For action we have The Purge: Anarchy is the sequel to The Purge, with a simple premise: for half a day all crime goes without punishment. This distopia does allow for some pretty exciting footage on the screen as the various protagonists attempt to survive the night, without having to remake Escape From New York yet again. Which allows them the dubious honor of remaking their own movie instead, which was probably inspired by Escape From LA. If you prefer family friendly animated silliness with your fantasy adventures, Planes: Fire & Rescue might be the choice for you this week. The animation work is quite well done, but somehow the planes/cars franchise hasn’t really engaged me, I think because they are a little too heavy handed with their story lines. If you are looking for a film to share with your kids, this is definitely your best choice. Finally, some theaters will get Mood Indigo, a romantic fantasy about an inventor who finally falls in love with a woman, only to discover she is dying from flowers growing in her lungs. I had to grin at the mouse sidekick to the chef, at the very minimum. If this one is playing near me, it will be getting my money as the best film option available. Strangely enough, although the movie is French/Belgium, the working home page I found for it is in Japan; there is also a US Outlet Home Page. The two other films from this director I really enjoyed were The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and this looks like it might be just as good as either of those.
In movies, the animation Rio 2 is a family friendly action/adventure worth the time to check out. Just like the original feature, the new one is very heavy with musical talent, both on the vocal and instrumental levels, as is fitting for the town where it takes place. In both films the animation is integrated with the music to an extent I have hardly ever seen before. I particularly like the aerial ballet work. A Winters Tale is a romantic Fantasy that I missed at the theaters, and am looking forward to seeing on disc.
For TV, Orphan Black: Season Two is the definite winner, and I have a hard time understanding why Tatiana Maslany was not nominated for half a dozen Emmy Awards after the insanely complex series of characters she has been portraying.
In Anime, Deadman Wonderland: Complete Series is a twisted little story about the unjustly imprisoned who are forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of the public and the enrichment of the networks. Not exactly a new premise, the plot has been around since at least 1975’s Death Race 2000, and renewed with The Running Man (the 1987 film with Arnold Schwarzenegger, or the 1982 Steven King book it was based on, your choice). Also this week, Mononoke: Complete Collection is a sequel to 2006’s Samurai Horror Tales, and tells the story of a medicine seller who travels the provinces looking for the evil spirits he is charged with defeating. When he finds one, he goes through a three stage process to banish it, the final step being to wipe it out with his sword. The tale takes place during the Edo period so this is a bit confusing to the locals, since society is broken up into four classes, and only the highest class, the Samurai, are allowed to use swords. The lowest class, merchants such as the medicine seller, would never be allowed near them; and yet, here he is, heavily armed to protect his fellow breathers.
Finally this week, To Love Ru: Darkness brings season three of the battle of the royal daughters of the planet Deviluke over the fate of the human Rito Yuuki. This one is a definite romantic comedy, and when the Golden Darkness shows up with an army of possessed high school students, things get really wild.
This appears to be a unique take on the origin story of Dracula, with a bit of the historical Vlad Tepes embedded to explain the forces driving him to make bad choices for good reasons. With the tag line Every bloodline has a beginning, Dracula Untold will be hitting the big screen in October.
The film this time is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the second in the series of the recent reboot. The CGI work on the characters looks a lot more realistic than the ape makeup they used in the classic films, making the reboot worth doing just for that. I am not sure the changes to the underlying story are an improvement, but at least they have a better evolutionary driver than nuclear war radiation/fallout this time around.
The documentary about one of the greatest Sci-Fi movies never made, Jodorowsky’s Dune has won a boatload of awards. He lined up Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Mick Jagger and Gloria Swanson for the cast, he had Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd to do the soundtrack, H. R. Giger and Jean Giraud (Mobius) were doing set and character design, and the list goes on. It would have been amazing. As near as I can tell, all the rest of the genre movies and TV coming out are reissues and re-releases.
In Anime, Sasami-san@Ganbaranai has Sasami as a hikikomori who unknowingly has the powers of a god. She attends school remotely, using her brother who is a teacher there as her remote viewing platform. Other gods get jealous of her relationship with her brother, and take actions which make her school a very strange place to be. She may actually have to leave her house to set things right! Also this week, Naruto Shippūden DVD box19 hits the shelf.