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Something to Do: Movies

There are a number of tasty films coming out in July, with two good ones this weekend. Despicable Me is the feature length animation to see. The villain played by Steve Carrol is out to steal the moon, but three little girls may just end up reforming him. I got an extra grin out of the fact that the villain’s name is Gru; how many here have played that game? If action/adventure is more to your taste, Predators also hits the big screen on Friday. In this next installment on the franchise, a handful of the worlds best killers have been kidnapped to another planet to be prey in a hunt. I am thinking I may have to see both of these.

The following weekend has three films coming out, two of them pretty much everywhere. On the 14th, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by the National Treasure franchise team takes a stab at reproducing that magic with real magic as part of the premise, and yes, that team includes Nick Cage. Two more on the 16th, with Inception in wide release, telling an original tale of dream theft and the thought police that I have been waiting about a year to see. The other film on the 16th is in limited release, The Wild Hunt, originally scheduled for release in May. A man looses his girlfriend to a bunch of guys in a medieval re-enactment game, but it isn’t a game to everyone.

Two more films the week after that, where Valhalla Rising follows a viking with supernatural strength to a mysterious and violent place. There is some discrepancy between various sources on whether Rising will be released the 16th or the 23rd, but it will be both in theaters and on Video On Demand, so it should be accessable to just about everyone. I might not have included Salt as a genre film, except it is vary obviously every Philip K. Dick book ever written, even if he didn’t write this one, so how could I leave it out?

Something to Watch: DVD’s

Hands down, this weeks best DVD release has to be Life On Mars (UK): The Complete Collection. If you are only familiar with the US remake, which was unwatchable, you have my condolences, and trust me when I say the UK original was wonderful. If you are a fan of the original, but have been holding off on buying it because each 8-episode season ran around $45, now might be the time to make your move. While the SRP is $79 for the full set, I have found it at a few online sites available for pre-order for around $54, just over half of the original separate season costs. This is one of those Time Travel/Cop Show/Psychotic Break programs any thinking person can’t help but watch over and over (again, unlike the American TV remake), particularly because of the interaction between actors Philip Glenister and John Simm. Did I mention I recommend it?

For the rest of the TV choices, three Sci-Fi selections from classic Doctor Who and two documentaries round out the collection. The first Who release would be the William Hartnell episodes The Space Museum / The Chase. It is worth noting the Space Museum includes the actor who would later become Boba Fett as leader of the Xerons. Next of the Doctor Who releases is The Time Monster, starring Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning. The bit that makes this episode memorable is its redundancy inside a recursion; the Doctor hides his Tardis inside the Master’s Tardis, while the Master’s Tardis is inside the Doctor’s. This is a true Tesseract moment in the history of Dimensional Displacement. The final Who disk is The Horns of Nimon, a Tom Baker/Lalla Ward series episode. The Nimon were the first TV series examples I know of for the Sci-Fi trope of the intelligent interstellar locust species used to such good effect in Independence Day.

The documentaries are comprised of Douglas Adams final book, Last Chance to See, and the NASA/UA behind the scenes look at the Phoenix Mars Mission: Onto The Ice. The Adams film is hosted by Steven Fry, but even with that powerful combination of funny men this one is dead serious about all the species on the edge of extinction.

On the movie front nothing really spectacular leaps out, but a few potential hidden gems are lurking about the edges. Bitten looks like an interesting Vampire horror comedy (the Zombies have gotten too much of that field recently). I am thinking that looks at least worth a Netflix viewing, so I can decide if it needs to be part of the permanent collection. Eyeborgs has been making the Film Fest circuit for a while, and again looks real interesting. With all the reviews I have read about this one, there will not be a wait before I purchase.

For foreign live action this week Battle League Horumo stands out as a humorous (perhaps even downright silly) action adventure. The Battle League games consist of 10 players, each of which controls 100 Oni or small demons, fighting to be the last player standing. Kyoto is the playing field.

Anime gives some good options this time around. D.Gray-man comes out this week with a season 1 box set, as does Ghost Slayers Ayashi. Another full season collection is Gurren Lagann, which is a very warped little program using retro-70s animation styles (even though it was made around 2005 to 2007) to tell a twisted little story about the nature of existence and humanity’s place in it. And season 1 of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is also being released; no word yet on when the ONA, the movie, or the second season of the show might be available. All of these programs were previously released as individual volumes, but this marks their first time available as box sets.

Something to Watch: DVDs

For live action movies this week, the winner is TiMER, an original independent film about using your surgically implanted chipset to find your true love. Staring Emma Caulfield, this tasty little gem won a ton of Film Festival awards, but somehow when it went into general release it seemed to be pretty thin on the ground. If you are one of the many people who never got to see it in the theaters, now is your chance. This one has a lot in common with another recent independent work, Cold Souls. I don’t just refer to the fact that they both brought home a boatload of awards, or that they both only got to play on a limited number of screens when the theatrical release finally happened. But they both share a fine old science fiction story form: set in the present day, in the world we know with just one scientific device or procedure unknown to us. Then you get to explore all the implications and consequences of that one change, and how they impact on the hearts, minds, and conditions of the people in that story. This is the core of science fiction stripped down to the only question it ever asks: “What If?”.

On the TV front, the Sci-Fi Channel second miniseries stab at Riverworld is released on disc. This was a very well done production introducing us to the classic Philip Jose Farmer masterwork universe, a planet where everyone who ever lived all woke up at the same time and promptly went back to doing what each had always done. Personally, I also liked the first Riverworld miniseries, but the new one is a bit faster paced with a few more twists to the basic premise to help drive dramatic tension as the story evolves. Yes, evolves, because just like the first miniseries this is meant to test and see if there would be support for a full TV series. And since they didn’t schedule the new one against the Superbowl (what the hell were they thinking on the first ones scheduling?), this time there is a much better chance they got their target numbers and could proceed.

Only a few new Anime series this week. The only truly new offering is La Corda D’oro Primo: Passo: 1, the first half of the series. This does have a fairy (not that kind, the tiny mystical creature sort) as a recurring character, handing out magical enchanted musical instruments that play themselves, so it qualifies as genre. The story itself revolves around classical music with a romantic component; if you are not sure if this is for you, you can watch it on Crunchyroll before laying out your hard earned money.

Of the other Anime releases this week, most are single volumes or series re-releases. The only other one that is somewhat new is Heroic Age: The Complete Series, in that a complete series box set has not previously been released. The have, however, previously released Season 1 and Season 2 box sets, so I’m not sure just how new I consider it.