I had not managed to catch The Clone Returns Home at any of the film fests in my part of the country since its release in January of 2009, so I am happy to report it is finally being released on DVD. This Japanese movie about a cloned astronaut who returns home to find his family is all about the human heart, and has won a number of festival awards including being nominated for World Cinema – Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at 2009’s Sundance Film Festival. If this film wasn’t coming out this week, Source Code would get me vote as the top movie released on disk this time around, but as it stands they are tied for first place. I can not really recommend Dylan Dog: Dead of Night as a quality movie, but if you are looking for some campy silliness it fits the bill nicely. Finally, Zokkomon is a Bollywood film about an orphan who was abused and abandoned, thought to be dead and therefore a ghost when he returned, and ends up a bit of a superhero.
In TV, Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe is a feature film length presentation starring Bruce Campbell, giving the story of how his character came to be the way he is today. Yes, I do know this isn’t quite genre, but it has Bruce Campbell; he is kind of a genre unto himself. Plus, I just love the series, so there it is.
In western animation this week we get yet another volume of Shaun the Sheep: Animal Antics for good silly fun. One of the things I like about this series is all the humor is visual, so you don’t have to speak English to enjoy them.
From Madhouse, we get Supernatural: The Anime Series, which might just be the first ever live action TV series turned into an Anime. I know it has been done before with things like Witchblade, but both the TV series of 2001 and the Anime series of a few years ago were base on a comic book of the same name. Here, the anime is directly based on the TV show, and even has the same actors voicing their characters for the English version.
In Anime, Angel Beats: Complete Collection tells the story of some dead teens being attacked by some angels, some angels rebelling against a god or two, and some other dead folks using supernatural powers against the angels, all staged around the student council for the world after death. This is noticeably different than High School of the Dead even if it should sound similar. Being re-released this week, One Piece – Collection 1 is the first 26 episodes of this long running Anime based on the Shonen Manga of the same name. And I do mean long running; there are already 508 episodes released in Japan not including the multiple movies, and they are still making them. This is an adventures on the high seas, pirates after the legendary One Piece to earn their fortunes, but the long term core of the story is the way the characters work together to protect each other. After a while you realize these are the people you want all of your friends to be like. If you shop around, you can pick this one up for as little as $20, so it is a good value as well.