One of the better Anime trailers I have seen recently belongs to Master of Martial Hearts from Funimation, with the box set hitting the shelves next week. While some of the reviews on this series are somewhat less than stellar, I just had to share the trailer…
There are a few good films coming out in August, starting with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, a comic book movie I have been waiting about a year to see. The premise is simple; if it is really love, you will be willing to fight for it. The style is anything but simple; full blown comic book reality mode for this one.
Also in August, Tales from Earthsea is the US release of a Miyazaki animation of an Ursula K. Le Guin classic story. Except this time it is Goro Miyazaki, son of genius filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, in the directors chair. It took this Anime four years to make it to this country, but the wait is worth it.
I am somewhat curious as to just who thought a remake in 3D would salvage this film? I am referring to Piranha 3D, of course, also due out this month. I hold out a bit more hope for Vampires Suck, but only a bit. It is, after all, a spoof of the Twilight franchise, which was pretty bad before anyone decided to poke fun at it on film.
Topping the list of movies released to DVD this week is Kick-Ass, one of the more violent comics made into a movie for this year. I really do hope they make a sequel for this one, although I am not quite sure where else they could take the story. In the non-fiction department, Dragon Masters looks to be the film to beat.
I have been waiting for a decade or two to be able to add Max Headroom: The Complete Series to my collection. Depending which web site you believe, this will either be available the 3rd or the 10th of August, but that is a small detail compared to the 1984 to 1987 initial programming dates. As near as I can tell, this box set is only the 14 episode US TV series, which was much wimpier than the original BBC TV Movie, and completely different than the BBC TV series. But it is more Max Headroom than has ever been previously available, so it is a great start! Set your TVs for 23 minutes into the future. The other TV release worth noting this week is Heroes: Season 4.
On the Anime front, Naruto Shippuden Box Set 3 becomes available. I personally enjoy Shippuden more than I did the previous series with the younger characters, although the gap between what is out on DVD and what is legally streaming online is fairly large. Since I only started watching the streaming stuff in the last 6 months or so, I think there are still about a hundred episodes between the two segments I haven’t seen yet. The Sola box set is also available this week. This strange little story involves a boy with a secret he does not know and an addiction to photography, and a girl who can not coexist with the sun.
Princess Resurrection: Complete Collection is not one of your more upbeat Animes, what with the protagonist dieing at the start of the series. He is brought back to life, but only for as long as he will be the Princesses servant. This one is Subbed, not Dubbed, so you get to hear the original voice actors. If your aggressive side needs some exercise, the Ikkitousen: Dragon Destiny complete box set hits the shelves. This one is a modern day retelling of the Romance of the three kingdoms story, with the high schools battling it out for supremacy.
Playing Doctor Who, that is. It has frustrated me for years that the BBC kept developing all kinds of wonderful online games that folks in the UK got to play, but the rest of us were locked out of. They have finally come up with a solution for that: Direct2Drive Dr Who is now an option for those of us on this side of the pond. Admittedly it costs money (4 or 5 dollars compared to free to folks in the UK), but since the previous games were not legally available at all I consider this a serious improvement, and will be handing them some cash.
In the meantime, you CAN have some fun working out the Doctor Who Jigsaw Puzzles, and they are a bit of a hoot.
The leader for fantasy movies this week is Clash of the Titans. While I thought the movie took itself a little too seriously, it was still a fun flic. A much more serious topic is explored in the science fiction film Repo Men, where it doesn’t bode well to be late with your payments for your body parts. For problems of a planetary scale, there is Ray Bradbury’s Chrysalis. Based on a short story by the famous author, it explores a theme of ecological catastrophe and human evolution. Out of the foreign films this week, Just Another Pandora’s Box caught my attention by the title alone, but on investigation it looks like this comedy/fantasy has enough laugh power to be worth the ride. Finally, Welcome to Earth made the film fest rounds, and even got mentioned for a few awards, so it should be worth checking out, in a direct-to-DVD kind of way.
SG-U Stargate Universe: 1.5 brings us the second half of season 1. While I have been really enjoying the series, the release style annoys me tremendously, so I will not be adding this to my collection until I can find it on sale. Like Battlestar Galactica before it, they have only released half the season but are asking a full seasons worth of money for it (it lists at $39.95). This is not a trend I am willing to support with my wallet. Both Flash Forward and Eureka also released half season box sets, but with a list of $29.95, most outlets sold them for $20, or half of what a full season goes for; that’s a price scheme I can live with. A 1972 British TV series not previously available in the US also comes out on Tuesday: The Black Arrow. My first thought was a variation on the Green Arrow, but it looks to be a bit more Robin Hoody.
The Machinima legend returns with Red Vs Blue: Reconstruction, season 6 and 7 of the series. After being on opposite sides for so long during the Blood Gulch era (seasons one through five, previously released), they now team up to solve a new problem. For new Anime there is only one real choice this week: Hell Girl Two Mirrors: Collection 2, which finishes up the 2nd season. I look forward to finding out how Hell’s debt collector has her own fate resolved. As usual, there are a few classics being re-released in reduced cost box set editions, like Love Hina and Magic Knight Rayearth
It just doesn’t stop when Comic-Con is happening. Here is a new Megamind trailer, and a great article about Munnfrom the Post relayed from the Con. Awards handed out at the con include Moto Hagio’s Inkpot Award (very well deserved, in my opinion), and of course all kinds of video blogs are coming out of there, at the rate of a day an hour or so (or so it seems). What a party.