We have entered 2015, and there are a lot of good things coming for the year. One of those things is movies, and I thought I should mention a few I am looking forward to. In January, Strange Magic brings a lot of silliness to animated war. February brings the live action/adventure Jupiter Ascending, the rather silly Hot Tub Time Machine 2, and the graphic novel spy thriller Kingsman: The Secret Service. In March we have the South African robot rights drama Chappie, the live action reboot of Cinderella, and the latest from the Divergent Series: Insurgent. That just starts the year off, there are a lot more coming after that, including the next Avengers film; it looks to be a very good year.
In Saturn’s Rings covers topics from the big bang to the near future as seen from the perspective of the Cassini-Huygens Mission at Saturn. This is an IMAX film that will be playing in museums and planetariums around the country. Hot Bot is at the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum, but could be fun. Two unpopular teen geeks accidentally discover a life-like super-model sex bot.
There isn’t much this week, no real surprise since the shopping season is pretty much over. In movies I only mention Stephen King’s A Good Marriage because of the author. Likewise, I only mention the TV show Banshee: The Complete Second Season because its from Alan Ball, who turned True Blood into a small screen roller coaster of a show. Without those mentions, I don’t think I would have anything to put there.
In Anime, Onimonogatari: Shinobu Time is the Fourth arc to the Monogatari series’ second season. Time traveling is involved, and The Darkness is coming to take everyone over. In case you were wondering, Monogatari is how you say Story in Japanese, and Oni is the word for Demon, so the second season is called Demon’s Story, where the first season Bakemonogatari means Ghost or Monster Story. The light novels these are based on are quite good; if you are a fan of them, this DVD/Story Arc is the 11th book in the series.
Eterna from Vadzim Khudabets of Behind The Epic has got to be one of the most amazing jobs of video editing I have seen this year. Since he does trailers for a living, this has to be his version of a demo reel. If you haven’t already seen this, nothing I say can possibly prepare you for it; enjoy, and morn the fact that you will never be able to sit down in a theater and watch this movie.
ETERNA from Behind The Epic on Vimeo.
This week the Disney film Into The Woods is going to corner the musical comedy fantasy market I suspect, and I will no doubt be in the theater to check it out on the big screen. Also, The Imitation Game finally goes into wide release. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, this telling of the life of mathematical genius Alan Turing has been nominated for 5 Golden Globes, on top of the 23 awards it has already won.
7 Assassins is the movie this week, about a group of assassins who have banded together to rid the government of corruption. This movie is quite good, even if it does have a death toll that could rival a Shakespearean tragedy adapted by George R.R. Martin, as the reviewer linked here said.
TV has Continuum: Season Three, with another roll of the time-travel dice pushing Kiera still farther from her original timeline. If you live in Canada you can get the Enhanced Video experience by watching it online, with original bonus webisodes, extended scenes, and behind-the-scenes content in each Continuum Season 3 episode. You can get a lot of that from Continuum on Syfy, but not all of it, and not as nicely integrated. US viewers should go for the discs to get the full effect. We also get Dominion: Season One this time around, about the war between the angels and humanity. I am sure you won’t be too surprised to learn Humanity is in trouble.
The Anime stand out this week is Sword Art Online: Extra Edition, the bit that came between the first and second season, an OVA that comes in at just 100 minutes. It sets the stage nicely for what comes next, and brings its own context and development. There is also One Piece; Season 6 Part 3, which may not sound like much but is 11 full episodes. What Japan calls a TV season is everything produced in a year, and since they go around the calendar with this series, each actual season ends up being 10 to 12 episodes long.