This week’s selection is another spooky but funny animation, ParaNorman. A town is invaded by zombies, and their only recourse is to ask the help of the strangest kid in town. It certainly looks like silly fun to me.
The top spot in movies this week goes to The Hunger Games, which I suspect may do as well as a DVD as it did as a book and movie. This one will definitely be coming home with me, and I am looking forward to seeing if they can sustain the momentum in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Also out this week, Juan Of The Dead brings still more humor to the Zombie Apocalypse. And for fans of the classic Japanese giant monsters series, Gamera: War of Monsters Collection has 6 movies of the giant turtle god being reissued together in a box set. And finally in the live action feature films category, The Sword Identity comes our way from China. I am sure you will be shocked to learn it is a historic martial arts epic.
In TV we have Dr. Who: Greatest Show in the Galaxy, a Sylvester McCoy classic tale with Sophie Aldred as Ace. Another option is Dexter: Season 6, which is also coming out in a box set of seasons 1 through 6.
Western animation brings us Marvel Knights Astonishing X-Men: Torn, and I do have to say I have been enjoying the entire Marvel Knights series.
New Anime releases start with Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, a feature-length presentation that has Haruka off in a wonderland like environment searching for her lost treasure. The trailer looks cute as hell, I will be interested to see if the animation quality is consistent and how the story holds up. Another new entry this week is called This Boy Can Fight Aliens, which is good, because Earth has been invaded. Except, of course, the boy has lost his memory and doesn’t have a clue how to use his powers. This is an OVA, not a feature film or a TV show, and the entire thing is only 28 minutes long, so unless it comes with some outrageous extras I am thinking it is overpriced.
The third and last new entry for this week is One Piece – Collection 7, with the Straw Hat Gang continuing to contend for the crown of King of the Pirates. Besides the new stuff, there is a re-release in more cost effective packaging: Trinity Blood – The Complete Series reduces the price over buying the seasons separately by a good 25%. And I do like their tag line: Vampire action without all that teen angst.
Animated romantic musical comedy horror is a lot of fun, and the latest entry in this admittedly rather tiny niche market is Hotel Transylvania. Target date for release is September 28th, and I for one intend to be there to see it.
The British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf has been a favorite of mine for quite a while, and I am happy Dave TV decided to pick it up for some new seasons. They are posting a new special update every Friday leading up to the launch of season 10
Warriors Of The Rainbow: Seediq Bale tells the true story of the aboriginal Seediq tribes who rebelled and almost drove the conquering Japanese army off the island in 1930s Taiwan. Their initial attack succeeded, taking the invaders by surprise and killing most of their primary targets; but knives and bows only win for so long against aircraft and poison gas. The other movie worth checking out is an animated Doctor Seuss story, The Lorax. I was particularly impressed with Danny DeVito, who played the title character in the English, Spanish, and Russian versions of the film.
In TV we have Grimm: Season One, one of the better supernatural police procedural programs to come down the pike in many a year. The writing is very intelligent, so of course I expected it to be cancelled half way through its first season and was quite happy to find out we will get a second one. They also picked an excellent cast who jell together quite well onscreen, and base the series on a very interesting premise. This one will definitely be joining my permanent collection.
There are several new and interesting collections in Anime this time around, starting with Rental Magica: Collection 1. A company of wizards and witches have misplaced the company president, and immediately put his son in charge. The problem is the son doesn’t have a lot of knowledge about magic himself, and is also something of a coward in a near combat situation. So the monsters and evildoers the company is up against become much more dangerous to the magicians in the ranks, and the son is in danger of destroying the family business if he can’t get his act together. The 12 episodes in this box set are the first half of the story so far.
In The World God Only Knows: Season Two the champion dating sim player and his demon tormentor continue to free girls from the lost souls who posses them. When a giant lost soul takes over a large portion of the school and turns them into love starved zombies, they will need to recruit another demon to help them win. Also continuing, One Piece comes out with season 4 part 1, continuing the effort to become King of All Pirates.
It is the 25th anniversary of Spaceballs, and in honor of that it is getting time on the big screen at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland (D.C burbs). The folks over at Think Geek are also from the D.C. burbs, and they will be making the showing on Saturday the 4th (yes, that is tomorrow), and they are planning to hold a raffle. Prizes may include a pre-release copy of Spaceballs on Blu-ray, and/or two Force FX lightsabers, and maybe some edible stuff. Although if you are hungry the theater has its own cafe, and has a dozen excellent restaurants within the block it lives on.