Yep, Stan the Man finally has his own personal web site for all the true comic fans: The Real Stan Lee went online a week or two back. It has all the usual; news, forum, social networking interface, multimedia, and so forth. And to get it launched properly, he sat down with the ever delectable Alison Haislip to do a TV style interview. I should warn you, if you had ever assumed that Stan was in any way shy about promoting himself, or perhaps even humble, this video segment should put paid to your illusions.
The reboot of Spiderman might be noticeably better than I was thinking it would be. At the very least, this trailer is definitely looking good and showing the Spidey humor that the McGuire incarnation sadly lacked.
The two main offerings this time are Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and The Secret World of Arrietty, bringing entertainment to two different audience segments. I enjoyed the first Ghost Rider movie enough that I don’t mind a sequel and expect to enjoy it. On the other hand, any animation from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli is a work of art on a par with Disney at its best, and even Disney thinks so; it is why they are the North American distributors for them. This one is their version of The Borrowers, and as always it is beautifully executed. While they don’t have a theme park, they do have their own museum which you should visit the next time you are in Japan. There are a few other movies this weekend, such as No Sanctuary, but I am going to be lucky to have time to see the first two.
The only US live action movie selection this time around is good, but isn’t genre: The Rum Diary, where once more Johnny Depp channels Hunter S. Thompson. Sword of Desperation from Japan tells the tale of a Swordsman who tries to raise his niece after the death of his wife and his release from prison while developing his own school of fighting. Also out is the classic film Three Outlaw Samurai, more of an origin story than a pilot for the TV series of the same name. And I am going to mention Nude Nuns With Big Guns because I figure that has to have some kind of a bizarre effect on my search engine results.
The top TV choice this time around is the Dr. Who show The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe which I am sure everyone recognizes as the 2011 Christmas Special. Like all that went before, this one has its own special moments. To counterbalance that, They Came From Outer Space: The Complete Television Series lasted on the air for nearly a season back in 1990, being the story of two alien brothers touring California in a classic corvette while government agents tried to capture them.
There are several western animations offerings this time around, but all spinoffs or direct to disc sequels. From Dreamworks, Dragons: Gift of the Night Fury is a sequel to How To Train Your Dragon. The other two are from a single source, the Penguins of Madagascar TV show, with the titles New to the Zoo and Operation Get Ducky being released separately.
In Anime, Chrome Shelled Regios – The Complete Series brings it out in a single package now, and drops the price from the $60 of the Part 1 and Part 2 release down to $45 or less if you shop around. In addition the Hell Girl: Three Vessels – Complete Collection does pretty much the same thing, but with different price points for each package.
The 10th Visual Effects Society Awards were handed out this past Tuesday, and as is often the case, a small number of shows got several awards each. Transformers: Dark of the Moon seemed to get the most (no, I didn’t count them, so I could be wrong), but Hugo, the animated Rango, the semi-animated live action Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and various episodes of Game of Thrones walked away with more than one each. But there were a number of projects that got a single award each, such as Captain America, and this little gem here, called A. Maize, which was awarded Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project
There are a whole bunch of fun events coming up this weekend, and I wanted to mention a few of them. FaerieCon West is all about the art of Faeries, and while most of that is tied to various graphics formats, some is music, some is programming, and some is authoring. As an example, Abney Park will be hanging out and playing music at this Seattle event. If you don’t now who they are check out The Ballad of Ranch Hand Robbie and I’ve Been Wrong Before, both from their latest album (click to play, right click to save-as to disc). The other event I wanted to mention was the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival which has some amazing movies gathered together this year. Here are a few trailers to give you an idea of what they are up to…