Skip to main content

Something to Do: Movies

The Anthem of the Heart at JICC, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Neon Demon, and The Call Up gives us a wide range of cinematic goodies to select between this week.

Topping the list from a box office perspective is Independence Day: Resurgence, taking place 2 decades after the original film. Based on the trailer, it looks like the aliens once more manage to wipe out a sizable percentage of the Earth’s population during their attack, but you know I will be in the theater for this one. If nothing else, the trailer also makes it obvious that some of the visual effects, especially the combat scenes, will require the big screen to see them fully and completely they way they were intended. The Call Up is a British movie where a group of gamers are invited to try a new VR game, only to discover some of them will die before they can get out of it again. At least one reviewer compared it to Gantz, so I may have to check it out, although I will probably wait since the trailer on this one did not look like it needed the big screen. While I am not a horror fan, The Neon Demon looks stylish and interesting enough (complete with a visual referent in the trailer to another stylish horror/thriller I dearly love, the 1982 remake of Cat People) that I may need to see it as the thriller it started life as. This is also the first Amazon Studios project I became aware of that will be available in theaters before you can stream it online. That isn’t to say there aren’t others before this, but only that this is my first time to notice one.

There is also an Anime in extremely limited release this Friday that was nominated for Best Animation at the 2016 Japan Academy Awards: The Anthem of the Heart. Once a very happy girl, Jun said something when she was very young that tore her family apart. The Egg Fairy (more of a Kami really) appeared before her and sealed away her words in order to stop her from hurting anybody else. Years later she finds herself in a situation which gives her the strength to fight her way back to communicating with the world again. The author, Mari Okada, was awarded the 16th Animation Kobe Award (Individual Award) for her output in 2011, which included such titles as Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day and Fractale, among others. She has two Anime shows currently streaming from Japan, The Lost Village and Kiznavier, and if you are a fan of anime I guarantee she has written for at least one of your favorite shows over the last few decades. When I said this was in extremely limited release, I wasn’t kidding; you will only be able to see it at the Japan Information and Culture Center theater, which is part of the Embassy of Japan in Washington D.C., at the moment. It has played at a number of other theaters in the US in the past (maybe 20 or so nation wide) and it will no doubt be available to stream or buy sometime in the next year in North America for those like me who can never afford to buy the imported disc. If you do make this showing, perhaps we will get a chance to chat before or after the program.

Something to Watch: Discs

In Movies Midnight Special has a father and son running from everyone from religious extremists to federal agencies because of the boys special powers. The Criterion Collection is re-releasing a special edition blue ray of the classic European animated feature film Fantastic Planet. In Anime Cross Ange: Rondo of Angel and Dragon, Collection 1 brings the first 12 episodes of the story of the princess turned combat killer who may be on her way back to her former kingdom to serve up a little justice. And that appears to pretty much be it for this week; hopefully we will do better next.

Something to Watch: Discs

TV has The X-Files: The Event Series, also called Season 10 coming out this week, the long awaited return to the small screen. Movies bring us London Has Fallen, and while I can’t decide if it belongs in the science fiction or fantasy category I know it has to be in one of them. We also get 10 Cloverfield Lane, which I would have written off as Horror if so many critics hadn’t referred to it as a Sci-Fi Thriller and given it great reviews.

In Anime Sword Art Online: Extra Edition is the four Summer Special episodes that took place between seasons 1 and 2. As with previous disc releases from this title, I feel it is overpriced at $10 per episode when the normal going rate is 1 to 2 dollars per episode. Until someone releases this at a realistic price point I will continue to watch it streaming rather than adding it to my permanent collection.

VR: BBC Taster

BBC Taster is the experimental site for the development of digital content and emerging technology, and it is chock full of both 360 degree videos as well as true VR experiences, which are well worth exploring. In my mind, the difference between the two is interactivity; if you can click on icons to change the presentation in different ways it is VR, if not it is a 360 movie. As a single instance of what is on offer at BBC Taster, The Kraken Wakes 360 started with the radio play and musical score they created from John Wyndham’s science fiction novel of the same name. They layered the 360 degree video on top of a piece of that and made it available for public viewing, with the request that once you watch it (or any of their VR/360 pieces) you rate it. They are trying to get an idea of what works and doesn’t work for people with different kinds of presentations before they crank it up to full production mode, and unlike all the developers using focus groups and test audiences in secret or restricted environments, they are making the public part of the decision making process right from the beginning. They are also taking it on tour across the UK to events like the Sheffield Doc/Fest 2016 which begins today, setting up VR presentation areas complete with the hardware and headsets, so people who don’t have the gear at home can give their feedback. Nor are they the only ones; the Alternate Realities: Virtual Reality Arcade at the Sheffield Documentary Festival has a range of presentations, including the ones from BBC Taster, organized and implemented by Site Gallery and supported by the Arts Council of England. As the year progresses there will be more and more of these kinds of organized public VR gatherings all over the world, so keep your eyes out for the ones happening in your neighborhood.

Something to Do: Movies

Warcraft looks like the winner this weekend, with some amazingly well done CGI and Fx work, and hopefully a story and plot that is just as good. When the portal between universes opens, one race faces destruction, the other extinction, unless they can learn to work together. The MMORPG the movie is based on has a huge number of devoted players, if they were true enough to the source material they can’t help but have a hit on their hands; if they weren’t, then the deserve the crash and burn that same fanbase will put them through. Most games turned into movies have been real turkeys, but there have been a few exceptions; I hope this is one of them. If you are not interested in this one, other options this weekend include Therapy for a Vampire, in which Sigmund Freud has to help a vampire deal with his undying relationship with his wife, and Now You See Me 2, which only has to be half as good as the original to be a total winner.