2015 was a great year with some excellent films, and 2016 looks like it will do just as well. Zootopia is an example of one of the ones I am waiting for, filled with the kind of animals-as-humans animation Disney is famous for and looking quite tasty in the second trailer for the film. This will be hitting the big screen on March 4th, and has an amazing cast doing the voice overs. Other movies worth checking out in 2016 include La belle et la bête, The 5th Wave, Ip Man 3, Kung Fu Panda 3… and that is just in January!
If Anomalisa waits for Friday it will not be eligible for the upcoming Academy Awards round, so it is launching on Wednesday, the 28th. As far as I know it is not genre, but it is animated and it has gotten some excellent critical reviews. I have every intention to see this one on the big screen so I will know whether or not to cheer it on for the award.
In Movies Hitman: Agent 47 is the story of a genetically engineered assassin who is not terribly happy about his fate. He teams up with a woman who may be the offspring of one of the earlier iterations in his lineage to try to stop a multinational corporation which is out to unlock the secret of his creation and build an army of unstoppable killers. They are the only thing standing between that group and world domination, and the world could really use their help. Sadly, that seems to be all the new releases we get this week in any genre category, but that isn’t terribly surprising considering the holidays were last week, and the buying gifts season is officially over for this year.
There isn’t any genre films on the big screen this weekend as near as I can determine; but that’s OK, because we will have the Doctor Who Christmas Special on Friday instead. This will be the first episode where Alex’s Professor River Song shares the screen with Peter’s incarnation of the Doctor. When you add in that Steven Moffat wrote the script himself, and the director this time has also been directing Sherlock episodes, it is bound to be something special indeed.
In Movies, Dragon Blade is an epic historical fantasy about the battle between the Roman Empire and the ethnically diverse people of 36 countries, some of which would combine with still more nations to become China century’s later, for control of the Silk Road. It stars Jackie Chan, John Cusack and Adrien Brody, and was massively successful in its native China earlier this year. A lot of the critics were not kind to it, but it is worth seeing for the huge battle sequences alone. Also this week, Pan is a retelling of the origins of the classic literary hero who refused to grow up, and it also was not kindly received by many of the critics.
TV has Defiance: Season 3, which is the first major network TV show to be an online game, with the events of each environment impacting the story line of the other. Lots of different Aliens scattered all over the Earth add to the drama and action. Also this week, Dominion: Season 2, one of the few stories where Humanity is under direct threat by the Angels. Strangely enough, there doesn’t seem to be any Anime this week.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow is a show I have been waiting for, and in a few more weeks it becomes real. Launching on Thursday, January 21st, it takes everything they have been building to in Arrow and Flash and consolidates them into a single program with a multiplex story arch. If it is even half as good as I have been hoping, it should be a world class ensemble superhero show, just like Avengers or X-Men, but owned by the DC team instead of Marvel.