Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

One of my friends just got that collection for his birthday.

^Seems Best Buy is the only place that has it still in stock. I remembered I had a gift card from Christmas still unused!

I've only seen the first film, which I saw a few months ago and really enjoyed. If a couple of sequels are half as good I'll be happy.

Just found this in the dealer's room at A-Kon:

Compared to what many of the Tokyoshock Toho releases tend to go for nowadays, $15 dollars seems like a pretty good deal.

Arcadia of my Youth blu-ray finally arrived. I've loved The Cockpit since I bought the VHS back in the mid-90s, but I've only become interested in the SF side of the Leijiverse in recent years, so I missed out on the previous DVD release of Arcadia. What a great movie, definitely deserving of its legendary status. The term space opera gets thrown around so often it's lost its meaning, but Captain Harlock is operatic in the truest sense. There's some mesmerising imagery on display, from the poetic opening with Phantom F. Harlock to the swirling inferno of the Stanley Witch of Space. And I always love a good battle scene between space battleships, something that SF movies don't do nearly enough.

^ On my initial viewing I was a bit dissapointed that Harlock was really only Space Pirate Captain Harlock in the last half hour, but on second viewing I was able to appreciate the whole much more; the flashbacks to Harlock's ancestors and how they tie in is especially neat.

Any what a great package. Discotek really outdoes themselves with their disc art - and the insert booklet designed to look like Harlock's book!

ShoutFactory is having a ScreamFactory sale so I picked up Up From the Depths and Q the Winged Serpent on BD.

^ Ooooh, that's purdy.

Picked up what is currently the best movie of the year:

^Oooooh, I should really pick that up. Awesome movie. Glad I saw it in the theater (in a matinee showing late in the run with the only other folks in the audience being two very old white guys - which seemed somehow appropriate?)

Anyway:



Now we just need The Creature and Invisible Man sets to complete this. Hopefully we'll get a supplemental Karloff/Lugosi non-monster set and a '50s sci-fi set from Universal as well, though it wouldn't surprise me if they ended up licensed to boutique labels.

Sadly, I can't justify those Legacy collections. I would rather they just gave me a sequels box set that included the best sequels (The Mummy's Hand, Son of Frankenstein, Wolf Man Meets Frankenstein, and House of Frankenstein) so I wouldn't have to bother with the others. I'm also not a fan of the fact that they are double dipping the Wolf-Man and Frankenstein sets with the same movies. There is no incentive for me to buy the Wolf-Man set when I would only be getting two crappy movies for the price of several.

With that said, how do the sequels look though? Did they put as much care into the remastering job as they did with the originals?

^Not quite as much work went into remastering the sequels... but that says more about the amount of effort they put into the originals. All the sequels look pretty excellent. Werewolf of London is probably in the poorest shape, and it still looks good.

As for the double dipping: I'd at least get the Frankenstein one so you could get Son of Frankenstein and all the monster rally movies. I don't really mind the duplication because the sets are only $25, take up only marginally more space than a single Blu-Ray case, and said duplication only applies to Drac, Frank, and Wolf Man sets.

See, that's just it. $25 is too much for me for two movies. I don't think I could spend more than $10 on each set, outside of the Frankenstein one, which I would probably do at $15.

^Boutique labels have gotten me used to spending $25 - $30 on a single film!

I'm a big fan of the old Universal Monsters, so I want all of 'em, even the sucky ones, but as I said before: I'd be most excited for a set containing all the non-monster horror films Karloff and Lugosi did for Universal, as well as the Sci-Fi flicks Universal did in the '50s. Cohen Films have apparently worked with Universal to restore The Old Dark House (which is in the public domain, hence why Universal isn't doing it by themselves) and supposedly will release it this Fall.

Yeah, I've heard that THe Old Dark House is finally coming out to BD. I'm super excited for that. I hope we can get The Raven next.

Crappy cover, otherwise: excitement!

Holy bat-marathon, Batman.

^ Yup I jumped on getting the Batman TV series as well. I was fearful it would increase do to the passing of Adam West. It did go up to $70 for a cuple of days, but then on Amazon Prime I saw it dip back down below $50 and grabbed it while I could, should have it on Tuesday

At first I thought I should pick that show up for historical reasons, but then I realized that I could spend my money on something else that I would actually enjoy. Plus, I don't want to support Bob Kane's greed despite him being dead anymore than I already have to (such as the Mask of the Phantasm BD coming out next month).

Adam West was my first Batman. I remember when the Tim Burton Batman came out and i was like "this isnt Batman" - So the 66 Batman has big nostalgia for me. It was a show that wasn't afraid to have fun and it had fight scenes. I also loved the cliffhangers as a kid and couldn't wait for the next episode at the same Bat time and on the same Bat channel. Glad to have the blurays