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Something to Watch: DVDs

There are a number of good movies this time around, with Iron Sky telling the story of Nazi’s on the moon coming back to take over the Earth decades after they fled. I can’t quite decide if this one is more action/adventure or comedy, and I was fairly surprised when it had its world premier in Berlin. Definitely in the comedy category, Dark Shadows is Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, and a bunch of their friends having silly fun. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate is the historical epic adventure entry for the week, being a remake of the Dragon’s Inn series of movies starring Jet Li. If you are a fan of Asian martial arts films you will find you recognize a good percentage of the excellent cast, but that is the only name the average American moviegoer would recognize. Winner of the Silliest Name title this time goes to Atomic Brain Invasion.

New in TV we have season two of the series Nikita, just in time to catch up with it before the next season starts on the 19th. I am guessing they dropped La Fem off the front end of the name so you wouldn’t confuse it with the last time somebody did it as a TV series. Old in TV we have The Six Million Dollar Man: Season Two, a new release for all you Steve Austin fans.

In Anime, Strike Witches: Season Two continues the aerial combat antics of the girls with the propeller boots, in an alternate history where the enemy during WWII was aliens from outer space. Rental Magica: Collection 2 brings the second dozen stories in this magical competition series, with the Astral team hard pressed to resolve their issues, including the protagonists vision problems. I can include Mayo Chiki in today’s listing because the plot line includes both martial artist ghosts and cat girls, but it is really just a high school level romantic farce leaning towards the raunchy.

Something to Watch: DVDs

Topping the list this week is The Avengers, one of the best films I have seen in quite a while. Everything else would pale against this film anyways, but when the only other live action feature film has a title like Strippers vs. Werewolves, one wonders why they bothered.

However, there is a movie series release worth noting: Bond 50: Celebrating Five Decades of Bond. Supposedly this box set has every James Bond movie ever made, 22 movies in Blue Ray format, but that’s not really true. Obviously it doesn’t have Skyfall, but the Woodie Allen version of Casino Royale is also conspicuous by its absence. Each movie lives on its own disk and includes hours of extras, so this does end up being quite the collection.

In TV, American Horror Story: The Complete First Season also comes out. I am not a horror fan, but this series has its moments and so is worth mentioning.

For western animation, the TV version of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Volume 5 will be released in support of the primary film.

For animated feature films, Resident Evil: Damnation will also be released, but while this isn’t western animation it also isn’t Anime. It is more of a Machinima filmed in the 3D gamespace that the franchise grew from.

In Anime, Steins;Gate: The Complete Series Part 1 is one of the more convoluted and interesting time travel stories I have ever seen. Our primary mad scientist keeps sending text messages to the past through the microwave, at first to try to correct what he sees as a few interpersonal relationship hiccups with girls he wanted to be with. As each message changes the past, and therefore the present he lives in, things go from bad to worse on so many levels, and every effort to get back to the timeline he started in just digs it deeper. This package has the first dozen episodes, which gets you half way through the story. It is a special edition in both blue ray and DVD formats, so it is a bit pricey. The only extras I see are commentary on 2 episodes and a map of Akihabara, so I plan to wait for either a good sale on this package or a more cost effective release, but it absolutely will become part of the permanent collection.

The other two new anime series are historical epics. In Hakuoki: Season 1 a young woman disguises herself as a boy to seek out her father and his magical elixir of speed and strength, but ends up with the Shinsengumi as they battle the vampires of Kyoto. Croisée in a Foreign Labyrinth: Complete Collection is about revolution; the industrial revolution in Europe at the same time as the cultural revolution in Japan which opened the country to the western world. Our protagonist may be just the one to bridge the gap and help both sides grow into their new forms.

One Piece: Complete Collection 8 is the returning anime this time around, bringing more fun adventures from the Straw Hat Gang.

Something to Watch: DVDs

I usually don’t mention horror films here, but I am making an exception for The Cabin in the Woods, another Joss Whedon masterpiece. As always, he brings some twists to the table you never saw coming, which makes for quite an enjoyable film. Dawn of the Dragonslayer is the story of a young man out to avenge the death of his father at the hands of a dragon. I suppose in the interests of completeness I should at least mention Housewives from Another World, which does have a sci-fi premise.

There are a couple of documentaries you might want to check out. In movie format we have Adventures in Plymptoons, and as you might suspect from the title it is about Oscar nominated animator Bill Plympton. There is also Katy Perry: Part of Me The Movie, and yes, I am a Katy Perry fan. There is something about the attitude and energy she puts into her music that I just find addictively positive. There is a TV format documentary that also looks interesting, Project Earth from The Discovery Channel. This is a series of eight experiments that will give you a different perspective on our world.

Speaking of TV, Supernatural: The Complete Seventh Season also comes out this week, as does The Mentalist: The Complete Fourth Season. Yes, I know that last one isn’t genre, but it is quite an intelligent series that I really enjoy.

Anime starts out with two feature length films this time around. In King of Thorn a virus is sweeping the planet turning people into stone. A group of 160 with the disease are frozen to await a cure, but wake up to find their refuge has been overrun with thorny vines and hungry monsters, and it becomes hard for them to tell the difference between the waking world and a dream. This is from the director of Appleseed and The Big O, and has collected a number of awards on the festival circuit and elsewhere, so it should be a good one.

Venus Wars takes place in a future where a cometary impact helped terraform Venus into a world mankind can colonize. And of course, anywhere mankind goes, his darker nature follows, so it is no surprise that war breaks out. This is a classic of old school anime from 1989 being re-released, with the cometary impact in question taking place in the far future of 2003.

In TV, Fafner: The Complete Series has a group of Mecha riding students battling aliens out to assimilate the minds of all humans (yes, think Borg-like). Of course, the folks wielding the giant robots are also at risk of being absorbed.

Allison and Lillia: The Complete Collection (or Allison to Lillia depending on who is translating) tells of a world divided by mountains and rivers, where the two groups on either side of the divide have been at war forever. Now two completely different women and their two completely different male partners are doing their part to end the wars forever.

Persona 4: Collection 1 brings the first 12 episodes of this series, where a young man moves out of the city to a small town in the country. Instead of the peaceful more relaxing pace he is expecting, he finds himself up to his neck in a series of strange weather patterns and murders that lead him into a weird alternate reality where he must go up against the murderer from inside television shows.

Finally, The Tower of Druaga: The Complete Series is being released in a more cost effective S.A.V.E. edition this week as well.

Something to Watch: DVDs

In movies Snow White and the Huntsman is an excellent retelling of the classic tale, focusing on the darker side of the legend. I am sorry to report I missed this one in the theaters, and I have every intention of watching it now. In fact, I will probably go with the extended version. Beyond the Black Rainbow is a surreal little movie taking place in a near-future commune, and focusing on one of the inhabitants who is trying to escape. I hope she makes it.

Terra Nova: The Complete Series is a drama about a family who went back 85 million years in time to help colonize the Earth. The first season is the entire series so far, but it was not canceled outright. Rather it was announced it would be shopped to other networks, but so far I haven’t heard of anyone picking it up. The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Third Season is also out, which I find a bit surprising, since I didn’t think the series had these kind of legs on it. While not genre Castle: The Complete Fourth Season makes its way to the shelves as well. I admit I only watched this at first because the male lead had been in Firefly and Buffy, but I found it rather enjoyable and just kept watching. I suppose to keep it balanced I should also mention The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fifth Season is coming out, but the show just doesn’t do anything for me. Maybe it is the laugh track that makes me cringe and turn the channel in the first 30 seconds of its appearing on my TV set.

In Anime, Cat Planet Cuties (Asobi Ni Iku Yo!) is an absolutely enjoyable silly little ride that pokes fun at many of the Neko tropes. I particularly liked the various religious movements and secret agents of various organizations all clustering around our primary cat-girl, as well as the evil machinations of the dog empire representative. Also firmly entrenched firmly on the side of silly, Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up is a story of rampaging Yokai (evil spirits) and the team sent from Hell to subdue them. Filled with surreal action-comedy that includes a bit of lechery and a boatload of obscure anime references and in jokes, this one would be even more attractive at a more reasonable price point. I consider $5 per 25 minute episode a bit steep, and will be waiting for a more cost effective offering of this one.

Bleach Box Set 14 continues that saga, bringing us episodes 206 through 217. I think this means we are beginning to catch up, since they are currently running episode 275 in Tokyo. Cluster Edge – Collection 1 starts a new series about an academy where the children of the elite are trained to take over and control the world, but one new student may just turn the whole place on its ear and change everything. Even the artificial soldiers and religious fanatics may have a problem this time.

Something to Watch: DVDs

There are two animated full length feature films worth checking out this week, with The Pirates! Band of Misfits being another excellent comedy from the folks who brought you Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit, and Shaun The Sheep. The trailer alone had me in stitches, the movie itself is a hoot. On the more action/adventure side of life Starship Troopers: Invasion is the fourth story in the film sequence, with Casper Van Diem as the executive producer. Which may be a bit confusing since it is an animated presentation rather than live action; but it is part of the feature film series, and not the Roughnecks TV show animations. And with Shinji Aramaki as the director (his work on the Appleseed movies, Halo, and Gasaraki among others prove his skill set in producing adult oriented mecha power suit combat films) this will definitely end up being a production Robert A. Heinlein would have been proud to see.

The live action movie this time is Battleship, which still makes me scratch my head; I consider this the strangest choice for a computer game you would want to turn into a movie, perhaps exceeded only by Solitaire. Unlike the two animated feature films this week, I will catch this one on streaming when it hits that market rather than add it to the permanent collection.

In TV, Once Upon A Time was one of my two favorite shows on broadcast TV (Grimm being the other) last fall, and with the new season kicking off at the end of September the timing is perfect for this DVD release. A big chunk of why I think that is I normally DVR broadcast TV shows and watch them from the hard drive, but with this series and Grimm I decided to try out a strictly streaming approach. Unfortunately between my workload from the office and some capacity issues with the streaming servers during peak usage times I missed some episodes of each series before they were replaced by the following weeks offering. So now I have a chance to catch up with everything that happened before the new season starts, and yes, I did grab the $10 off coupon the ABC Once site has posted, good for this week only.

The other TV show this go round is The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season. I am not a horror fan generally, but my friends who are seem to love this show. I may get around to checking it out soon if they keep up the positive comments.

For western animation I am a bit torn on whether to give a recommendation or not. I absolutely love Dreamworks and all their masterpieces of whatever length, but this week is just confusing. The DVD is Dreamwork’s Spooky Stories, which is made from Shrek’s Thrilling Tales, as well as Scared Shrekless and Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space. I already own the latter two discs which were released months ago, and I own another Shrek short DVD which may or may not be the third story under a different title. But if you don’t own any Mutant Vs. Alien or Shrek short presentations than I can definitely recommend it, as the stories are hysterical. I just wish they would have been a little less ambiguous about the included titles, so I would know if I already owned them all, or at least had a search function of the Dreamworks home page so I could find more information.

In Anime, Freezing is a tale of genetically enhanced schoolgirls called Pandora’s out to kill alien invaders with the aid of their male partners, known as Limiters. And yes, you may assume the males job does not involve any actual combat, this series being more fan service oriented than anything else. One particular newly forged battle couple (Satellizer el Brigette as the Pandora, Kazuya as the Limiter) seems to be under attack by their classmates as well as the aliens, and must work twice as hard to annihilate their opponents. This one is a bit pricey, running around $42 for 12 episodes.

Pretty much the opposite of that series is Koihime Musō – Ultimate Collection, about a woman warrior from historical times who becomes a role model for other oppressed women, who all take up arms and flock to her banner. This boxed set is comprised of 3 full series each of which is 12 to 13 episodes, plus a few OVAs, so even though the asking price starts at $52 for the set (lowest price, it ranges up to $80), you get 975 minutes of program for your money, which works out to $1.30 per episode for this series.

Finally, K-ON! Season 2 – Collection 2 becomes available. I know it isn’t genre, but it is about rock music, and that is good enough for me.

Something to Watch: DVDs

It is a sad week when your choices for movies are between Zombie A-Hole and Attack of the Killer Backpacks.

In TV we have Planet Dinosaur, speculative science rather than Sci-Fi, and quite worth your time to check out. You might enjoy taking a look at this page as well if you are looking for a bit more.

Anime has a few new goodies this week starting with Shangri-La, one of my favorite shows from last year. It deals with a future Japan in the middle of a climatic crises and under economic attack, with a ruling elite holding onto the ultimate gated community while the poor starve and live on the street. Until Kuniko take up the gauntlet and fights for the survival of her people, storming the heavily armed gates of heaven’s suburb itself to see them through.

Shakugan no Shana is a story of a warrior who battles demons with a flaming sword, and the dead human boy who has been turned into one of those flames. They work together to defeat evil and maintain the balance between the supernatural world and the mundane.

Finally, No. 6: The Complete Collection takes place in a near future world where a handful of survivors cling desperately to life. There is a mystery to be solved if our two protagonists are to have any hope of survival, and they have to do it before the corrupt elite wipe them out.