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Something to Watch: DVDs

In live action movies, Salt tops the list this week, in a twisted flic fully worthy of Philip K. Dick. I was a bit surprised when I first found out he didn’t write this one, as he has written so many like it. Also released for the younger crowd, Missy and the Maxinator is a live action kid-as-superhero film in which the teachers are out to take over the world.

There is only one live action TV entry this week, but it is an important one: Caprica: Season 1.5. This series was more like reading Sci-Fi than watching it, something you constantly had to think about and extrapolate from in order to understand. It dealt with some of the most important issues our current technology raises today, and did not sugar coat them or spoon feed the audience with a preprocessed answer. Unfortunately, most of the American audience wanted to be entertained, not educated, and the same non-Sci-Fi aware powers at the Sci-Fi Channel who brought you the WWE made sure to kill it without even letting all the episodes air. I am still waiting for an explanation of what mindless muscle boys beating on each other has to do with science fiction when it occurs outside of a Mad Max franchise.

For western animation this week we have the return of Futurama: Season 5, and I just want to say I am very glad that Comedy Central decided this program was worth financing for another round. If anything, this season was more outrageous than any previous, since they didn’t have to strictly follow broadcast television guidelines. I am hoping for many more seasons like this one.

The one new anime offering this week is the Bleach – Season 7 Uncut Box Set, Bringing us up to episodes 122 through 133 of this spirit world combat sequence. To put that in perspective episode 300 just aired on Crunchyroll and in Tokyo last week. That means there is a gap of years between what you can add to your collection here and what the actual current episode is. I am going to use this as a contrast and compare opportunity; If I watch the seventh season and follow it with the current season and do not feel like I am missing anything in between, that would be a good indication that the writing has gotten stale and the storyline is static. If I am missing some names of people and spirit realms but the action and structure of the two seasons are consistent with each other, that would indicate they settled on a formulaic structure and are only plugging in the villein du jour for the story arc and telling us the same tale over and over. If, on the other hand, it becomes obvious I am missing something fundamental in the relationships of the characters and the nature of the struggle they are involved in, that tells me they continue to evolve the underlying concepts and personalities, and perhaps this series could be worth continuing to follow and support. One thing is undeniable whatever the verdict; this anime has had some of the best J-Rock music of any series, and I will post on that soon.

The other anime release this week is a re-release in a cost effective package; Tenchi Muyo! GXP- The Complete Series [Viridian Collection], which will run you less than $30 for all 26 episode. This is one of a fistful of Tenchi series (and Tenchi isn’t even the main protagonist in this one, but all the other details are there), and for the most part they involve our hero being an unlucky klutz who gets dragged into serving on the galactic police by mistake, usually as bait in a trap. Except for the series of time-travel movies in which he was an unlucky klutz, or the sequence of Magical Girl tales in which he was an unlucky klutz, or the… you get the idea. The other detail which is always true is there are four (sometimes 5) girls doing the Romantic Interest part, and one of them is always a galactic police officer, and one is always the dread pirate Ryoko. If you are looking for something profound and beautiful, look elsewhere; this one is just silly fun, but it is very GOOD silly fun.

Something to Do: Movies

This weekend hasn’t been in doubt since half way through 2009; TRON: The Legacy is the hands-down winner. Many of us have been waiting decades for the continuation of this story, an archetype tale of the computer age that changed movies forever. It wasn’t just the use of computer graphics (real and simulated), although that was a precursor of movie production processes to come. It was also the first time computer processes were personified, with each subprogram taking on the personalty its function set would require; the first time the kind of Artificial Intelligence we had known for years from books was portrayed on any screen.

There had been previous attempts to personify AIs on screen, such as 1967’s Colossus: The Forbin Project, which in my mind was the inspiration for the original Skynet from 1984’s Terminator movie, much as the original 1982 TRON was the inspiration for the animated masterpiece ReBoot in 2001. The most notable AI film after them was 1999’s The Matrix, which again completely changed the rules.

None of them led to War Games in 1983, because that box was a real computer and the logic of the plot line adhered to actual parsing rules any programmer of today understands. There was no touch of AI in that story, just the massive paranoia of the time combined with a lack of understanding on the majority of the audiences part of how computers worked. Just saying…

Interestingly enough, the other movie coming out this weekend is a spiritual descendant of TRON by way of William Gibson’s Neuromancer on several levels; the protagonist in Spark Riders invents a way for people to place their soul on the internet. When her idea is stolen by a power hungry psycho and a greedy spy, people begin to become trapped online. With a total budget much less than TRON spent on catering the location shoots, this film could still potentially be worth checking out; after all, they made Dark Star on 10% of Spark Riders budget, and Hollywood promptly threw a ton of money at Dan Obannon and John Carpenter (who then created the Alien and Halloween franchises respectively) because of it.

And one final note; for all of those who, like me, have been frustrated in their efforts to acquire ReBoot for their personal collections, an agreement was reached a few months age between Rainmaker Entertainment, Inc. (the direct descendant of Mainframe Entertainment) and Shout! Factory to release ReBoot in the US in some format or another, most probably a DVD Box Set version. ReBoot really is a direct descendant of Tron; what a treat if we could finally access the original of the former with the the next volume of the later within a year or less of each other! Here is the latest peek at the cover art for the complete series DVD.

Something to Watch: DVDs

The children own the movie to DVD environment this week, with one live action and two animation offerings. The live action is the least interesting to me, but Nanny McPhee Returns does have a place in both literature and in the film world, even if Mary Poppins might have objected. My personal movie choice for this week goes to Despicable Me, and believe me when I say I am going to pick up one of the disk options that includes the never before seen three new Minion shorts. This is one of my two favorite western animations so far this year (the other being Megamind, with Eden of the East and Occult Academy topping my Anime choices this time around), and much as the human children are portrayed as cute, it is the Minions who own this show.

The third movie is the one with the most realistic animation and the most inspiring story, and based on the first book of a world class fantasy series: Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. The folks that put it together understand animating birds, since their last project was Happy Feet, and they have obviously continued to learn since then. The whole texture of this one puts it in the realm of something like the Harry Potter series, and for much the same reasons of lineage and execution: it is just that good. So why did my primary recommendation go to Despicable Me rather than this one? Blame it on the Minions; they just feel like family to me.

In live action TV, the only real winner this week is The IT Crowd: The Complete Fourth Season. While not exactly science fiction, it is a geek fest that blows wimpy competitors like Big Bang right out of the water with the kind of twisted humor that American television rarely has the nerve to show. If you haven’t seen this one before, they often play episodes on IFC you can watch online or on the channel to give you a taste of the attitude. I believe the first 3 seasons are streaming on Netflix as well.

In anime this week Nyan Koi! is the story of a high school boy with a cat allergy who ticks off the local guardian deity of cats. As a result, he can now understand what cats are saying, and has a limited time to grant the wishes of one hundred cats or be turned into a cat himself. With the protagonist being a high school boy, many of the cats are owned by high school girls, while other cats are high school girls themselves; don’t expect anything profound here, this one is just fluffy fun of the supernatural romantic comedy variety.

Somewhat more substantial, The Tower of Druaga – The Complete Series brings both seasons together in a single collection for the first time. If you have played the original arcade game from Namco-Bandi, then the 60 levels our heroes have to fight through should look at least a little familiar to you. This is more or less a combat quest story with multiple competitors going after the prize.

The other Anime coming out this week are various series re-released in more cost effective packages, including Sands of Destruction, Gun X Sword, Naruto – Season 4 Box Set 2, and Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor. The good news is you can pick any of them up for less than thirty bucks, and except for Naruto they are the entire series (the draw for Naruto is this version is uncut and unedited).

Angelic Lawyers, Sci-Fi Party Line

The title may sound like an Anime program, but it isn’t. The team that brought you Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes have a new project in the works which may be just as interesting. The new series, called Eternal Law, is the story of two angels who are assigned to be lawyers to help a community and learn a bit more about humans. This departs from reality on so many levels (to start, have you met any lawyers? Did they seem very angelic to you?) it has to be total fantasy, but has the potential to create some amazing stories, especially in the hands of two writers of such quality. Of course, it also has the potential to fall flat on its face; I look forward to finding out which way it goes.

I was recently invited by Fancy Fembot to join the fine collection of folks aggregated over at the Sci-Fi Party Line News Network. Of course I said yes (I am not as brain dead as I look), and you should stop by there and check out all the fine articles, podcasts, and vlogs. Unless your already reading this from there, in which case Hello! How are you? Thanks, Cat, I appreciate being invited to play in your sandbox.

Doctor Hobbit and the Sonics!

It does sound like the name of a band, doesn’t it? Word is that Doctor Who alumni Sylvester McCoy is going to play a part for the upcoming prequel The Hobbit. No, he will not be playing Gandalf, as that part is completely owned by Ian McKellen, but it is possible he could play the part of another wizard, possibly even an important one. Meanwhile an engineering team at Bristol University are trying to build a working Sonic Screwdriver and having some success. It actually will do things like unscrew the screws and unlock the locks, and I think my collection needs one. However, I know I need to avoid the EX-TER-MI-CAKE accurate Dalek replication made out of cherry chocolate and weighing in at 20 kilos.

Something to Watch: DVDs

The winner for this week has to be Inception, one of the most recursive movies of all time. It was amazing on the big screen, convoluted and beautiful and breathtaking in ways never before seen, and with tension ratcheted so high I kept expecting to see random audience members run screaming out of the theater as their nerves snapped. Word has it the extras on this DVD are many and very well done, but I could care less. I just want to watch it once a week for about two months until I have pulled the last bit of meaning out of it, and then come back every few months to savor it again.

A rather silly looking film that has been getting good buzz and a few awards on the film festival circuit is also being released: Missy and the Maxinator. This family friendly flic is about a boy who gains some superpowers, and about his evil teachers plot to take over the world. On a much more serious note, Dark Metropolis tells the story of the genetically engineered slaves who revolted and took over the world; 500 years in the future they hunt human beings in retaliation.

This weeks TV entry is a bit different: Trek Stars Go West is a series of classic 50s and 60s TV Westerns with appearances by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan and Deforest Kelley. It is a unique idea, and I have to mention it in the interests of completion here, but even though Roddenberry billed Star Trek as Wagon Train in the Stars while trying to sell it to the networks, I can not imagine any hard core Trek fan actually wanting to watch any of these. If they had compiled their Twilight Zone and Man From Uncle kind of appearances, sure, but cowboy shows that depicted killing Native Americans, Hispanics, and pretty much anybody that didn’t own land and/or live in the local town as a good thing, not so much.

The top American animation pick this week is Shrek Forever After, the fourth and final episode in this wonderful franchise. This series has done more strange things to classic fairy tale characters than anyone since Walt Disney himself, and brought full tilt wacky humor to the screen while doing it. You can also get it in a two-pack with a direct to DVD piece called Donkey’s Christmas, or in a series box sets with the other movies called “The Whole Story”.

For Anime, Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor & Other Fantastic Films by Koji Yamamura is the one to have on your must-have list. The 2007 title story won seven Grand Prize awards at animation festivals worldwide, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, the story Mt. Head was nominated for an Oscar in 2003, won 6 Grand Prize awards at various film festivals, and another double dozen lesser prizes. There are over a dozen animations here, totaling just over two hours of runtime, every one of them an experimental masterpiece showcasing Koji’s unique approach to art, life, and animation. The video at the end of this post is the shortest one of his I could find to embed, but it packs a lot of heart into a tiny slice of time.

The other new release this week is the box set of The Third: Girl With Blue Eye, in which Bogie (an AI wearing a tank for a body) and his lovely human Honoka freelance their way across a post-apocalyptic desert planet over run by giant insects. There are also a few re-releases, with Cowboy Bebop: The Movie Special Edition having a number of extra features, which are not usually enough to make me re-buy something I already own, but this time there are Music Videos involved. Also, both Gad Guard – The Complete Series [S.A.V.E. Edition] and Ikki Tousen – The Complete Series [Viridian Collection] are coming out in more cost effective versions.