DVD Day: September 27th, 2011

?? Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
The best of the Michael Bay Transformers films, but that’s kind like comparing your “best” invasive surgery. One can only hope the Rifftrax will be coming along shortly.

? Mimic
On Blu-ray. I’m mostly surprised at how well this appears to be selling — #7 for the week’s bestsellers. Has there really been such a massive anticipation for watching Mira Sorvino run from bug aliens in high def?

? Adventure Time: My Two Favorite People
Apparently this is a smattering of episodes from season 1 and 2 and not any kind of orderly collection. Just warning you.

? Trigun: Badlands Rumble
Oh shit, it’s the Trigun movie. You know, there was a time when this would have been the biggest deal ever in the anime world, and that time was 2003-2008. This is a tad too late. Funny story: When I was at Anime Insider, we were covering some con in 2005 — Otakon, maybe? — when Madhouse had a panel and president Masao Maruyama announced the Trigun movie. So the next issue, we ran a blurb on the cover, saying “There’s a Trigun movie coming!” because we know anime fans would be interested. Well, the day the issue was released, Geneon — who owned the American license to Trigun — called me saying Geneon Japan was furious, and demanded to know where we got our information about the Trigun movie. I explained it was from the president of studio Madhouse, who announced it at Otakon. Japan, through Geneon USA, angrily told me that that information was private, and demanded we print a retraction. I said no, it couldn’t have been private, because Maruyama told an entire roomful of people about the Trigun movie, not just us. They denied it, so then I had to send them the links to blogs of a few anime fans who had attended the panel, where they talked about how cool the Trigun movie announcement was. Genone stopped calling after that. Fun!

? One Piece: Collection 2
Episode 27-53 for $20; this also contains the “Arlong” arc, one of the best in their entire series. If I start pimping the One Piece DVDs regularly from here on out it’s because Funimation seemed to have stalled after season 3, and I really, really want more.

? Basket Case
On Blu-ray. Yes, really.

? Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris
If you happened to get the MST3K Gamera set, and heard about the recent, bewilderingly awesome ’90s Gamera movies made in Japan, this is one of them. It really is bewilderingly awesome if you like Japanese giant monster movies, and the effects are so well done I’m actually excited to see them in Blu-ray. I’d say it’s well worth the investment, but at only $10, I think it’s worth the risk, too.