Topping the list, Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets was an instant classic that didn’t do well in the US, since almost no one here was familiar with the French comic it was based on. We get another French film this week as well in the form of the animation Leap!, original title Ballerina. Birth of the Dragon is also out this week, and while it isn’t genre, The Hitman’s Bodyguard looks like a fun film. The Korean action-thriller The Villainess also hits the shelves this time around, if you haven’t seen it, now is your chance. TV brings us a couple of comedy favorites in the form of The Librarians, Season 3 and Red Dwarf: XII
There are some great films playing this weekend, but almost all of them seem to be at film festivals. The latest iteration of Murder on the Orient Express looks like the best option to me, but while the book was a masterpiece and the cast is world class, it really isn’t science fiction or even fantasy. I think I will probably spend the weekend binging on season two of Dirk Gently and other equally silly things like the latest Red Dwarf Season 12 episode.
On first glance I couldn’t spot any genre movies this week, but it turns out there is one that just might fit the bill. Suburbicon is surreal enough that I think it fits comfortably in the Fantasy genre, so it gets my vote this time around.
The obvious genre release this week is Geostorm, with weather used as a weapon of mass destruction, controlled from a huge orbital facility like the IIS on steroids. But the trailer reminds me all too much of the disaster films of the 1960s through the 1980s, which I tend to consider formulaic and boring. The live action Tokyo Ghoul hit theaters today and will run until Sunday the 22nd, that one I am really looking forward to. Wonderstruck looks very interesting, but is only in New York and LA this week; it will be out everywhere on the 10th. If you feel like streaming your entertainment this weekend, Red Dwarf Season 12 is currently playing, and BritBox just got it.
TV has iZombie: The Complete Third Season while movies bring us Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which seem like the best selections of the week to me. A Ghost Story may have some possibilities although it doesn’t seem quite genre to me, and while Fabricated City is more about gaming than anything else it looks like quite an entertaining film. I didn’t see anything interesting in new Anime this time around.
There isn’t much on offer this week, although Realive has some serious potential if they did it right; I missed it when it was on Sci-Fi, so I don’t really know. I am definitely not going to bother to see the remake of the horror flick Flatliners. The one film that looks like it could be a hoot is Judwaa 2, a variation on the classic Twins, except without Arnie.