We have several choices this time around, beginning with the action comedy This Is the End, in which a bunch of celebrities try to survive the apocalypse. The Purge takes place in a future where all laws are suspended once a year for 12 hours, and follows one families attempt to survive the event. Also this week is the Joss Whedon version of Much Ado About Nothing with Nathan Fillion and Amy Acker.
In movies the comedy/horror/romance Warm Bodies tells a story of zombie love in a way I have never seen presented before. This actually is a good date movie, not something I usually would associate with zombies. Also out, the animated Escape from Planet Earth shows why humans are the scariest creatures in the galaxy. For the action addicts out there I should probably also mention A Good Day to Die Hard hits the shelves this week.
In TV we have Falling Skies: The Complete Second Season, continuing the alien invasion vs. human resistance story.
In Anime, Appleseed XIII – The Complete Series is a 13 episode TV series that follows up the movie with a deeper look into that clone and cyborg driven post war society. From Shirow Masamune, the man who gave us Ghost In The Shell, who shares a tendency with Philip K. Dick to have a single question at the heart of his stories: How do you define what it mean to be human, and who or what qualifies? Dusk maiden of Amnesia: Complete Collection is the story of a woman who was murdered 60 years ago, but now she can’t remember anything about it, or even who she was. But with the help of a boy who can see and hear her, they set up a paranormal investigation club with the goal of find out all about her and the event, even though a lot of the club members don’t know that is what they are doing.
Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee Reverse is bringing out season two collection 2, with the action heating up, the Letter Bee’s under attack by multiple threats, and destruction and mayhem being used by Reverse to undermine society and perhaps wipe it out. In The Everyday Tales of a Cat God: Complete Series is about a lazy goddess who gets kicked out of heaven and doesn’t seem to improve much on Earth.
Both Birdy the Mighty: Decode and Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom are having the entire series released in a S.A.V.E. edition this week, so if you shop around you should be able to pick them up for around $20 each. Birdy was always more dangerous to the innocent bystanders than the bad guys were, but the original collateral damage queens also have a lower priced release this week: Dirty Pair: Part One is being put out as a Litebox edition, which means less shelf space used up to boot.
While I am not a Parks and Recreation fan, I did enjoy the Star Wars filibuster that Patton Oswalt ran, and somebody in Europe has built the perfect animation for it. OK, maybe in Europe and maybe not, there was a whole question about not being able to upload it from a specific country. This is hysterical, thank you Worlds Without End for the heads up on this one!
Not much in genre movies this time beyond AE: Apocalypse Earth and Battle Earth, both direct to DVD. The first at least has actors I like and an actual web page.
We do much better in TV, with Doctor Who: Series Seven, Part Two coming out. Looking around Amazon I found a listing for the complete Series 7 costing twice as much as the first two parts combined, and with no release date listed. That tends to make me wonder if they have plans to bundle it together with all the different 50th anniversary specials and bring it out in November for the anniversary itself, or possibly Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, Doctor Who: The Snowmen is also out on disk this week.
In Anime only one entry this time around: Phi-Brain: Puzzle of God: Season 1 Collection 2, bringing still more deadly puzzles along for our protagonist to resolve. Kaito doesn’t really want to solve these puzzles, but they are all deathtraps which will kill him and his friends if he fails to figure them out. This series is different in that the person with the brain is the hero, rather than the one with the biggest muscles or best school of Kung Fu, and I quite enjoy it. If you don’t know it already, bop over to Crunchyroll and watch some episodes (the link takes you to the start of the first season, so you don’t drop into the middle of the series).
This is the Senior Thesis film produced at Ringling College of Art and Design by Dylan Vanwormer and Logan Scelina. Yes, it is a bit silly, but where animation is concerned that is often the point. These kind of things inspire me to plug away at my own animation projects, even though mine never seem to look this good.
There are some moments you want to last forever, and some you don’t even want to live through once. The author of About Time was also a writer on Blackadder, and did a few other RomCom flicks like Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Love Actually. This appears to be his first venture into SF/F, but it could be quite amusing. The film is due out in November, and will hopefully get an actual web page before then.