The actual Valentine’s Day is Monday, when I do my Movie posting for the week, so you are getting this one a few days early. In honor of this lovers holiday, I would like to bring your attention to this excellent duet between Brent Spiner (yes, formerly known as Commander Data) and Maude Maggart. And because the song alone wasn’t enough, they went ahead and created a tasty little romantic video to go with it. Enjoy!
Yes, it is true: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is going to be performed live on stage in Las Vegas. You can keep up with the details on their Facebook Page, which so far are skimpy. I haven’t found a listing of the actors for the stage presentation yet, but there is still time before they kick off in May to track the information down. I find it encouraging that the the production team putting this together also were the ones who staged the live Rocky Horror Picture Show.
There really is a competition focusing on America’s Greatest Otaku, and it could be you that brings home the prizes this time. The contest is being held by TokyoPOP, and it runs from Monday, February 7th (yes, that is tomorrow) until Friday, February 11th. Each day of that five day period will see a different contest being presented, each a day long and each giving you a shot at some great prizes. You can get the official rules here, and then log into the America’s Greatest Otaku site each day this week to enter each new contest as it comes up. The documentary series that all of this is in support of launches on Hulu on February 24th.
I am embarrassed to say I missed a Sci-Fi DVD release this week: Never Let Me Go, the new film based on the book by Kazuo Ishiguro. He also wrote a little story called The Remains of the Day, but this time around we follow the lives of three people over three decades who were brought to life for a single reason: to be spare parts. This first person story about the lives of clones in an alternate timeline is not a happy tale, but it touches the heart in unexpected ways. This is the kind of movie The Island could have been, if it had someone at the helm who understood what being human was about.
The Rose City Steampunk Film Festival takes place in Portland, Oregon’s Clinton Street Theater on the 13th of February, 2011. The event has several feature length films and a boatload of shorts as well as some music videos and a writers panel. The theater is also running the Steampunk thriller Zenith from the 4th through the 10th, they are showing the classic Valley Girl for their Valentine presentation on the 14th, and every Friday night they run REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA, while every Saturday night they run the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I now have a favorite movie theater in yet another town I have never been to.
ZENITH 2011 TRAILER from Surla Films on Vimeo.
J-Rock comes in a variety of forms, many of them going Thumpa Thumpa in a loud voice. Some of them are not quite so intense, like Yuki Kajiura’s Song of Storm and Fire, and her Yume no Tsubasa, which you may recognize from an anime series. Then there is Maaya with a J-Pop song that was never so sweet as this version, even if it isn’t the jazz vocal riffs she is known for. And then an uptempo J-Pop ditty followed by a J-Rock tune by May’N; enjoy!
Some of the best music comes from Japanese Anime and I have a few to share today. My all time favorite composer is Yoko Kanno, so the tracks are hers, from the original movie Ghost In The Shell. They start with Inner Universe, followed by Lithium Flower, and then finally the Opening Theme song, all from the first film. So this is the music of a single movie, from a single composer; imagine how much more is out there, waiting to be discovered!