The only interesting film this week is The Angry Birds Movie, but that’s OK. Next week we get two winners to chose between, X-Men: Apocalypse and Alice Through the Looking Glass.
The one new Movie title isn’t genre, and Janis: Little Girl Blue looks like it actually came out this past week. But it is an excellent documentary about an amazing artist who we lost too soon, so I had to mention it anyways. The IP Man Trilogy puts 3 of the movies in that series into a single box, at a noticeable savings over buying them individually, so if you don’t have them already now might be the time. Likewise DC Universe is releasing a number of their animated feature films two to a box for the price of one this week, including Son of Batman/Batman: Under The Red Hood, All-Star Superman/Superman Doomsday, and Superman vs. The Elite/Superman: Unbound. TV is represented by Nova: Rise of the Robots, also not genre but very worth watching.
We do better in Anime, with some actual new genre titles like Assassination Classroom – Season 1 Part 1 bringing the first 11 episodes of the series home. Akame ga Kill: Collection 2 is the second half of that rather twisted story line, this time with the old enemies working together. Black Butler: Book of Murder has two OVAs about Ceil and the Demon Butler, and a cast that includes legendary author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; that alone should make this an important selection. Finally Gunbuster: The Movie tells the tale of the monsters between the stars, and the humans who go out to fight them. The time dilation caused by their near light speed transitions means the ones they go out to protect may be long dead before the battle is even joined.
A year before he became the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton did a BBC Radio production of George Orwell’s 1984. He wasn’t the first actor to give voice to Winston Smith, because that was David Niven in 1949, within a year of the books original publication. He was the first actor to ever play Robin Hood on TV in 1953, and I can’t help but wish at least one complete episode of that show still exists in some format so I could watch it. Video Curios posted his 1984 online a few years ago, and Open Culture posted the heads up, so here you go; enjoy.
The UK film The Lobster has been touring the film festival circuit, picking up 14 awards so far, and is now getting a limited theatrical release. Single people are locked into a hotel and given 45 days to form a romantic relationship; those that don’t manage to do that are converted into animals and released in the woods. While it sounds interesting, I missed seeing Captain America: Civil War this weekend because I was sick, I will have to do that film before I see anything else.
The must-have title for this week is Deadpool, absolutely the funniest Marvel film made to date. It is also R rated, so it is no surprise it wasn’t made by Disney, but the folks over at 20th Century Fox. With a sequel already in the works, we might see Deadpool 2 as early as January 2018. Synchronicity is a twisted little time travel story everyone should see; if you missed it in the theaters, now is your chance to catch up with it. Lego Scooby: Haunted Hollywood also deserves a mention.
Killjoys: Season 1 is very much a cross between Firefly and Blade Runner, and one of my 3 favorite shows currently running on Syfy. I am happy to report Season 2 will be along on July 1st. Beauty and the Beast (2012): Season 3 is out just in time to be binged before the next season kicks off on June 2nd. While I am not a horror fan, I should include Scream: The Tv Series Season 1 on this list.
For a change their are fewer Anime titles than the other categories, with Fruit of Grisaia being a school for bad apples as the only actual entry this time. It isn’t exactly genre, but it is strange enough to come close.
For 2 days only Project Itoh: Harmony will be on the big screen May 17th and 18th only. The Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel by Satoshi Itō (often known as Project Itoh), Harmony, is an amazingly twisted and complex story that fully deserved that award. If you haven’t had a chance to read the original book yet, now you can see its film version. Some of us will be lucky and have it hit nearby, I intend to be one of the folks in the theater when it does.