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Things to Watch: DVDs

The pick of the release week is the first in a series of movies; the name of this one is The 20th Century Boys 1: The Beginning of the End. It has been making the film festival rounds, and has been doing killer box office back home. With luck, they will be releasing the remaining two films in this set here soon.

I can’t believe they allow them to keep making these things, but as long as they do, I will keep buying them: Robot Chicken Season 4 is coming out Tuesday. In case you have not added any of these to your collection yet, they are also releasing season 1-4 as a box set. This is some of the most sick and twisted humor available today, from the minds of Seth and Seth.

In the Anime department, two old favorites get released in HiDef this week; Samurai Champloo: The Complete Collection, and Basilisk – The Complete Series. Each of these is an incredible job of storytelling in their own very different ways, with some of the best animation you have ever seen. Hell, even the soundtracks are world class. If you were thinking these are both historical action/dramas from the Shogunate period, one involving Ninjas and one Samurai, you would be right. They have a break with reality in the mystical and martial arts powers wielded by some of the combatants, and that is enough of an excuse to allow me to list them here (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

Previously unreleased Anime for this week includes El Cazador de la Bruja – Season 1 Part 2, which is even more interesting because this is the third series of Bee Train’s Girls With Guns set. Noir and Madlax were the first two series in the collection, which should tell you where this one is coming from. There is another Bleach volume out (number 23), but as usual I will be waiting for the box set before adding it to the permanent collection.

For another live action, we have Chai Lai Angels: Dangerous Flowers, the Thai version of Charlies Angels from the creators of Ong-Bak. Chai Lai translates to “gorgeous”, and this action-comedy has plenty of both (action and comedy).

There is a documentary hitting the shelves Tuesday as well that I thought was worth a mention: Fallen Idol: The Yuri Gagarin Conspiracy. They got the story pretty close to the way I heard it, so I suspect this will be worth watching.

Murmurs, Rocks, and Apprentice’s

CBS has decided to try out a Time-Travel pilot for a new series called Murmurs, from the guy who wrote the new Bionic Woman. The premise centers around an organization called The Commission who’s job it is to keep history from changing; think Time Cop.

If you like your shows outdoors, you can enjoy rocks falling out of the sky as the Geminid Meteor Shower peaks on the 13th and 14th (it has already started). While it may be a bit cold for viewing in some places, that does help clean things out of the atmosphere.

Finally, the first trailer for the new version of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is out, and it might just be a fun film.

Red Dwarf Radio, Doctor Who Special

Starting tomorrow, Sunday December 6th, BBC7 will be running Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, the book by Grant Naylor (who is actually Rob Grant & Doug Naylor) that tells the story about how Dave Lister ended up as part of the crew of the Red Dwarf. If that wasn’t enough, the story is read by Arnold Rimmer himself – Chris Barrie. The segments are 30 minutes long, so it will take six of them to read the whole book. There are three more Red Dwarf books and I for one am sincerely hoping they decide to present them all.

There are only 3 David Tennant Doctor Who specials left, and BBC America will be playing The Water of Mars on Saturday December 19th. Yes, it is the Beginning of the End; and Children in Need had a taste to share…

Alice due Sunday

Did you happen to catch the Syfy Channel miniseries Tinman, the wonderfully twisted version of the Wizard of Oz? The team that brought you that creation return on Sunday, the 6th, with Alice, with their wonderfully twisted version of Through The Looking Glass. This time it brings some serious star power to the party, with a cast that includes the likes of Kathy Bates, Tim Curry, Matt Frewer, Colm Meaney, and Harry Dean Stanton to name but a few. Oh, and my favorite bit: Andrew-Lee Potts got to be the Hatter.

Buck Rogers Lives!

There is a new Buck Rogers series coming out in 2010, and judging by this rather retro teaser it might just be a fun show. I heard about this from Big Dumb Object who got it from Ain’t It Cool who had it from Sci-Fi Wire. The new Buck Rogers series is from the same folks who brought us Star Trek: Phase II, formerly known as Star Trek: New Voyages. If you would like some more details about the new project check out the interview on TrekMovie.

Things to Do: Cons

Cons are pretty thin on the ground in December, at least this year. The Steel City Con is a Toys and Collectibles kind of event, going on in Pittsburgh, Pa this weekend, and the CapIcons event is the same, in Tyson’s Corner, Va.

The only Con of importance this weekend is a kind of Meta-Con: the SMOF Con, or Secret Masters of Fandom Convention. They have to hold it when nothing else much is going on, because they run all the Cons that count, and would be too busy to show up when their Con was happening. So from December 4th to the 6th the majority of them will be in Austin, Texas, and syncing with this years theme: Time Management! Even people with time machines need to keep it under control, after all. My favorite Gimme from this cons collection: the SMOF Austin Restaurant Guide, which even non-SF folks will find very useful when they visit the best little town in Texas.

If you haven’t been to a collectibles event before, they are different from most other cons in that they are pretty much all dealer room. The one thing that makes them worth attending (unless you are a collector, of course, and if you are you already know this stuff) are the Celebrity Guests. You actually get to talk with them one-on-one while you pay your money for an autographed photo, or to get a picture taken with them. I have passed up a lot of photo opportunities over the years that I regret now, but count myself lucky for the questions I have had answered from folks like James Doohan (Trek) and Candy Clark (Man Who Fell To Earth), amongst many others.

Celebrity Guests at the Steel City Con include Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), and Luciana Carro (BSG).

CapIcons doesn’t seem to have any guests (at least that I could find), so from my perspective, what’s the point? Collectors will still be there, of course.