There are no well known movies coming out this week, which is how we end up with Thor at the Bus Stop and Planet of the Vampire Women sharing the first mention, because they are at least sort of genre. I really can’t recommend either of them to anyone, even a little. I can, however, recommend Let The Bullets Fly, a nice little action comedy that takes place in 1920s China. A bandit arrives in a small town in the middle of nowhere claiming to be its new mayor and then has to go head-to-head with a tyrannical petty noble, and the results are a lot of fun to watch.
The 1933 version of The Perils of Pauline serial is also coming out this week. This one has a bit of history, as it was one of the original movie theater serials done in 1914 based on the Charles Goddard Book. It has been redone several times since, including a 1947 version where Betty Hutton played Pearl White, which is kind of interesting since in the 1914 version Pearl White played Pauline. Serials were of course what lead to episodic TV series in later years, so it seemed fitting to mention this one in the TV section of this entry.
In western animation we have Iron Man – Complete Series and X-Men Complete Series, which are actually part of Marvel Anime, western characters re-imagined for the Japanese anime fans. So while not exactly western, close enough to mention here.
In anime proper, the exciting release this time is Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos, a new feature length film in the ongoing saga of the Elric brothers. This is one of my favorite steampunk anime series, so I should also note they are releasing another repackaged box set of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – Collection 1 containing the first 33 episodes in a single collection.
Finally, Jyu-Oh-Sei: The Complete Series has been released in a S.A.V.E. edition, which means you can now pick up the entire series for around $20.