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Something to Watch: Discs

In Movies Birdman deserved its Oscar nominations, a sort-of superhero movie that spoke about the art and the actor, rather than the character. Then there is The Theory of Everything, where one of my real life heroes, Steven Hawking, was the character at the core of the story; and yes, this one too took home its share of Academy Award nominations. It won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild, and another dozen awards, so I look forward to seeing what it wins in the next round. We also get the latest Studio Ghibli feature film, The Tale of Princess Kaguya. It is based on one of the oldest and best known folktales from Japan, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which would have fit right in with anything from the Brothers Grimm.

In TV we have Doctor Who: Last Christmas, where Nick Frost gets to be a companion while playing Saint Nick… or something very much like him. For a completely different flavor of sci-fantasy there is Game of Thrones: The Complete Fourth Season, continuing George R.R. Martin’s epic mad battle to rule the world. Fortunately, not our world.

Anime gives us Hozuki’s Coolheadedness: Complete Collection, a story about the chief bureaucrat in Hell, and how he deals with the day to day running of the place. Space Dandy: Season 1 also comes out this week, quite the twisted reality!

Something to Watch: Discs

In Movies we get Predestination, based upon a 1959 short story by Robert A.Heinlein, All You Zombies. This very convoluted time travel tale is the more-or-less sequel to the earlier Heinlein story, By His Bootstraps. The other film this week is In Your Eyes, an award winning supernatural romance by Joss Whedon, is pretty much the ultimate opposites attract saga. This one was never in theaters, having been made to go direct to streaming, and now it is on disc just in time for Valentines day. If you don’t know about it, have a trailer on me…

In western animation there is LEGO: DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League vs. Bizarro League, for those looking for good silly fun. If you hadn’t heard, Lego is putting out a Doctor Who Lego Edition later this year. TV gets the long awaited Batman: The Second Season, Part 1, the first 30 episodes of season 2, with Adam West and Burt Ward.

In Anime Reideen: Collection 2 has Mechanical Beasts continuing to attack the Earth, who’s major defender is a high school boy piloting an alien-built giant robot. The problem is, no one knows who the robot is actually working for or what its purpose is. This is a remake of the 1975 Super Robot anime Brave Raideen. Engaged to the Unidentified may be a reference to UFOs, as a young woman meets her fiance from an arranged marriage for the first time. Something just isn’t right about her new family, who are very strange. Finally, Sailor Moon: Season 1 Part 2 continues the newest entry into this classic series.

Something to Watch: Discs

In Movies, Dracula Untold is a rather interesting variation of the Vampire legend, with Vlad Tepes portrayed as a good man doing whatever it takes to save his people and family from destruction. The twisted comedy Hector and the Search for Happiness stars Simon Pegg as a psychologist who needs to find out if happiness even exists any more. If it does, he will bring it to his patients, family, and friends. In western animation Big Hero 6 is out in Streaming format, the Blu-Ray and SD versions will not be coming out until the 24th; it would have been my favorite movie of 2014 if it hadn’t shared the year with Guardians of the Galaxy. In Documentaries we get Video Games: The Movie, with some of the most famous gamers, geeks, and nerds on the planet talking about how the industry got to this point and where it goes from here. No genre TV series to speak of this week.

In Anime, Genshiken: Second Generation is being released as a complete collection; The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture has new otaku recruits, while the graduated old guard is adjusting to life as productive members of society. While this is listed as the second season, to me it counts as the third and a half. During the first season, there was an ongoing discussion of their favorite Anime show, Kujibiki Unbalance, and they included several bonus episodes of that series on the discs. Then they released the series Kujibiki Unbalance itself, and those discs had bonus episodes of Genshiken, enough of them to make up their own OVA release. So with two full seasons and an OVA under their belts, this should really be called season 3.5.

In Golden Time: Collection 2 Banri Tada lost all his memories, and is haunted by the spirit of his former self. The two of him are fighting it out to see who gets to decide how his life will go. Leviathan: The Last Defense pits three girls and a fairy against alien monsters attacking Earth by riding in on meteors. It is not as doomed as it sounds, because the girls are half dragons.

You’re Being Summoned, Azazel is about a detective who summons demons to do his dirty work. The demons in question are lazy and depraved, and take a lot of oversight to keep them on task. Finally, One Piece – Collection Box 2 is out, compiling episodes 104 through 205 into a single package.

Man in the High Castle, the TV show

A ton of movies based on Philip K. Dick books have been made, but Amazon is taking a shot at doing a TV series based on The Man in the High Castle. This multi-award winning novel takes place in a parallel time line where Germany and Japan won WWII, and the number one underground hit in occupied America is a science fiction story about the Allies winning the war instead. Executive produced by Ridley Scott, this is part of Amazon’s new Amazon Pilot Season. They basically made the pilot episode, you watch it, and you rate it, telling them if you want to see more. They will turn some of these pilots into original series which you can watch on their streaming service, and I really hope they go with this one; the pilot was excellent.

Haphead’s Premiere tonight

The first two episodes of Haphead go live on their web site tonight, right after they show the entire first season at the Royal Theatre in Toronto tonight. It is a cyberpunk tale about a new haptic peripheral which makes videogames so immersive that people learn skills just by playing them (yes, that is pretty much their tag line). Thanks to Cory Doctorow for the heads up on this one.