This weekend we have a rather silly film: Zookeeper tells the story of a man who’s social skills are so bad he takes lessons from some real animals on how to get the girl.
Hell Girl has been streaming for a while, but now Anime Network has added Maria Holic to the online streaming collection. The Anime Network YouTube site starts out with a very nice Angel Beats trailer, which should be online sometime soon (actually already online if you get your feed from the Anime Network paid service). All of which means you have a good site to watch some quality Anime from, whenever you are so inclined. Enjoy!
The top movie this week is The Adjustment Bureau, yet another Philip K. Dick story given the big screen treatment. I thought the early 1960s stylization of the sets and costumes was a good choice, since that matched up with the era it was written in. Another good one is The Eagle, the dramatization of what might have happened to the Ninth Legion in 120 AD. To counterbalance those, we have Van Von Hunter, a silly live action movie based on an American comic but filmed by Tokyo Pop (you may have recently seen their movie Priest), a now defunct American production and distribution company for predominately Japanese properties. The other counterbalance is Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, just to prove silly movies still sell. I have never been able to figure out why these kind of movies made in the US are so offensive to me, and yet I love Gojira and the like from Japan. Actually the US release of Godzilla with Jean and Mathew was a favorite as well; maybe it’s the monsters.
For TV, Medium: The Final Season becomes available, as well as the full series in a single box set. While I am aware this series was based on someone’s real life, to me it will always be Fantasy.
New Anime this week starts with Bleach Uncut Box Set 9, another handful of episodes in this long running series about the world of the Soul Reapers. When I say a handful, I mean just that; episodes 146 through 156 are included here, only 11 of them. At this rate, it will be a while before we catch up with the current production run, which is somewhere around episode 275. The Kanokon OVA Collection is all about summer break and how the relationships evolve as the Fox Goddess and Wolf Goddess continue to vie for the heart of the human Kouta.
While not actually Sci-Fi or Fantasy, You’re Under Arrest is one of my favorite Anime series, and the Complete Full Throttle set is also the complete season 3. It has been a while since the last season, and this one starts off with one partner having returned from forensics training in the US, while the other one just finished JSDF (Japanese Self-Defense Force) Ranger training, which is as close to Green Beret as makes no difference. If you thought these two were dangerous to everyone anywhere near them before (criminal or not), wait till you see them now! And Kekkaishi – Part 1 has two childhood friends battling it out to see who gets to be the destroyer of monsters using barrier magic. While both are doing their best to protect their people, they are not the same gender, so some romantic tension gets added to the story.
Finally, this weeks classic series re-release is Blue Gender, where our protagonist wakes up from a few decades of suspended animation to discover that instead of the cure for his terminal disease that he was expecting, humans are being hunted as food by giant insects. As usual with such releases, you can pick up this quality series for dirt cheap if you shop around, $20 being the est price I found.
What would the world have had to been like for Pablo Picasso to have been considered a realist, rather than an abstract painter? This little animation gives you part of the answer to that question.
I love quality animation, and Pixar has some of the best. Their very first animation test was of a couple of lamps playing around, and the lamp became their logo for opening their films. This wonderful little parody from Collage Humor shows the consequences of that action.
The Wild Hunt has been making the round of Film Festivals for a year or two picking up some awards in the process, had a limited theatrical run, and is finally coming out on disk this week. A LARP reenactment gamer group is deep into their dungeons and dragons when a jilted non-gamer comes looking for his ex-girlfriend to win her back. Things get ugly when the line between game and reality gets blurry. Winning the award for strangest movie of the week is Rubber, the story of a tire that comes to life and terrorizes the countryside. That works with a whole car and has in several previous movies, but a single tire just doesn’t weigh enough to harm anyone larger than a chihuahua.
While not really genre, I have to mention Burn Notice: Season Four, if only because they have that whole McGuiver technology thing going on, and their tech is dead on target. Plus I love the show, of course; The new season kicks off on June 23rd.
In western animation we get Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. The trailer looks interesting, they are going to give us some info on the origin of the Green Lantern Corp, and Nathan Fillion gets to play Hal Jordan. Obviously the timing on this never-before seen feature length animation is to tie in to the movie release in the theaters, and I’m in.
Moribito: Guardian of Spirit – Complete Collection is a difficult story, with a warrior woman who needs to save one more soul before she dies, and a prince who may be that soul trying to save his kingdom. Together they may be each others salvation.
Revolutionary Girl Utena – The Student Council Saga is the first of three box sets of remastered video with a newly created Dolby Digital 5.1 Japanese soundtrack of this classic series. Containing the first 12 episodes, it has a ton of additional improvements and upgrades; this is more of a special edition set than anything else. Which makes it kind of amazing that if you shop around you can pick it up for as little as $30, especially considering this is in limited production, with only a certain number of them being made.