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Things to Do: Movies and TV

A new TV series kicks off tomorrow night: V. By new, I obviously mean a re-imaging of an old TV series, which seems to be happening a lot these days. Firefly’s Morena Baccarin gets to be the leader of the evil aliens for this one, which had to be a fun role for her.

It looks like the best movie released this weekend will be The Men Who Stare at Goats. This one has been making the Film Festival rounds, and the response has been very positive.

Also hitting the big screen Friday is The Fourth Kind, a thriller about alien abduction. And while it is more Thriller than Sci-Fi, I do have to mention The Box, which has a strange enough premise that it just might qualify for this site.

Things to Watch

Out new this week is Aliens in the Attic, a Family Friendly invasion of Earth movie where the kids get to save the day. Another new release is GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra; I saw it in a movie theater and asked to be paid triple my ticket price to compensate me for my time when it was over. StarQuest: The Odyssey looks to be a direct-to-DVD release.

For the classic releases, Doctor Who has a few important ones this week. the Patric Troughton story line The War Games are a welcome addition to the collection, as is the Tom Baker Black Guardian sequence.

While the release of the live action version of Terminator Salvation won’t happen until the beginning of December, Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series comes out on DVD this week. Not bad for something that started life as a viral marketing campaign, and the disk release dates match up with the original deployment. Also on the animation front is Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Complete Season One.

There are a ton of quality releases on the Anime front, starting with Dragonaut – The Resonance, in which Earth clones Dragons to defend against extinction-level asteroid impacts. Also out is Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit Volume 7. And then there is the Bleach Season 4 Box Set as the soul reaper saga continues. Also out is Utawarerumono The Complete Collection, and You’re Under Arrest: Fast & Furious, season 2 part 1. The Boogiepop Phantom complete collection is out this week as well; guess I jumped the gun last week.

Girl Number 9 starts Tonight

Gareth David-Lloyd was excellent as Ianto Jones in Torchwood and Doctor Who, and I am looking forward to seeing him as Watson in next year’s Sherlock Holmes. But he has another project that launches at 9PM GMT today called Girl Number 9. Gareth isn’t the only Torchwood alumni associated with the project, since it was written by James Moran, veteran writer of episodes of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Spooks. It is a 6-part online thriller, and the good news is it is not region locked, so everyone should be able to watch it. The rest of the episodes will be along next week, the schedule is posted on the Girl Number 9 Facebook page. They will stay online until they have the DVD with all the extra features ready for sale (they are estimating about a month), and you can learn a bit more about it in the SFX Interview.

Things to Watch

Movies released to DVD this week include Don’t Die Without Telling Me Where You’re Going, the 1995 fantasy about love and reincarnation. Also now out on DVD is Stan Helsing, just 5 days after it hits the movie theaters.

A lot of TV programs are coming out this week, of which the most interesting is Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, which seems to be a bit racier than its televised brethren.

More speculative future history than science fiction, the excellent Life After People: the Series is being released as a box set. Another doesn’t-quite-fit category is manifested by Adult Swim in a Box. The only part of the contents I can recommend is Robot Chicken Season 1, which you can get separately, but as an overview of a networks vision I don’t think anything like it has been released before.

New Anime this week includes Genshiken 2: Vol 2, to bring our favorite Otaku team to the forefront. Another quality release is Death Note Re-Light #2: L’s Successor as the series picks up the next story arc, with the former hero being the new bad guy. The Claymore: Complete Collection box set is out for those looking for demon combat fun. A new arrival to the US is Shonen Onmyouji, a 26 episode story set in historic Japan involving spirit power and exorcism. They have also finally released the Popotan Complete Collection if you fancy a bit of jumping through time and space without control taking your building with you (you will NOT see the Doctor in these episodes). For classic Anime re-release, BoogiePop Phantom looks to lead the list.

Blomkamp’s new movie, Best Dream Sequences

Media Rights Capitol has agreed to supply the money for Neil Blomkamp’s new Sci-Fi film according to Ain’t It Cool News. Just as he did with District 9 he will be running a low-budget operation, making up for it by inventing the FX as he writes the script, and we saw how amazingly that worked on his first movie. IO9 has put together a wonderful collection of the Science Fiction Dream Sequences, ranging from the 1920s to the current decade. While they don’t include all of them, they have certainly covered the best, and you can watch every one from those pages.