Wednesday we get Attack on Titan: Part 1, and while it is in somewhat limited release it is still in a number of theaters per city. Thanks to Funimation for setting up the network of digital theaters this live action movie duo will be showing in. Friday we get The Martian, another film I have been waiting a long time for. That one is actually late Thursday, which has pretty much become the default for weekly movie releases. I think because it boosts the claimable box office for the Opening Weekend just enough to make films look like they had a good opening. I intend to see both of these this week.
Dick and the Back Beats are quite a bit of fun, being a German band playing Rockabilly versions of classic 1980s New Wave songs. The first track is Just Can’t Get Enough from 2011, the second is Just The Way You Are which arrived by way of Filtr Germany. There are several more excellent songs out there, but I could not vet their legitimacy so I can not post them here.
Russia is finally producing a superhero movie under the title Zaschitniki (The Guardians), and the trailer looks quite good. In a parallel timeline during the height of the Cold War, the superheroes are gathered together from the different countries under Russian rule, each heroes powers reflecting the strengths of their homelands. They must protect their countries from August Kuratov’s clone army and a device he built which controls other machines, turning them against their owners. I really enjoyed the Nightwatch/Daywatch films, and am looking forward to this one, which will be in theaters in 2016.
The German band Guano Apes got together in 1994 and they have been creating solid rock music ever since, with the occasional break. The first track is Close To The Sun from their new album Offline, the second is 2014’s Fake, released on the same album. The final song is Sandra Nasic singing Fever, possibly from a solo project. I love that one of their several Best Of albums has the title Planet of the Apes. The band broke up in 2005, but when they got back together in 2009 they were reborn, releasing more music each year than ever before, lots of it climbing the charts, some of it making it to number 1.
In movies we get The Divergent Series: Insurgent, based on book two of the trilogy written be Veronica Roth. Again, why it is called a trilogy when it is 4 books long escapes me, but that worked just fine for Douglas Adams and it seems to work here as well. Epic fantasy at its finest, Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal is about Zhong Kui, a legendary warrior who is forced to conquer Heaven and Hell to save his people and the woman he loves… Literally. I am including a trailer at the end of the post for those who missed hearing about this when it was in the theaters last February. There is also the first Maori fantasy film I have heard of, The Dead Lands, presented in Maori with English subtitles. There is also one non-genre movie that looks interesting, Black & White: The Dawn of Assault!, a prequel to the popular Taiwan TV show Black & White. A cop and a criminal are forced to work together to save their city from something far worse than themselves.
In TV Orphan Black: Season 3 brings in the boy clones with a vengeance, and quite a bit of violence. I appreciate this shows ability to constantly hand us new twists we didn’t see coming, but I would be perfectly happy if they toned down the gore a bit. Even though it isn’t genre itself, I have to also mention The Casual Vacancy because it is J.K. Rowling’s first book for adults.
In Anime, Space Brothers: Collection 4 brings episodes 39 through 51 of this epic near-future adventure. One brother has barely survived crashing on the Moon with no rescue in sight and limited oxygen, while the other is fighting to make it through accelerated survival training on Earth alive. Meanwhile Turn A Gundam: Part 2 has episodes 26 through 50, and also takes place on both the Earth and Moon; but this time, it is the entire human race who’s survival is at risk. Finally, The Troubled Life of Miss Kotoura – Complete Collection is about a girl who has the ability to read minds, and the boy who gets her the help of the ESP Research Society, so she can start leading a less stressful life.
This week we get the award winning White God, a movie about dogs in organized revolution, which shares an attitude with the recent reboot of Planet of the Apes. It is unusual and has a lot of critical acclaim, and while it is in Hungarian it has English subtitles, so you won’t have any problem following the story. The other film is the animated Justice League: Gods & Monsters, from an alternate universe where Zod is Superman’s father, Batman is a Vampire, and Wonder Woman is the daughter of Ares, God of War. For a western animation, this one is rather dark.
TV has Helix: Season 2, a show that may have been vying with Lost for the Serious Weirdness in Television Award. We also get the Disney made-for-TV film Descendants, a comedy/fantasy involving the children of Cruella De Vil, Maleficent, the Evil Queen, and Jafar. It doesn’t come out on Tuesday, though, but goes on sale Friday the 31st, the same day it airs on the Disney Channel.
In Anime, Windy Tales is about a teacher who knows how to control the wind, and the students who learn everything from Air to Zephyr from them. While the show came out in 2004, I can find no reference to previous North American releases. No Game, No Life is about a couple of Neets who’s only connection with the world at large is through online gaming. They are good enough at that to end up representing humanity in a game that will determine the fate of the world, even though they can barely function enough to leave their home. Naruto Shippūden: Uncut Set 23 takes place during the 4th Great Ninja War, and finds the allies fighting against reanimated friends and enemies. This set brings episodes 284 through 295 home, while I believe they are up to episode 419 in Japan. Galilei Donna is about three dissimilar sisters who suddenly find themselves with one thing in common; an attempted kidnapping on the same day. It turns out they are descendents of Galileo Galilei, who left behind a treasure that the sky pirates are determined to have.
009 Re: Cyborg reactivates a group of cyborgs to try to save the world from a threat stranger than human. Speaking of strange, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Season 1 is an action adventure comedy series that is downright silly at times, but still has some serious moments. Inari Kon Kon has a girl given the power to shape shift after she saves the life of a familiar to a goddess. Finally, Recently, my sister is unusual finds Mitsuki haunted by a ghost who she must help pass on to the next world.