We get animated silliness this week in the form of The Nut Job, a comedy about some overly ambitious squirrels who destroy their home while trying to stock up for winter. Also out this week is Collider, which looks pretty interesting. The official site is a bit unclear as to what country it is coming out in; it might just be Ireland. I hope it includes the US, since this one appears to have an original plot line, something that is getting hard to find out of Hollywood.
Shaolin Warrior comes very close to being genre, since all martial arts movies are fantasy films at heart. I don’t mean because of the various gods and demons that sometimes populate them, that is a matter of personal belief and spiritual worldview. I am referring to the superhero-like powers the fighters have, which enable them to do many things on a par with Captain America, Thor, or Spider Man. The other movie that looks interesting this week is CBGB, a movie about the punk scene centered around the legendary club n New York.
In TV there is a BAFTA-nominated fantasy/supernatural program focused on teens called Wolfblood. They are high school aged werewolves who must hide what they are even from their closest friends, or their entire specie may be hunted down and killed. Like being in high school wasn’t stressful enough. This release is the first season of the CBBC series, hopefully season 2 will be along soon.
In Anime, So I Can’t Play H: Complete Collection is not the most subtle series you will run across (Hint: in these kind of titles, the H always stands for Hentai). This is about a teenage boy who makes a deal with a Shinigami to let her use some of his essence to stay in this world, but instead of taking years off his life like a normal goddess of death would do, she drains off his lecherous libido. Now he has to figure out how to get those feelings back, or he will completely miss out on a major aspect of any mans youth. Fate/Zero: Complete 2nd Season continues the epic of the Holy Grail Wars, with Zero being (rather confusingly) the 4th such war, but the first one to take place.
Ikki Tousen: Great Guardians is the third series in the original martial arts with exploding clothes franchise. Each of these high school students is the reincarnation of one of the most famous martial artists from throughout history, and they will battle it out to see who is the best. Chrono Crusade is coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, which means if you shop around you can pick up the entire series about the premiere Combat Nun of the 1920s (and her demon sidekick) for around $20.
In my book, it’s still the holidays until we hit New Years, so one more set of images is allowed. This time around it is the star at Seven Dials, and some more stars from just a few blocks away. Blocks is kind of a lose term in London, and any other city that is a thousand years old or better, I suspect. The place wasn’t exactly planed and designed, but just kind of grew there as people built stuff. So no two blocks are the same size, and roads rarely meet at 90 degree angles, which looks kind of strange to anyone who grew up in a city laid out on a grid. Seven Dials itself is a perfect example; 7 roads all intersect at a single circle, pretty much at the same angles as the points on that star, hence the name of the neighborhood.
The day after Xmas, December 26th, is often called Boxing Day, but not because they have a bunch of boxes they need to throw out (although that would have been my guess). Rather, after all the important people have celebrated the holiday, they hand out Xmas Boxes to the servants, peons, and blue collar workers who had to keep everything going during the first celebration. I find this more than a bit depressing, so I will just jump straight back into the lights. This time around a few of the Oxford Street offerings, which were quite amazing. Besides the lights above the street which everyplace else had, they included some optional choices to layer entire buildings in lights, which was quite exceptional.
I hope this day finds you well and you are enjoying the company of your nearest and dearest. These images of the Xmas Tree are once more part of the holiday decorations in Covent Garden in London. If they look crisper or more in focus than some of the earlier pictures, its because my friend Jenn has much better cameras and a lot more practice than I do; these are her work.
What Santa would leave Rudolph behind on Xmas Eve? You can see the building behind it to give it a sense of scale, but to make it more obvious I am including a daytime snap with people all around. Jenn took the night time shot, I took the daytime. Besides her having the better cameras, there wasn’t any fog at night. I had always thought the scenes of foggy London streets in TV and Movies was done for effect with dry ice; not so much, it turns out.
