Russia is finally producing a superhero movie under the title Zaschitniki (The Guardians), and the trailer looks quite good. In a parallel timeline during the height of the Cold War, the superheroes are gathered together from the different countries under Russian rule, each heroes powers reflecting the strengths of their homelands. They must protect their countries from August Kuratov’s clone army and a device he built which controls other machines, turning them against their owners. I really enjoyed the Nightwatch/Daywatch films, and am looking forward to this one, which will be in theaters in 2016.
This is the trailer for NYC ACM SIGGRAPH’s annual college computer animation festival, MetroCAF. This year it happens on Friday, September 25, 2015 at 7:00PM at the New York Institute of Technology’s Auditorium On Broadway. It looks like they have quite a few tasty animations to show this time around, so if you are close enough to make the presentation I recommend you do your best to attend.
This week we get the animated silliness of Hotel Transylvania 2, with an all star voice cast that includes Adam Sandler as Dracula and Mel Brooks as his father, Vlad. There is another comedy worth noting; Intern has Robert De Niro as Anne Hathaway’s Intern in a very interesting movie. As far as I know this will also mark the first time his daughter, Drena De Niro, will be sharing the big screen with him, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is nepotism. She has been working in media her entire life, and has won awards for film direction.
I didn’t spot any new genre movies this week, but TV brings us both Arrow: The Complete 3rd Season and The Flash: The Complete 1st Season, just in time to binge watch them before they both kick into their next seasons on October 6th and 7th. And if you want a feature length film, the documentary The Great Museum tells the story of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, which is one of the most important art repositories on the planet. If your tastes are a bit different, perhaps Rammstein In Amerika will suit you better, also coming out this week.
In Anime, Sword Art Online II has another small, overpriced segment hitting the shelves, but as much as I love the series I won’t be picking it up. I will be waiting for a complete season, or better yet series, at a realistic price. Space Dandy Season 2 continues the strange adventures of the most sharply dressed alien hunter going. It is great to see the creative team that brought us Cowboy Bebop reassembled for another unique project like this. Speaking of strange, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Season 1 has Jonathan Joestar fighting for his life and his sanity against the vampire his adopted brother has become.
Selector Infected WIXOSS: The Complete Series is a combat card game that has some special cards that can take you to a dark plane of existence. If you win, your hearts desire is granted; but if you lose, things could get very dark indeed. Even though this says it is the complete series, in Japan a series is a season, and there is a second season to follow. Also dark this week is Tokyo Ghoul: Complete Season, about a book worm who finds himself turned into a monster by a Ghoul attack. Now he must learn everything he can about his new powers before they overwhelm him.
Hamatora the Animation is about a detective agency in a Yokohama Cafe tat is staffed by people who each have unique powers and abilities. Now someone is systematically killing people with powers, and it is up to Hamatora to solve the murders and stop the perpetrators before those with powers become extinct. Finally, Sabagebu!: Survival Game Club! may not quite be genre (although having an attack platypus argues that it may be), but it is definitely silly fun. I particularly like the way the narrator breaks the fourth wall with his commentary pretty much non-stop.
CGI is getting downright amazing as this trailer for Disney’s new The Jungle Book proves. The film will be hitting the big screens on April 15th, 2016, and as you can see from the trailer it does a great job of blending live action footage of the man cub with computer created animals to bring Rudyard Kipling’s classic story to life.
The primary selection this week is Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, based on the second book in James Dashner’s Maze Runner YA series. There are 5 books so far, so if it does well enough at the box office there may be three more films coming. For those wondering, I linked to the Japanese page for the movie because the US site set off my Site Adviser with warnings about aggressive linking. For those who were hoping for something sillier this weekend also brings us Cooties, in which a virus turns the elementary school kids into killer zombies. The teachers, led by Elijah Wood, have the fight of their lives trying to escape while three of them have an ongoing verbal battle trying to resolve their love triangle. I think I might go for silly this time around.