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.