This time around it is an animation from the folks who made Despicable Me: The Lorax is a Doctor Seuss story brought to life. I find it interesting that Danny DeVito plays the Lorax in the English, Spanish, and Russian language versions of the film. Also out this week, although only at film festivals, is A Monster in Paris, which looks very Beauty-And-The-Beast like…
Best movie selection this week definitely goes to Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s stunning Steampunk homage to a pioneer in the film industry and to movies in general. This one blew me away in the theaters, it won a Golden Globe and it is nominated for 11 Academy Awards; we will find out tonight how many of those it is taking home. If you only get one DVD this month, this is the one that gets my strongest recommendation. On the other hand, if you just want something silly, Johnny English Reborn would be the way to go. Once more Rowan Atkinson delivers a world class comedic performance, this time bringing his anti-007 character back to life.
In western TV, Todd & the Book of Pure Evil: The Complete First Season is the live action offering, and I do like their tag line: Fighting Evil, with Mixed Results. They are actually about to launch season 3 elsewhere, in the US season 2 kicks off on Fear.Net on March 13th.
In western animation, the feature length film Justice League: Doom pretty much covers all the choices.
In anime, Fairy Tail – Part 4 continues the story of the battles between guilds of wizards out to earn a living and prove who is best with episodes 37 through 48. I was not completely certain that Princess Jellyfish – The Complete Series is genre. But it has hopeless nerds with bizarre hobbies and crippling social anxieties, coupled with a late night jellyfish rescue mission; plus it is based on an award winning Manga (the award being Best Shojo Manga), and the anime was made by the folks behind Baccano, Hell Girl, and Durarara. Taken all together, how could I not include it here? You can watch some episodes online at that link and decide for yourself if it deserves to be added to your collection; when I did and discovered all the primary characters were Otaku, it went on the must watch list right away. And for pure Otaku recursiveness, Bakuman – Second Issue brings 6 more episodes of an Anime all about making a Manga, and it doesn’t get much more recursive than that.
The trailer isn’t triple X, in fact it is safe for work. The movie itself is a XXX parody of Tomb Raider, and according to several sources it actually looks like it could be fairly entertaining. This is being released to DVD sometime in February, so you might want to keep your eye out for it. Thanks to the folks at Kotaku for the heads up on this one.
Just recently the new movie a href=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/”>Robot and Frank was at Sundance, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. It is something of a buddy film, with Frank Langella and his robot sidekick as the buddies. Until someone picks it up for distribution, you can catch it on the film festival circuit.
While there is nothing major being released nationally this week, there are a few films worth your attention getting limited engagements. Unicorn City is the story of an out of work gamer who decides to prove himself to his potential employer by founding a utopian society comprised of his LARPing collective. As you might expect, things don’t go quite as he planned, especially when his nemesis shows up to challenge him for leadership and the girl. This one has won a bunch of awards on the film fest circuit. Also out, The Fairy (Le Fee) tells the tale of a man who searches all over Le Havre for the fairy who granted him two wishes and disappeared, taking his heart with her. Both of these are comedies, whatever else they might be.
It is kind of sad when the only live action genre movie for the week has a title like Bong Of The Dead, but it did win some awards, including Cannes, and the zombies are the ones being hunted for their brains in this horror comedy. In animated movies we have Puss in Boots, both as a stand alone and bundled with Puss In Boots: The Three Diablos. Staring Antonio Banderas, this Shrek spin off has all the humor associated with that series.
The genre TV series this week is The Fades: Season One, fresh from its run on BBC America. This one is a bit more horror than I prefer, and without the humor, but it is exceedingly well done.
In Anime Strike Witches Season 2 continues the story of propeller booted aerial combat during WWII. Also being released, Broken Blade – Complete Collection is a giant mecha combat set.