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Something to Do: Movies

There aren’t any US Sci-Fi or Fantasy movies coming out this weekend, but there is a Bollywood film that will hit the screens this week or next: It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, about an Indian mother who takes her obsession with marriage into the serial killer zone. This one is a romantic comedy horror movie, another genre mix you don’t see too often from India, although there are a lot of them from Japan. When you combine that with Robot which hit the big screen this past Friday and Action Replay coming out on November 5th, this is a great month for Bollywood Sci-Fi.

There is another movie that looks like fun this weekend; Nowhere Boy is the story of John Lennon as a teenager, and what drove him into music. The official web site is in the UK, so the release date mentioned on the page is the UK release, with the US release only coming now. I also need to let you know that the Avengers web site has gone live!

Something to Watch: DVD’s

Genetic engineering gone wrong at its finest, Splice will be on the shelves this Tuesday. It caused quite a stir on the Film Fest circuit, but didn’t do as well at the box office, in part because it was released on a very limited number of screens. While Splice is a thriller, the other feature film releases this week are out-and-out horror, including the reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

TV did much better than movies this week. Continuing the tales of the Battlestar Galactica universe, Caprica: Season 1.0 shows how the Cylon’s were developed and sets everything up for the Cylon-Human wars. The tech base for their development is only a few years in advance of ours own, which helps remind us we need to get ready for the Robot Uprising. Also out this week, the complete first season of Star Gate Universe, previously available as parts 1 and 2, also from Syfy and also bearing a resemblance to Battlestar Galactica. In a completely different genre, Medium comes out with Season 6, as well as Seasons 1 through 6 in a single box set.

For western animations, we have Dr. Who: Dreamland, with David Tennant doing the voice-over work for the Doctor. This story was previously available to watch online, but only if you live in the UK. From Dreamworks comes another in the Penguin series, Penguins of Madagascar: I Was A Penguin Zombie.

Several gems from the Anime realm, starting with Linebarrels of Iron part 2 and the Linebarrels of Iron OVA collection (all two episodes of it). Being re-released in more affordable form, Jinki:Extend – The Complete Series comes out in a S.A.V.E. Edition for more giant mecha fun. There was a series I saw some time ago I thought was called Super Gals that involved the three lead girls growing to 7 stories tall and fighting off alien invasions and giant monsters, but the Super Gals complete series being released this week seems to have a completely different plot description; I thought I would link it here anyways, in case it does turn out to be the one I was thinking of.

More Steampunk!

Steampunk is always fun, so to start today we have The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing doing their song GOGGLES, which as far as I know is the only song to be released on wax cylinder since 1922 (although They Might Be Giants recorded a song on an Edison cylinder in 1996, but it was released on CD). Most of Steampunk is home made DIY projects, so it should be no surprise that if you want to listen to the cylinder, you will have to build the player. While nowhere near on a par with the technical precision of the Edison cylinder phonograph with electric pickup built by Norman Bruderhofer and Matthias Menz, it is a bit more true to the technology of the times that never were.

Next up we have the video for Vernian Process’s Crime of the Century, and interesting piece that embraces 1980s Glam Rock with 1880s stylistic sensibilities. And since Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover brown, I felt the need to include The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello, a wonderful little 2005 Australian film set in a world of airships and steam driven computers. The first true computers were steam driven, mechanical devices built by Babbage and programmed by Lovelace.

Steampunk Swing

Abney Park is one of my favorite Steampunk bands, as I have mentioned here before. They have a new CD coming out soon, The End Of Days, so I am using that as my excuse to post about their music once again. The first video is their lead singer, Captain Robert, taking a joyride over Seattle in the Airship Eureaka. I am sure it will be no surprise that the audio backing is one of their own songs. The second video is a live version of their signature song, Airship Pirates. Following that, we have The Death of the Cog, a song from another band called The Cog is Dead, singing against the invention of the digital watch which killed Clockpunk. The final band, Sunday Drivers, I could not find a decent video of in their Steampunk style, so I had to make do with an interview clip. To pull it all together, we have the Song vs. Song vs. Song initial presentation from Changing Habit; he may not be able to dance, but he does have a unique appreciation for nonstandard (i.e., non-boring) music.

Trailer Mashups

Trailer mashups have been happening more and more frequently lately, and as you might suspect getting better and better. This one is so good that Edgar Wright gave his seal of approval to the Scott Pilgrim/Last Airbender mashup. Someone else did the same thing with The Matrix. The final one is very outrageous; and Expendables/Supertoons mashup. I gotta admit, these do bring a grin.