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Something to Watch: Discs

In movies we get The Divergent Series: Insurgent, based on book two of the trilogy written be Veronica Roth. Again, why it is called a trilogy when it is 4 books long escapes me, but that worked just fine for Douglas Adams and it seems to work here as well. Epic fantasy at its finest, Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal is about Zhong Kui, a legendary warrior who is forced to conquer Heaven and Hell to save his people and the woman he loves… Literally. I am including a trailer at the end of the post for those who missed hearing about this when it was in the theaters last February. There is also the first Maori fantasy film I have heard of, The Dead Lands, presented in Maori with English subtitles. There is also one non-genre movie that looks interesting, Black & White: The Dawn of Assault!, a prequel to the popular Taiwan TV show Black & White. A cop and a criminal are forced to work together to save their city from something far worse than themselves.

In TV Orphan Black: Season 3 brings in the boy clones with a vengeance, and quite a bit of violence. I appreciate this shows ability to constantly hand us new twists we didn’t see coming, but I would be perfectly happy if they toned down the gore a bit. Even though it isn’t genre itself, I have to also mention The Casual Vacancy because it is J.K. Rowling’s first book for adults.

In Anime, Space Brothers: Collection 4 brings episodes 39 through 51 of this epic near-future adventure. One brother has barely survived crashing on the Moon with no rescue in sight and limited oxygen, while the other is fighting to make it through accelerated survival training on Earth alive. Meanwhile Turn A Gundam: Part 2 has episodes 26 through 50, and also takes place on both the Earth and Moon; but this time, it is the entire human race who’s survival is at risk. Finally, The Troubled Life of Miss Kotoura – Complete Collection is about a girl who has the ability to read minds, and the boy who gets her the help of the ESP Research Society, so she can start leading a less stressful life.

Doctor Who Panel

This is the Doctor Who Comic Con 2015 Panel with Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Michelle Gomez, and Steven Moffat, with an intro from Chris Hardwick. Like the last Comic Con panel I posted, this one is also from Flicks And The City. They have a ton more coverage, drop by their web site and watch them all.

Something to Watch: Discs

This week we get the award winning White God, a movie about dogs in organized revolution, which shares an attitude with the recent reboot of Planet of the Apes. It is unusual and has a lot of critical acclaim, and while it is in Hungarian it has English subtitles, so you won’t have any problem following the story. The other film is the animated Justice League: Gods & Monsters, from an alternate universe where Zod is Superman’s father, Batman is a Vampire, and Wonder Woman is the daughter of Ares, God of War. For a western animation, this one is rather dark.

TV has Helix: Season 2, a show that may have been vying with Lost for the Serious Weirdness in Television Award. We also get the Disney made-for-TV film Descendants, a comedy/fantasy involving the children of Cruella De Vil, Maleficent, the Evil Queen, and Jafar. It doesn’t come out on Tuesday, though, but goes on sale Friday the 31st, the same day it airs on the Disney Channel.

In Anime, Windy Tales is about a teacher who knows how to control the wind, and the students who learn everything from Air to Zephyr from them. While the show came out in 2004, I can find no reference to previous North American releases. No Game, No Life is about a couple of Neets who’s only connection with the world at large is through online gaming. They are good enough at that to end up representing humanity in a game that will determine the fate of the world, even though they can barely function enough to leave their home. Naruto Shippūden: Uncut Set 23 takes place during the 4th Great Ninja War, and finds the allies fighting against reanimated friends and enemies. This set brings episodes 284 through 295 home, while I believe they are up to episode 419 in Japan. Galilei Donna is about three dissimilar sisters who suddenly find themselves with one thing in common; an attempted kidnapping on the same day. It turns out they are descendents of Galileo Galilei, who left behind a treasure that the sky pirates are determined to have.

009 Re: Cyborg reactivates a group of cyborgs to try to save the world from a threat stranger than human. Speaking of strange, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Season 1 is an action adventure comedy series that is downright silly at times, but still has some serious moments. Inari Kon Kon has a girl given the power to shape shift after she saves the life of a familiar to a goddess. Finally, Recently, my sister is unusual finds Mitsuki haunted by a ghost who she must help pass on to the next world.

Something to Watch: Streams: Death Note

A bored Shinigami decides it might be interesting to see what a human would do with his powers, so he drops his instrument of mortality at the feet of Light Yagami to see what happens. Light doesn’t believe the book has the power to kill at first, but as his situation becomes more desperate he finds himself trying it out, in the hopes he might survive after all. That is the setup and premise of Death Note, and the new live action version of the story is streaming on Crunchyroll. It is part of the current summer season of shows from Japan, and is now up to episode three. If you would prefer to watch the original Death Note Anime before starting the live action presentation, it is streaming at Hulu.

Comic-Con Panels from Flicks And The City

A UK site all about TV and Movies known as Flicks And The City was at Comic Con the other week, and apparently got permission to record and post a number of the panels there. The one I am posting here has all 5 of the DC Comics TV panels, for the shows Arrow, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Gotham, and Supergirl. This isn’t the only panel they have posted, and they have a lot of other content including reviews and interviews and trailers of various types. Check out their web site and their You Tube Channel for many more videos worth watching.

Something to Watch: Discs

Movies brings us What We Do in the Shadows, a horror comedy that has been winning awards all over the film festival circuit. A documentary crew follows around four vampire roommates as they make their nightly rounds of harassing werewolves, cruising clubs, and fighting about household chores. Kung Fu Killer starts Donnie Yen as an imprisoned martial arts master who is released by the police so he can stop someone who is going around beating martial arts masters to death. That counts as fantasy in my book so I’m posting it here. I didn’t see much in the way of genre TV shows this time, except in Anime.

In Anime, Blazblue: Alter Memory – Season One has the game characters come to life, with Ragna using a combination of magic and technology to battle it out with the Librarium to decide the future of mankind. Guardian Ninja Mamoru is about a family of Ninjas that has been protecting another family for the last 400 years. The current generation of both families are now in high school together, and things are getting exciting. Soul Eater Not! continues the story of the living weapons and their wielders with the new generation getting trained for supernatural combat. The gang from the previous series is around as well, and it is just as filled with outrageous comedy as the original.

TO – Elliptical Orbit & Symbiotic Planet is coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, so you can pick up both award winning short features for a really good price. There are also a few re-releases worth grabbing if you missed them the first time around, including Mamoru Oshii’s classic Patlabor 2: The Movie and Persona 4 the Golden Animation.