The same thing again some more; taking black and white photographs from some VERY early Doctor Who stories, convert them, colorize them, and create my own version of the colorize portraits. This time around it it the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton, and a companion or two of his.
I have to mention Day of The Doctor first, which will be in a whole bunch of theaters in 3D in 75 countries around the world, all playing at the same time it is going to air on BBC1 in the UK. This is the 50th anniversary special itself, and you can watch it online, in the theaters, or on TV, for a complete list check out the Day Of the Doctor listing. The other film this weekend is The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which should also be a lot of fun.
Top spot this week goes to The World’s End, another excellent collaboration between Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost. Not only will it be released as a stand-alone, but they will also bring out the box set with the entire Cornetto Trilogy; Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End. There is a rather unusual Vampire film coming out called Sanguivorous, with no spoken dialog and an acting style based on Noh or Butoh, a form of Japanese story telling through dance. It only played in a handful of theaters across the US, in part because a live band (composed of Japanese percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and Chicago saxophonist Edward Wilkerson, Jr.) toured with it to play the soundtrack for this silent film. The 3rd interesting film this go round is Mars, a 2010 animated comedy romance about space exploration that has been on the Film Festival circuit for the last several years, and is finally getting a DVD release.
In TV, Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet is story number 29 with William Hartnell as the Doctor, and companions Ben and Polly. This was Hartnell’s final tale as the Doctor, and the first time we got to meet the Cybermen. It was also the first time a Regeneration happened on screen as the role was passed on to Patrick Troughton. Star Trek The Next Generation: Season Five makes its Blu-Ray debut this week as well, and they are also extracting a two-part story to roll out separately, Star Trek The Next Generation: Unification.
In Anime, Sword Art Online: Fairy Dance Part 2 delivers the final 6 episode of this excellent little series. I think they should have packaged them up in season 1 and season 2 boxed and sold them for the same price that they have been selling the half seasons, so I will be waiting for a more cost effective packag before I buy my copy. One Piece Movie 10: Strong World continues that series, with a new film. I mention that because sometimes the feature length presentations are retellings of the TV show stories.
Good Luck Girl is about a rich, beautiful, and very lucky girl who has everything going her way. That is because she is siphoning off the good luck of everyone around her, and a minor god notices and decides to follow her around and give the luck back. A lot like spiritual wack-a-mole, really, with all the fun and silliness the situation can deliver. This is from the folks who did Bleach and Gintama, I recommend you check it out. Finally, Little Busters!: Collection 1 is about 5 childhood friends who have grown up, letting their dreams of becoming defenders of justice fade over the years. But now cats are bringing two of them messages about a secret world that needs their help, and their dreams might not be as far in the past as they had thought.
It is difficult to get an arch-enemy when you are hours or days old, but somehow Sleeping Beauty managed to pull that off. Maleficent is the story of how that came about, kind of the prequel to Disney’s 1959 classic fairy tale animation. It will be hitting the big screen on May 30th 2014, starring Angelina Jolie, and being just a bit more live action then the last Disney film on the topic.
There really isn’t anything interesting I could find coming out this week, but that’s OK. There were so many great movies released in the last two weeks that the odds are good you haven’t seen them all. I am going to try to catch About Time and Man of Tai Chi before they disappear from the theaters.
In movies, Man of Steel leads off, with the latest retelling of the Superman legend. This one snuck past me in the movie theaters, so I am looking forward to this additional opportunity to check it out. The martial arts offering this time is Ip Man: The Final Fight, also known as Ip Man 4. This pretty much completes his life story, and it is appropriate that it is filmed in Hong Kong, since that is where he lived out his later days. I believe this is the first one that actually talks about his most famous student, Bruce Lee. I missed this one because it was only in my local movie theater for a single week before it was gone, but before China bought the AMC movie chain a few years ago, these kinds of movies were a lot harder to find on the big screen at all. If you are an H.P. Lovecraft fan and looking for some good comedy, you will want to watch Grabbers. This is basically what happens when the Deep Ones invade Ireland, but are terminally allergic to alcohol; the populace rallies at the pub, pitchforks and torches in hand! I missed this one because it would have involved a drive to NYC, or one of the 5 other major cities in the US it played in. And for animated silliness, Dreamworks Animation’s Turbo is also coming out to disc. I missed this one because the trailers and plot line just didn’t grab me, but now that it will be on one of the cable channels or available to stream on one of my services at no additional cost to me, I will check it out.
In TV, Stan Lee’s Superhumans: Season Two continues to be the only comic book based superhero reality show I know of. Plus, it runs on the History Channel 2, which is the part of the whole A&E family of cable stations that gives you some great Sci-Fi/Fantasy based programming. I am not sure if I can count the other two TV releases as being on TV, since they were only available on various streaming services such as Crunchyroll, but both RWBY: Volume 1 and Red vs. Blue: Season 11 will be on disc this week. They are both the products of the fertile minds over at Rooster Teeth, who keep cranking out some of the most innovating animations using products that pretty much anyone with a computer can pick up for under a hundred dollars.
In Anime I normally don’t talk about re-releases unless something truly good has become rare, and this one missed the rare part but is dead center for the truly good. Akira: 25th Anniversary Edition is the definitive release of the Anime that made North America, and most of the rest of the world, realize that they needed to take this art form seriously. This digitally restored HD version of the movie includes both the 1988 and 2001 English audio dubs as well as a Japanese soundtrack with subtitles, and a ton of other extras. Since my own copy is SD, that alone means I need to upgrade. If you haven’t seen this feature length film before, you can watch it online at Funimation for free, and you really ought to do so; this is the production that changed everything about how North America viewed Japanese Science Fiction and Pop Culture.
Maken-Ki! Battling Venus is the complete series (at least until someone decides to finance another season) in a single box set. It is the story of a combat school where the you train with a magic object that gives you powers, called a Maken, and where the women outnumber the men 3 to 1, because they are three times as deadly. Our protagonist is a boy who can’t figure out how to get his Maken to work, and it is a race between getting kicked out of school with failing grades or getting killed by his pretty schoolmates. Being made by the team that did Ikki Tousen, you can expect a lot of fan service, predominately during the combat sequences.