I’d wager even story creator Philip K. Dick would be impressed with the futurism and dark beauty of Adult Swim and Crunchyroll’s new Japanese and American half-hour animated series Blade Runner: Black Lotus. Is the mysterious drifter Elle a young woman with amnesia or a new type of replicant that can fool the Voight-Kampff test? What does it mean to be an android or cyborg with feelings and memories? Those are the questions asked in the first five episodes of the excellent new series, now streaming on Adult Swim and the Adult Swim app.
Some of the best dystopian futurism in years came to a conclusion this year in the pages of Titan Comics’ Blade Runner 2019, the official comic book sequel to the cult classic 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott. Co-written by Michael Green, the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Logan, Blade Runner 2049, and Murder on the Orient Express, and prolific comics writer Mike Johnson (Batman, Star Trek, Transformers) with artwork from Andres Guinaldo (Nightwing, Justice League Dark), this year’s Blade Runner 2019story arc found an ex-Blade Runner named Ash returning from the Off-World colonies to the rain-soaked future Los Angeles. A new Replicant will lead an animated series from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim this fall, taking Philip K. Dick’s Replicants into the untapped territory of the year 2032 in Blade Runner: Black Lotus. Check out the very Alita: Battle Angel-evoking series coming this fall in this first trailer, released at San Diego Comic-Con 2021 aka Comic-Con @Home this weekend:
Initially marketed as Monster Problems, Love and Monsters is a surprise sleeper hit apocalypse movie, also marketed as an adventure comedy, which puts it into the camp of movies like the Jumanji series and Finding ‘Ohana. It was scheduled for release last April, then delayed to late 2020 because of the pandemic, and you probably missed it. Which is now a good thing, because it’s a nicely timed story about survival–namely surviving a big event and getting to the other side of that event, being able to breathe freely again, at least at some level. Starring Dylan O’Brien, Jessica Henwick, and Michael Rooker, it’s a monster movie so well done it is nominated for a visual effects Oscar in tonight’s Academy Award ceremony. It’s now streaming on Vudu, Amazon, and DVD/Blu-Ray.
It aired in the UK in February and March, and it had been reported for several weeks that its fifth season was going to arrive on BritBox in April in the U.S. The BBC′s unique crime seriesShetland made it in the nick of time, with BritBox releasing the first episode yesterday. Unfortunately BritBox didn’t drop all six Season 5 episodes, opting to air the series the old-fashioned way, with new episodes arriving every Tuesday. It’s the kind of series to savor, so why not?
As advertised since last year, the multiple BAFTA-winning series’ key cast returns, with Shetland supercop/investigator DI Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall) partnering again with DS Alison “Tosh” McIntosh (Alison O’Donnell) and DC Sandy Wilson (Steven Robertson), this time to investigate the murder of a young man whose body parts have been found washed ashore around the island. Welsh actress Rakie Ayola (Dredd, Doctor Who, Sea of Souls, Black Mirror) steps into the series as the season’s guest star, playing the boy’s estranged mother. The first episode of the season does not disappoint, laying out the first of the clues that will lead DI Perez–and the audience–to find the killer before the series wraps with its sixth episode June 4.
Anglophiles wanting another reason to catch up with Shetland will find former and current cast on the series from both Doctor Who (Peter Capaldi, Steven Robertson, Mark Bonnar, Gemma Chan, Brian Cox, James Greene, Anthony Flanagan, Benjamin Cawley, and Susan Vidler) and Game of Thrones (Clive Russell, Ciarán Hinds, Jamie Michie, John Stahl, James Cosmo, and Chris Reilly). Struan Rodger can boast roles on all three series. The fourth season knocked out several great shows to be borg′s Best British/UK series of 2018.
With Amazon Studios releasing a new, full-length trailer for its six-part series Good Omens, showrunner Neil Gaiman discussed his creative process for the book and the show at this weekend’s South by Southwest (SXSW 2019) conference and festival in Austin, Texas. Check out his panel interview below, with Gaiman discussing the series and his creative process. Gaiman co-wrote the novelGood Omens on which the series is based with Terry Pratchett way back in 1989. Pratchett passed away in 2015, and now, led by Gaiman’s efforts, twenty-nine years after its creation the book is on its way to a TV adaptation later this spring.
In Good Omens the end of the world is coming, and opposite personalities in the form of an Angel and Demon are brought together to form an unlikely alliance to stop Armageddon. They have lost the Antichrist, an 11-year-old boy unaware he’s meant to bring upon the end of days, sending the pair to find him and save the world before… The End. The series combines the talents of Douglas Mackinnon, who directed episodes of Sherlock and Doctor Who, and it stars David Tennant(Doctor Who, Jessica Jones, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Viva Blackpool) and Michael Sheen(Passengers, Doctor Who, Tron: Legacy, Frost/Nixon, Alice in Wonderland). Other big names appearing in the series include Benedict Cumberbatch(Sherlock, The Hobbit, Star Trek Into Darkness), Jon Hamm (Baby Driver), Miranda Richardson (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Muppets Most Wanted), Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), Michael McKean(Clue, Laverne and Shirley), David Morrissey(Doctor Who, The Walking Dead), Frances McDormand(Fargo, Three Billboards, Isle of Dogs), and Brian Cox(Shetland, RED, Doctor Who).
First, take a look at the new full-length trailer for the series, followed by the discussion with Neil Gaiman this weekend at SXSW 2019, and a brief behind-the-scenes featurette:
It’s interesting that the publicity folks for RED 2 have stressed in their latest movie trailer no Robots, Monsters, or Superheroes. Although we’re not so sure RED 2 isn’t chock full of its own breed of superhero, it’s true you’ll find no monsters or robots here. RED 2, previewed at borg.comhere, is definitely not like any other film creating waves this summer. But it is the most fun you’ll have at any movie this year.
You don’t need to ask, for example: Were too many people killed in the movie’s finale (as with Man of Steel)? Or lower your normal standards a bit to allow yourself to just plain have fun watching a giant robot take on a giant monster from the ocean’s depths (as with Pacific Rim). Or struggle with friends over whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch was cast appropriately as a sci-fi villain (as with Star Trek Into Darkness). With RED 2, you don’t have to think about all those things that distract you from just having a good time. Do the heroes kill a lot of people in RED 2? You bet, and we like it that way.
What RED 2 will make you do is think about where it stands in the line-up of the best of Bruce Willis’s movies. When was the last time you saw such a good Bruce Willis film that made you work through that analysis? The reality is that Bruce Willis’s performance as retired spy Frank Moses in RED 2 is up there with his first run as John McClane in the original Die Hard, and we haven’t seen him play a character this cool since Pulp Fiction. Pull up your Netflix queue and take a second look at him in Striking Distance, Twelve Monkeys, and The Fifth Element and you might just add RED 2 to your list of Best of Bruce keepers.
RED 2 is coming to theaters July 19, 2013, and we’ve previewed it earlier here at borg.com. If you missed the original in the theaters you’re not alone. The marketing for RED didn’t do much to help–advertised as retired assassins getting back together, the appeal was hard to grasp. Yet if it had been revealed as a dream cast spy caper in the realm of the Ocean’s Eleven series, it might have drawn a wider audience. Whatever the box office take on the original, it doesn’t matter as a sequel will be soon here, and it’s a good time to go back to the original available everywhere on video and even on basic cable programming. If you do, you’ll find a fun flick that will likely cause you to look forward to RED 2 come July.
