The Jungle Book Big Game Trailer gives you an idea of where they are going with this latest iteration of Kipling’s masterpiece as well as a glimpse of the merged Live Action/CGI environment they will be building it in. Come April 15, I hope to be in the theaters for this one.
Studio Ghibli’s Only Yesterday and live action Gods of Egypt both hit the big screen this weekend. The 1991 animated classic Only Yesterday has finally been released in the US now, 25 years after the rest of the world got to see it, and is filled with exactly the kind of touching heart-felt story one expects from them. Its run in the theaters is extremely limited, opening in a single theater in New York on January 1st and expanding on Friday to another double dozen cities. If you are not close enough to make one of them, it will be in still more cities each week over the next four, and then released on DVD for the first time in this country. Gods of Egypt is the flip side of that coin, brand new live action/adventure epic fantasy, although I do admit to studying the trailer carefully looking for a Stargate. I look forward to seeing at least one of them.
Alice Through the Looking Glass will be on the big screen on May 27th, but while you are waiting, here are a few things to watch…
The second trailer for The Huntsman: Winter’s War seals the deal for me; I have GOT to be in the theater for this one (because the first one just wasn’t enough)! Billing itself as the story before Snow White, the world class cast and special effects artists guarantee a fun time even before you get to the story itself.
Funimation is bringing the Psycho-Pass Movie to US theaters on March 15th and 16th. The Sibyl System uses extensive surveillance and biological monitoring to determine who is likely to commit a crime. When they find one the police remove potential criminals from the population before they become a problem. But some are bypassing the system and attacking without warning, and Inspector Akane Tsunemori is tasked with bringing them to justice. Normally a movie like this would be a stand-alone taking place in the same universe as the anime TV series, with the same characters in a separate story, but not in this case. This is actually the culmination of the TV series, bringing the story to its end. If you have been following the series from the beginning, this is your chance to see the conclusion on the big screen. If you haven’t been watching it until now, you have time to see the entire series before the theatrical presentation; you can catch it on Funimation or Hulu.
As previously mentioned, also in March The Boy and the Beast will be brought to American theaters by Funimation. That one will be at the beginning of the month, on March 4th, and I am including the new US trailer for it. This being Monday I would normally be talking about what will be hitting the theaters this week, but sadly the answer is Nothing. If you missed Deadpool last week this would be a good time to see it.
I absolutely can’t wait for Zootopia to arrive, it looks amazing. This particular Sloth-centric sequence is made all the more intense by the fact that the police officer looking for results is a bunny. There is something of a difference in the way each of these mammals binds time to their world view, after all. This animation makes extensive use of facial puppeteering to create the various characters personalities, which makes me believe it is a discipline I should be learning.