August 2019 | Otaku No Culture

The Vintage Tempest’s Nerdy Picks: Victoria Fringe Festival 2019 Edition

August 21 to Sept 1
Victoria, British Columbia

Summer in Victoria, BC can never feel complete without going to the Fringe Festival! This event has been defining the local arts scene for the past 34 or so years now with its unjuried selection of local and travelling acts. I always gravitate to the nerdy type shows, and to get my zombie on does not always happen every year. Intrepid Theatre, the organizers, cemented my love for their show with Z-Day: The Anthem for Post-Zombie Apocalypse by Jay Mitchell. I’m thankful some of that past is preserved on Youtube, but that’s not why I keep going.

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Hey Abbott! The Complete Universal Pictures Collection

The Complete Universal Pictures Collection is getting the high definition treatment and I hope further information will be released to say if they are true remasters or transfers from the previous edition.

Abbott & Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection [80th Anniversary Edition] - Blu-ray :: Shout! Factory

Release Date:
November 5, 2019
Available in US & Canada

The Abbott & Costello fan in me wants to buy the upgrade Shout! factory is offering come the end of the year. The Complete Universal Pictures Collection is getting the high definition treatment and I hope further information will be released to say if they are true remasters or transfers from the previous edition.

The only difference is with including It Ain’t Hay. Two editions exist of the prior DVD release. One was packaged in a keepsake box and the later version were in amaray cases. Due to legal issues with the estate of Damon Runyon (one of the characters), there was a delay in getting a home release out.

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Kre8ing with Ezra Istiroti, An Interview

With a panache for sound design and a methodology, Ezra Istiroti is more than just another animator who teaches the craft of animation.

Ezra Istiroti is more than a typical digital media/ advertising content creator. With a panache for sound design and a methodology, firms like McDonald’s and The Coca-Cola Co. in Mexico City hired him to design their ad campaigns. He’s also the type of easy going and motivational talent people want to hear from.

After graduating from the Vancouver Film School and running his own firm to develop commercials and branding for other firms operations like BC Place, he’s back with the said institution and now teaching. For people who have been to the World of Wonders event during the  Calgary Stampede early this decade will now know he’s the creative mind behind the design of that interactive installation. He’s also done the jumbotron animations for the Ottawa Fury, 67’s and RedBlacks. It’s rare to know who made that stuff, and now the opportunity exists to say hi, thanks for your amazing work in the past and also learn from him in how it’s made, and do it yourself!

Istiroti is coming to Victoria, BC to lead a workshop to teach to newcomers interested in film, theatre or arts on what they can do with digital media with a three-day intensive Stop Motion animation program starting August 12th (click link to register).

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Star Trek DS9: What We Left Behind Lands on Home Video! & Review

The regular home video release of the documentary Star Trek DS9: What We Left Behind includes what’s left on the cutting room floor to make this look back of this series perfect.

Release Date: August 6, 2019
Shout! Factory

Special Offer: The special edition contains a second Blu-Ray disc with additional material, and is limited to 1,500 copies. It is only available on ShoutFactory.com

The regular home video release of the documentary Star Trek DS9: What We Left Behind includes what’s left on the cutting room floor to make this look back of this series perfect. Usually the amount of clips offered may reach up to six, and sometimes a dozen. I was dumbfounded to find 17 in all! And one of them addressed my most favourite episode, “Take Me Out to the Holosuite.” The set up at the end credits explains it all. I highly recommend watching this work completely to the end.

Not everyone will have seen this work at its limited cinema and convention screenings. When I first heard of it, I did not have the spare funds to support the Indiegogo campaign. For those who did, a bevy of exclusive material can be found in the video vault on the official website.

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Life on the Penguin Highway is Never Sane

Ezra Istiroti — Pre-order on Amazon USA here

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Distributor: Shout! Factory
Release Date: August 6, 2019

The anime adaptation of Tomohiko Morimi’s novel, Penguin Highway, is coming to home video! Those who have not seen this anime last year at Fantasia 2018 either had to wait for a local (film festival) screening or this Tuesday. Life is certainly a highway for young Aoyama (Kana Kita), a 4th grader with an IQ of about 105. He aspires to be a scientist, and hopes to visit the moon one day. But first, he has to answer the question of why penguins–who typically prefer cold arctic conditions–are in a sleepy suburb of humid Japan.

He meets a young woman whom he calls Lady (Yuu Aoi) who works at his dentist’s office, and they form an unlikely friendship. Life at school is rough. He’s rather stuffy since everyone identifies him as a nerd. As a result, he’s constantly teased and bullied. He can stand up for himself but he is stronger when his two friends are there to help. Ultimately, the narrative does not differ from, for example, Trollhunters. His just-as-nerdy pal, Uchida (Rie Kugimiya) tries but Hamamoto (Megumi Han) ends up being more handy. The threesome eventually even has the bully team up to deal with a mysterious orb found in a meadow nestled deep in a forest. Just what it is, nobody knows.

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Keeping the Faith with Divine Fury at Fantasia 2019, Theatrical Debut & DVD Specs

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Distributor:
Well GO USA

Screening at select theatres (for list, please visit the official website), beginning August 16th, 2019

Official DVD/Blu-ray release November 19th

Spoiler Alert

Marvel Comic’s Blade and Shang-Chi will never hold a candle to the Divine Fury (사자), a South Korean film which looks like it can upend any supernatural mixed martial art blockbuster any time of this and the next decade. The reason is that it has a solid grounding in creating a hero and it does not waste a whole ton of time (a whole film) doing so. Yong-hu (Park Seo-Joon) lost his father, a police officer who got injured on duty. As a child, he prayed hard to God; he didn’t want papa to die. Sadly, reality bites and he lost his faith.

Twenty years have passed and this young man channelled his anger in his rise to become a champion fighter. He has everything, but he’s still feeling empty inside. When a stigmata forms, he doesn’t know what it means or what to do; he hopes Father Ahn (Sung-Ki Ahn) can provide answers. Instead, what he stumbles into leads into discovering an evil force wants to make a foothold in our reality.

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