First let me come out and say I know very little about Anime; aside from a few episodes of Speed Racer when I was growing up, Anime just never really caught my interest.  But I’m willing to give anything a shot; after all, it’s never too late to discover a new genre in entertainment.  Unfortunately the Shout Factory release of Starzinger was a bad first experience that made for a long cringe-worthy experience.  Films like Howl’s Moving Castle and Grave of the Fireflies are beautiful pieces of animation as well as touching stories.  Then there are the animated series that are simply there to entertain for half an hour; when it comes to Starzinger better known as Spacekeeters, well, this did absolutely nothing for me.  The show that consisted of 26 aired episodes has been edited together to make three movies that Shout Factory has put out in a 2-DVD set.

The story is simple; there is a great disruption in the universe, and the only way the galaxy canbe restored to the peaceful galaxy it was before depends on Princess Aurora reaching the Great Planet.  The Great Planet happens to be on the other end of the galaxy, so to ensure her safety Jan Kugo, a great cyborg warrior, is ordered to escort her.  Along the way Aurora and Kugo confront aliens and monsters but also find two other cyborgs to come along for the journey, Don Hakka and Jogo the Wolf.  The first movie really seems to be about nothing more than the four joining forces before setting off for the last leg of their journey and reaching the Great Planet.

The Bronte Sisters is a very historical film in many ways. It is the most accurate film we have depicting the real lives of some very famous writers. It is also an old film from 1979 being reissued that stars three great actresses who are very well known now. It has an excellent commentary that addresses both of these  points by film scholar Wade Major and Bronte scholar Sue Lonoff de Cuevas done in 2013. It also includes a 2012 Bronte documentary by Dominique Maillet called the Ghosts of Hapworth. The Bronte Sisters was directed by respected French director, Andre Techine'.

That the French seem to love these British sisters only shows the universal appeal their stories had. No one can deny that Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are two of the best known stories in literature. Both have been made into films numerous times. I just recently reviewed a new version of Wuthering Heights just a few months ago which prompted me to watch an old British miniseries called The Brontes of Hapworth. There was even an old Hollywood movie called Devotion that took many liberties with the truth. The three Bronte sisters share a kinship with another beloved writer, Jane Austen. Their stories are about intelligent women who tried to find a place in a society that did not truly respect them. The three sisters originally published under male names due to Victorian constraints but eventually had to come clean after dealing with some difficult publishers. They all started writing together as young girls, creating the mythical lands of Angria and Gondol. Anne's books Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are not as well known, but highly regarded as early examples of feminism. The three sisters were spurred on by their brother Branwell who was full of artistic talents in poetry and sculpture but was slowly robbed of any success. He even erased himself from a portrait he did of the four siblings.

“The bullies tried to make us feel small; in a weird way it did just the opposite. I wasn’t afraid anymore, and Howie wasn’t alone. God has a way of giving you what you need when times get tough.”

Traditions die hard, but not all traditions are good traditions. Such is the case in Standing Up, D.J. Caruso (I AM NUMBER FOUR) tale based on the novel The Goats by Brock Cole. The film focuses on a subject that has been receiving more and more attention as the problem continues to grow: bullying. It seems like a week doesn’t go by without me hearing a story about someone becoming the latest victim of someone else’s cruelty, and good to see a filmmaker take the time to tell a meaningful story about two kids who are victims of a cruel practical joke banding together and forming a friendship that stands the test of time.

"At first, idleness can seem like a welcome distraction the troublemaking and the fun. Everyone needs some idle time to focus on something other than work. Even if it means focusing on something that's a little bit scary. Stepping back from work is the only way to get perspective."

For nine years millions of people have been spending those idle moments in the company of the cast and characters of Grey's Anatomy. There are worse places one could be.

With films like Sharknado it’s clear that that Hollywood can’t say no to a disaster movie no matter how bad it may sound.  It’s almost as though everyone has given up on the idea that a disaster movie can be good; The Towering Inferno holds up after all these years, yet you can almost guarantee if they attempted to remake it, awfulness would certainly follow.  Heck, the Poseidon Adventure was amazing to watch growing up, and even on the heels of Titanic and with “better” special effects at their fingertips, the remake, Poseidon, was a failure.  What I find all the more odd is that with these straight-to-DVD or SYFY-made movies, the bigger the concept the smaller the budget, leaving it no other route but to fail.

The film jumps into the fray as it opens with Seattle in the grips of a storm that is going to cause a magnitude of destruction.  It’s as though we accidently channel-surfed and fell into the final sequence of Twister till suddenly we flash back to nine hours earlier and things are peachy keen in the beautiful city, home to the Space Needle.