased Anime for this week includes El Cazador de la Bruja – Season 1 Part 2, which is even more interesting because this is the third series of Bee Train’s Girls With Guns set. Noir and Madlax were the first two series in the collection, which should tell you where this one is coming from. There is another Bleach volume out (number 23), but as usual I will be waiting for the box set before adding it to the permanent collection.

For another live action, we have Chai Lai Angels: Dangerous Flowers, the Thai version of Charlies Angels from the creators of Ong-Bak. Chai Lai translates to “gorgeous”, and this action-comedy has plenty of both (action and comedy).

There is a documentary hitting the shelves Tuesday as well that I thought was worth a mention: Fallen Idol: The Yuri Gagarin Conspiracy. They got the story pretty close to the way I heard it, so I suspect this will be worth watching.

Things to Watch: DVDs

For live action, J. K. Rowling’s next brilliant book has been turned into the next brilliant movie of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That film is the pivot point for this weeks releases, it seems to me.

In Anime this week, a show with a truck full of pigs, flying saucers, and crazy dream sequences comes along, and what are you going to do except cheer it on? School Rumble – Complete Series includes season 1, season 2, and the OVA, and nowhere in it does anything rumble.

Another new Anime this Tuesday is Naruto Shippuden volume 4 with still more tales on Ninja prowess. While I am a big fan of the nine-tailed fox, I will be waiting for the seasonal box set on this one, so I can see all the episodes at once (plus it’s more cost effective).

Moribito volume 8 also becomes available; the Public Broadcasting homepage of it can be found on the NHK.

Also out this week, Monster – Box Set 1 takes you into the What-If world that asks which decision would you make, when faced with a true human monster?