The 800 pound gorilla for this week is obvious: Iron Man 2. If it is half as good as the first one, it will be twice as good as everything else opening this week.
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Top of the list this week has to be William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. While it is not Sci-Fi, I think having conversations with ghosts counts as Fantasy, but there is an even better reason to add this to your collection: This is the version staring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. It also just aired this past week in the US on PBS, and you can watch it online any time you like at PBS or embedded here (at the bottom of this entry).
For comedy films there is Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne Johnson as a man who bursts the mental bubbles of children by telling them Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny do not exist. As his punishment, he is forced to be a real tooth fairy for a week.
In the TV series category, the Saving Grace Collection becomes available on Tuesday. This is actually a repackaging of seasons one and two, released together where they were previously released separately, gearing everyone up for the release of the final season in June. If you are not familiar with this series you want to be; you can start by watching episodes online (the direct link goes to a “series so far” video, you can watch full episodes there).
While it should have been a series or miniseries, The Fallen were built as a couple of made-for-TV movies and originally aired at ABC Family. Like Samurai Girl from the same network, this involves a high school student having to go to war with the forces of good and evil (on a celestial level, in this instance). If you missed them when they originally aired, now is your chance to see them.
There are a couple of interesting entries in the 17+ category this week. The Ultimate Pleasure Box from Surrender Cinema is a collection of R rated films that pretended to be porn but were actually Sci-Fi and Fantasy films with periodic breaks for some soft core action. As near as I can tell they used the porn aspect to get the funding to make the films, and instead created some modern B movie SF/F classics. In case there was any doubt, there is nothing socially redeeming in any of these movies, but they are good clean dirty fun. The other one is Space Girls in Beverly Hills, which seems to have started out like the other set but never got the funding.
For Anime releases this week, most (like Darker than Black) are re-releases, sometimes because the original release was recalled. The exception is Rozen Maiden + Rozen Maiden Traumend DVD Complete Set, available in a single package for the first time.
A year before Akira made the world aware of Anime, a little known masterpiece was the first film released by Gainax: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise. I just re-watched it and was amazed all over again at just how good this movie is, and not only for its time. This is a story of mans first steps into space as told from an alternate history that diverged from our own a little before World War I. The artwork and animation are excellent, the characters are well rounded, and the story will draw you in. If you missed it, this one is worth spending the time to watch and enjoy. If you are a fan of the Moonlight Mile manga and anime series, you really want to see this one, to learn where some of the inspiration and attitude came from.
There is nothing really new in the theaters this week, unless you are part of Sci-Fi London, so this might be a good weekend to catch up on anything you have missed that is still in the theaters. Coming up in May there are some great films on tap, starting with the sequel Iron Man 2. I expect the seats to be packed for that on, opening on May 7th. I may even have to brave the crowed for a midnight show, just because I can’t wait. The other big-screen epic I am expecting a large crowd to attend is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on May 28th. While movies based on games have not generally been of high quality or very successful with a very few exceptions, the trailers give me great hopes for this one, as does what Disney did with Pirates of the Caribbean.
There are a few less well known movies in May I think might end up being quite enjoyable, and surprise a lot of people. TiMER has been winning awards hand over fist on the Film Festival circuit (I think they are just shy of 20 or so by now), and has a great cast and an original concept. It hits New York on the 8th, but goes into wider release on the 14th. The Wild Hunt tells the story of a young man who follows his ex-girlfriend into a medieval re-enactment game, and the lines between reality and fantasy get fairly blurred.
And there are a few films which just plain look like fun; Shrek Forever After (the Final Chapter) on May 21st, and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood on the 14th. And there are more coming, it should be a great summer for movies.
Finally available this week is The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the Terry Gilliam masterpiece. If you didn’t get to see it in the theater you should watch your copy on the largest HD TV you have access to, because the visuals are truly amazing. The other must-have movie this week is Luc Besson’s Banlieue 13 – Ultimatum, the sequel to District 13. If you missed the original, they are also being released as a 2-DVD set; both of these are non-stop thrill rides in the tradition of The Transporter.
If you are looking for a few laughs, check out Transylmania; the humor is a bit lowbrow (a bit?) but still kind of fun. Probably on a par with Venus Ranger: Complete Collection which also comes out this week.
For TV series, the modern remake of Terry Nations The Survivors, Complete Seasons 1 and 2 becomes available, and if you were wondering how faithful it is to the original 1970’s series, Survivors: The Complete Original Series 1975-77 is also being released. For American TV, Tales from the Darkside: The Third Season is being released both as a stand alone and in a packaged set with the previous two seasons.
In Anime, Gintama – Collection 1, a story about how the lives of Samurai changed in Feudal Japan after the aliens landed and took over. This one looks like a lot of fun, but be aware collection one gets you started with the first 13 episodes, and there are over 200 episodes and counting so far. Also, the Augmented Reality hijacking of the convenience store and high school where Evangelion took place has been canceled due to huge mobs of fans flooding the area. The rest of the promotion for the release of the next Evangelion reboot, You Can Not Advance, will take place as scheduled, and the release itself is next month.
This has been a week for multiple Doctors. We just had the wonderful rollout of Matt Smith as The 11th Doctor on BBC America in The Eleventh Hour, and I had already commented on how BBC7 was running Tom Baker reading classic 4th Doctor stories. Starting yesterday, just before the Tom Baker reading BBC7 started running Wally K Daly’s Before the Screaming Begins, which has as one of the voice actors Patrick Troughton; the 2nd Doctor. If some of the older incarnations are unknown to you, io9 just put together a great article called Everything you need to know about Doctor Who. And while it is not very Doctor-like, I should also mention that Smith and Jones signed up to come back for one more Men in Black movie, this one in 3D.