New Geek DVD Day - 02/24/09

 

The Good:  Pirates 2 - Stagnetti's Revenge (Lame R Rated Cut)

 

Why It's Good:  Pirates 2 is the big budget porn film that is a sequel to the original film Pirates that came out back in 2005.  By big budget, I mean the film had a budget of about a million dollars.  That may not sound like much as far as regular movies go, but for porn films that's huge.  This DVD version is the R rated cut of the film that has had all of the hardcore scenes taken out.

 

I've seen both Pirates and Pirates 2 though, and believe me when I say that the porn stuff aside, these movies are hilarious.  They are by far the best spoofs I've seen of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean films.  The dialogue is made super cheesy on purpose, the acting is atrocious, but the characters are really amusing and there are some downright funny scenes in the films that will make just about anybody laugh.  The hero of the films is the Captain of a pirate hunting vessel who has been tasked with eliminating the pirate scourge from the Caribbean.  The guy who plays the captain has some of the best delivered one-liners I've heard in a long time.  We're talking laugh out loud funny here.

 

If you don't like porn, get the R rated cut and you can still enjoy these funny parody films.  If you like Porn, then the unedited cut is really the way to go.  Either way the films are entertaining.

 



 

The Badass:  Akira (on Blu-ray)

 

Why It's Badass:  It's the granddaddy of all Anime movies.  It's the film responsible for introducing pretty much all of western civilization to the greatness that is Japanese animation.  Akira, combined with the original Robotech series, is pretty much solely responsible for introducing an entire generation of kids in the US and in Europe in the 1980's to the concept of animation that deals with adult centered themes and topics.  Without Akira, we wouldn't have pretty much any of the amazing Anime films that have been made since.  It set the standard for what an Anime film should strive to be and has inspired countless films since its release.

 

Akira truly is a landmark in animated cinema, and now it is available on Blu-ray so it can be enjoyed in crystal clear high definition.  This is a "must own" for any animation fan.

 



 

The Awesome:  Futurama - Into The Wild Green Yonder

 

Why It's Awesome:  It's Futurama. Do I really need to explain it more than that? Ok, fine. It's the fourth, and possibly final, direct to DVD Futurama movie. It's possibly the last time we'll ever get to see the adventures of the Planet Express crew. Is that enough for you yet?

 

When Futurama was originally cancelled by the Fox Network back in 2003, I was deeply saddened. It was one of my favorite shows and is still, in my opinion, far superior to Matt Groenig's other show The Simpsons. The show follows the adventures of the eternal slacker Philip J. Fry after he gets cryogenically frozen in the year 1999 and wakes up in the year 2999. Now, a delivery boy for the Planet Express crew, Fry is joined by his new best friend, the alcoholic robot Bender "Bending" Rodriguez, and Leela (the one eyed ship's captain) and a large cast of other characters as they wander through space delivering packages and occasionally getting caught up in intergalactic wars or almost being killed by Snu Snu.

 

After the cancellation, the show went into reruns on Cartoon Network's latenight programming line up Adult Swim, where it became one of the consistently highest rated shows each week. These ratings quickly caught the attention of executives over at Fox, and much like what happened with Family Guy, more new episodes were ordered. However, instead of just creating a new season of TV, the decision was made to create four full length direct-to-DVD movies. This new movie is the last of those four films. Hopefully, the sales of the DVD's will be enough to get more movies ordered, but right now that future is uncertain. All we can do for now is buy the DVD's and hope for the best.