There is only one title worth noting at the movie theaters this week: Kick Ass. The critics are going nuts, and the trailers are excellent, so this movie is on the top of my watch list for the big screen this weekend. Except for Saturday night of course, when I will be watching the US Premiere of the New Who. In fact, over at TOR, they are doing a week long countdown to Who with a new nifty posting every day, and a friend just tweeted this Who-Inspired Picture that has nothing to do with the official program, but I didn’t mind. Hey, there is even an official countdown clock:
Some interesting things from the realm of Doctor Who are available this week, with others coming soon. In the Classic Who category there are two audio treats that you still have a few days to get in on, as part of the ongoing 7th Dimension audio series on BBC7. Both of these are fun, starting with Tom Baker reading from the first 4th Doctor adventure, Doctor Who and the Giant Robot. And yes, they even include the bit where Baker chose his costume for his version of The Doctor in this Big Finish production. You should hit it now, as of the point I am writing this you only have 5 days before the first episode is no longer available. You only have 4 days left to catch episode two of Barry Letts Who & Me, in which The Doctor Who TV producer from 1969 to 1974 recounts his career. There are some wonderful behind the scenes bits about Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee in this one. So while I am really looking forward to the new series, it is good to know Classic Who still has some new things to offer.
The TV show that stands out this week is Blood Ties: The Complete Series. While all of this had been previously released in two series boxes, it is nice to have everything available in a single package.
The silly montage of copyright-free footage taken from vintage porn and 1950’s Sci-Fi films know as Sex Galaxy will also be hitting the shelves. If you are an MST3K fan, this should be right up your alley.
On the Anime front, Ah My Buddha – The Complete Collection is a good choice, with enough action to keep it interesting. The fan service built into the premise (he only gets strong enough to banish demons when he sees naked women) never really delivers, since naked women without nipples are obviously not really naked; think Sophia Loren in a bodysuit in that 1960’s movie.
Lucky Star Complete Collection is an entirely different critter on several fronts. To begin with, the young women in this series are the focus, not the eye candy. In addition, it tells a high-school tale that almost works for guys as well…
Rental Magica – Collection 2 takes us back to the world where multiple systems of magic work, each with its own set of practitioners (all of whom are in competition with each other), based on the book voted “Best Action Story” by Japanese fans as part of the 2007 Light Novel Awards (the Manga came after the book).
Hidamari Sketch × 365 – Complete Collection is also being released on Tuesday. I probably shouldn’t mention it here, since it has virtually no Sci-Fi elements, but the artist in me couldn’t resist.
If you are a fan of animation, one program you should try to catch every week is Digista, or in English the Digital Stadium. Each week they have a guest who is a professional in the digital arts field, usually but not always animation. That guest, referred to as the Curator, nominates four works by unknown new talent for the panel and the audience to review and judge. One piece each week is declared the winner and goes into the permanent collection of the Digital Stadium Hall of Fame. Once a year all the entrants to the stadium become part of the annual competition, at which the DIGISTA Awards are handed out.
This program is a wonderful showcase for new animation talent, giving them world wide exposure. You can watch each weeks program anywhere NHK World is available. If your local cable company does not carry them (mine does, if yours doesn’t start calling and writing them to tell them to add it, or you can get them off a satellite), you can watch the animations online from the hall of fame page. Other NHK programs I never miss are Imagine-Nation for the weekly Anime, Gaming, and Manga news and features, and J-Melo for news and performances from the Japan music scene. The animation that won this weeks Digital Stadium entry is called Confessions of Fumiko; enjoy.
One of the talents it takes to produce animation is Voice Actors; I know a number of them (and used to be one), and they have a unique skill set. Crunchyroll has a nice presentation on the topic called Adventures in Voice Acting, staring a huge assortment of the best in the business. Now that I have watched the first section, I have to flip a mental coin and decide if I want to buy and download the other segments, or just get the DVD for the permanent collection.
For some eye candy gone wrong, stop by SFX’s It’s Gone a bit 2001, a humorous review of ten movies that tried to imitate the psychedelic ending of that classic film and failed miserably.
In 1990, Douglas Adams got together with Tom Baker, and they made a program for the BBC called Hyperland, a documentary about the Web. The Internet had been around for decades at that point, and even became common among early adapters around 1984 through dedicated client services like AOL and Compuserve. But the modern version of the Web was being invented as this program was being made, and only came into being two years later, around 1992. So here is a bit of history; you can find more here. By the way, did you see the Doctor and Romana hawking computers in the early ’80s? How about Captain Kirk?