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Something to Watch: Disc’s

The Western winner this week is Passengers, an excellent character driven romantic drama set against the backdrop of deep space during an era of interstellar expansion. Solace has a psychic doctor assisting a detective in tracking down a serial killer. The only problem is the serial killer is a psychic too, and a much better one than the doctor working with the FBI. It has a world class cast and an interesting trailer, the critical reviews indicate the movie has some serious flaws but the chemistry between the cast makes it work despite them.

In Anime, K: Missing Kings is the movie bridge between season 1 and season 2; there are 7 kings in the world, each with their own special power which they can grant in greater or lesser degrees to their followers. And there is war between the secret kings, with the potential to overturn the mundane world entirely. Ben To: The Complete Series is being released in a S.A.V.E. edition, with a totally different kind of war. In grocery stores across Japan, the battle for half-priced Bento boxes has become fierce.

Whole New Worlds: An Aladdin History of Exoplanets

Acapella Science has put together a great little song giving you the history of Exoplanets, from its beginnings back in 1990 to the present, culminating with the TRAPPIST-1 discovery. You have to appreciate him when he says I’m a harmony addict working on a master’s in theoretical physics; what ELSE was I going to make a YouTube channel about? This is his latest, but far from his only such production; he tries to crank one of these out each week. So I thought I would include a few more, with Entropic Time for the second tune, and the final one is CRISPR-Cas9 (Bring Me A Gene). I don’t usually include videos with a stinger at the end hyping the person’s channel, but this isn’t just music, it is science at the same time, and that is a combination worth supporting. The man creating these is Tim Blais, and I hope he keeps making these for a long time to come.

Something to Watch: Discs

This time around we get Moana, a quality animation telling one of the stories of the transpacific culture that spans a range of islands from Tahiti to Hawaii. They have been some of the most successful explorers the world has ever known, and have an artistic and musical tradition unique on the planet. As near as I can remember, this film is the first sympathetic treatment of that culture to receive world wide distribution and major box office success. Also out, Bad Kids of Crestview Academy, what you wold get if they filmed The Breakfast Club in the Nightmare on Elm Street neighborhood, a comedy/horror. About the only thing we get in Anime is the S.A.V.E. edition of Wanna Be the Strongest in the World!, which has both the complete series plus the OVAs. I am not certain that that one is even genre, but being a series about an Idol who becomes a Pro Wrestling Diva I am going to call it Fantasy, if only so I don’t have to skip the Anime entry altogether.

Something to Watch: Discs

This week we get Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio, a delightfully twisted look at comic book superheroes that may be my favorite Doctor Who Christmas Special. We also get the 2014 remake of the 1946 French classic La Belle Et La Bete or Beauty And The Beast, which one reviewer tagged as 50 Shades of Fur.

In Anime Noragami Season Two: Aragoto minor god Yato is still broke, still shrineless, and now fighting for his life as major war goddess Bishamon hunts him down. Even more life threatening, Assassination Classroom Season Two: Part One brings the next 13 episodes of this entertaining series. While I really like Asterisk War: The Academy City on the Water, the release of Blu Ray 3 puts 5 episodes on a disc and charges the price of a complete series for them, so I will stick to the streaming service version. Ultimate Otaku Teacher: Season One, Part Two brings the next dozen episodes of this humorous and offbeat slice-of-life for the socially inept home. Re-releases in more affordable bundles this week include Freezing Vibration: The Complete Second Season in an Anime Classics edition (generally around or just under $30), and Unbreakable Machine-Doll in a S.A.V.E. edition (generally right around $20). Machine Doll is the complete series plus the 6 OVAs, which make it a very good deal.