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The amusing film this week appears to be The Family, a Luc Besson production about a Witness Protection arrangement that puts a mob couple (Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer) and their kids in a quiet town in France. They don’t quite fit in, to the point that their whereabouts become known to the folks they are supposed to be hiding from, and all hell breaks loose. Not genre, but the best bet for this weekend. There is also one genre movie called Cybornetics: Urban Cyborg, which, as near as I can tell, isn’t actually going to be playing anywhere near me, and based on the trailer I wouldn’t be going to see it if it was.

This is the week we get to see the newest installment in the Riddick franchise, and it looks like it will be quite the ride. This is either the 3rd or 4th film in the series, depending on whether you count the animated short that was released direct to DVD. Vin Diesel is still Riddick, with Katey Sackhoff and Karl Urban along for the party this time.

This short animation was created by Rodrigo Blaas, and it won a bunch of awards when it came out in 2009, including a Goya in 2010. Blaas worked at Pixar for a while, on projects including Wall-E. In 2011 there was a deal in the works to turn this into a feature length film at Dreamworks, with Guillermo del Toro as the producer and Blass directing. Of course, the Dreamworks version wouldn’t be quite this creepy, but I don’t know if they got past the talking stage and actually got the funding to proceed.

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.