There are a whole bunch of fun events coming up this weekend, and I wanted to mention a few of them. FaerieCon West is all about the art of Faeries, and while most of that is tied to various graphics formats, some is music, some is programming, and some is authoring. As an example, Abney Park will be hanging out and playing music at this Seattle event. If you don’t now who they are check out The Ballad of Ranch Hand Robbie and I’ve Been Wrong Before, both from their latest album (click to play, right click to save-as to disc). The other event I wanted to mention was the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival which has some amazing movies gathered together this year. Here are a few trailers to give you an idea of what they are up to…
There are several movies this week, of which Anonymous is the most interesting, as speculative historical fiction based on the concept that Shakespeare was a front man rather than a playwright. With the best cast and highest production values, it is hands down the film to beat this week. On the silly side, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas is also out on disc this week. Other options include The Yakuza Weapon and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, neither of which will be joining my collection.
I didn’t find any live action TV shows worth mentioning this week. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any coming out, I just didn’t find them.
Anime fares quite a bit better this week, starting with the second season of the ever wacky Arakawa Under the Bridge × Bridge – Complete Premium Edition and all the craziness the characters each bring to it. This release is a bit pricy, consisting as it does of a Blue Ray disk set, as well as DVD disks, and a full color 32 page hardcover art book. I am going to wait for a more cost effective release to be made available before I add this to my collection, but it will be there as soon as that happens.
Also new this week Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings – Season 1 and Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings – Season 2 are both coming out. They both run 325 minutes, with the first one having 13 episodes and the second 12 episodes and an OVA, but the SRP for the second one is $20 higher ($12 higher if you shop around). As near as I can tell the only physical difference between them is the second season comes with Cardboard “art box” big enough to hold both seasons. I am not sure if I want to pay $12 for 50 cents worth of cardboard even if it is printed with pretty pictures, so I will probably be waiting to catch this one on sale. Another two at once release, Tales of the Abyss – Part 3 and Tales of the Abyss – Part 4 both become available on Tuesday. This is a series of stories on another planet that seem to have one character in common from volume to volume, cementing the world together.
And the last of the new releases for this week is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 – Complete Season 2, a parallel Earth in which our protagonist is executed and the rebellion is crushed forever… or is it? Even though it isn’t genre, I also wanted to mention that K-ON! Season 1 box set is also coming out.
Xam’d: Lost Memories – Complete Collection brings this excellent anime together in a single box set, at a much better price then you got when you bought the two seasons separately. Akira, the movie that really broke anime out into public awareness for North America, is also being re-released, no doubt because of the American live action movie project.
A re-release I am particularly excited about is Gasaraki – Complete Series Collection, another giant mecha combat story with excellent animation and production values. I first stumbled across this one in a used DVD section of a local brick-and-mortar where they had two of the volumes. Over the years I managed to find 3 more used volumes (it was already out of print when I found the first one), but I have never been able to see the entire program. Now finally I can. And speaking of giant mecha, there are a handful of classic Gundam series being re-released this time around, three different series second seasons.
This Star Wars commercial has Darth Vader in a ladies rest room, the second on an elevator, but what exactly is it advertising? After a little research, it appears that Olleh LTE Warp is either a mobile smart phone, or a data plan service you can buy for that phone, should you happen to live in Korea. Either way, I found the commercials themselves amusing.
The new movie Mirror Mirror just looks like too much fun, I am going to have to catch this one on the big screen. It may also be Julia Roberts only time to play the bad guy, since she gets to be the evil witch in this Snow White live action reimaging.
No actual genre films this week, although Man on a Ledge could be entertaining. Do not despair, because there actually are a ton of great movies coming out this year yet. Chronicle is out next week, a story about 3 high school friends who gain superpowers and risk loosing their souls. In February we get Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, based on Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island, it is the sequel to 2009’s film version of Journey to the Center of the Earth (the good one). There will be various 3D versions of the Star Wars franchise released in theaters in the course of the year. Also in February, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance for the adrenalin junkies, and a new treat from Studio Ghibli, The Secret World of Arrietty being a retelling of The Borrowers.
Then in March it all goes nuts, starting out with the long-awaited John Carter movie, which is actually the first book in Edgar Rice Burrough’s Mars series, not the later story the title might suggest. Near future Apocalypse tale The Hunger Games was written by Suzanne Collins, and Mirror Mirror is a Snow White update with Julia Robert’s as the evil queen. And of course The Pirates! Band of Misfits from the creators of Wallace and Gromit is insane animated fun. The Raven is the fictionalized account of Edgar Allen Poe out to catch a serial killer who has been plagiarizing his books to commit his crimes, and for some strange reason someone thought it would be interesting to make a sequel called Wrath of the Titans. And that’s just the next few months; should be a pretty interesting year in the theaters.
This was too much fun to let it go completely… so here we got with more Stormtrooper dancing. The first one was called Dance Vader and took place in 2007. The second one is a Korean variation, from 2010. The third? A French animation done with stop motion. The fourth is a parody video that doesn’t actually have any dancing in it, but it fits the theme and was just too silly to avoid posting. Enjoy!