This is an interesting choice; by going with the 1980 Days of Future Past story line, they get to merge the three original X-Men movies with the reboot of the franchise from First Class. I like the thought that we haven’t seen the last of the original lineup yet, and I have to appreciate the timing, since the future they traveled back from was 2013. It will be on the big screen on May 23rd.
Jupiter Ascending looks like it will be quite the treat, and is scheduled to be in theaters on July 18th. The new trailer has a bit more of the plot and a lot of action sequences. And yes, this is from the Wachowski’s.
The definite winner this week is Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and I am more than ready for the next chapter in this franchise. There are a double handful of lesser works also available this time around, including The Pirate Fairy from Disney, Jinn from Exxodus Pictures, and Under the Skin, the other film that Scarlett Johansson stars in this week, noticeably more mature than the first. For the serious Trekkie you also want to be aware that Starship Farragut: Conspiracy of Innocence also should become available this week, the next in the series of Fan-built Federation movies. I have not been able to confirm that last, but I am hopeful.
The top of the movie list this week is the Keanu Reeves remake of 47 Ronin, the latest in a long line of films, TV shows, plays and operas based on this historic true story. This is the first time I am aware of that it expanded this deep into the realm of Fantasy, but I thought the dragons were a wonderful choice. If you are more in the mood for an indi production, Knights of Badassdom is about a bunch of LARPers who accidentally summon a succubus from hell while playing in the woods. As you might expect from the description, this is a comedy/horror film, with several of my favorite actors in it.
I couldn’t find any real genre in TV except for re-releases, but Psych: Season 8 certainly comes close, considering the massive number of pop culture references the show manages to cram into every episode. This was the final season for the show, so it includes the series finale.
In western animation we have The Pirate Fairy, another adventure in Never Never Land from the gang at Disney.
In Anime, Ebiten: Complete Collection pokes fun at the art form itself, with a rabid group of anime fan girls with tenuous grips on reality, a maid on a secret mission, a Neko faculty adviser, an ass-tronomy club full of robots, aliens, and telepaths (and one poor guy who actually thinks it is a serious astronomy club), and more twisted anime parodies and allusions than you have probably ever seen collected in one place before. Expect to see the barrier between fantasy and reality shattered every 5 minutes or so. Then in Happiness: Complete Collection, the classes for magic users and non-magic users are kept completely separate until a gas explosion destroys the magical building and they have to combine the classes. Rest assured chaos and comedy ensue, as the two groups try to adjust to each other.
I am so looking forward to this one, which is a bit surprising since I am not a Tom Cruse fan, or at least wasn’t. But recently he has been doing some tasty Sci-Fi stories with interesting twists, and it looks like Edge Of Tomorrow may be another one. This movie is based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s light novel All You Need Is Kill. Since the film will be on the big screen on June 6th in the US, May 30th in the UK, you have time to read the book first and get ready for it.
There aren’t any real genre films this week, although the borderline horror film Awakened has some potential, as a young girl gets help from beyond the grave as she tracks down her mother’s killer. It won some awards while on the film fest circuit, and has a few actors I like, so it has possibilities. It is also in limited release, so don’t expect to see it everywhere. Even more not genre and of equally limited release, The Raid 2: Berandal is a violent martial arts police procedural out of Indonesia that may be worth checking out if you are an action fan. For myself, I will try to catch up with one of the genre movies of the last several weeks that I wanted to see but haven’t managed to make quite yet.