This week sees the release of Orphan Black: Season Five, bringing this powerhouse series to its conclusion, at least if the run-time listed is only the episodes, and not the extras. The other live action winner this time around is the Tom Cruise remake of The Mummy, taking the story back to its original dark roots. Also leaning heavily towards the horror end of the spectrum, Dead Again in Tombstone has a cowboy return from the dead to prevent an army of the dead being raised. The Astronaut Wives Club: The Complete Series is based on the book of the same name, which was loosely based on some true events during the first Race for Space. There wasn’t any genre Anime that I could find this time around.
The movie I want to see this weekend is Hirune-hime: Shiranai watashi no monogatari, or Napping Princess for the English title (the Japanese title literally means My baby girl: My story I do not know). It is a sci-fi story about a girl who dreams the future, taking place during the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Sadly, there will be very few theaters carrying it in this country; most theaters are carrying It, a decent number will have The Limehouse Golem, and a very few will have Anti Matter. But I am just not a horror fan, so if I have to drive for a while to find a theater where it is playing, so be it.
Almost, at least. The movie I most want to see this Friday isn’t a movie at all; it is the pilot episode of the new TV series The Inhumans. Not only is it in movie theaters, but it is in IMAX format, which means on the biggest screen you can see it on! If it were only in 3D it would be prefect, but I am not going to let a detail like that stop me from seeing it. There is also a fantasy animation called Animal Crackers about a magical circus being released this week, which I would ordinarily be going to see; maybe next weekend.
We have two titles from the DC Universe this week, with Gotham: The Complete Third Season and the animated DCU: Batman and Harley Quinn both hitting the shelves. I find the live action TV show addictive, at least the first two season, so I look forward to binging my way through it. The fantasy comedy Killing Hasselhoff will also be out this week, so I suppose I should mention the associated non-genre comedy Baywatch will also be out come Tuesday. Finally, Anime has Ushio & Tora: Complete TV Series, a tale of yokai vs. human vs. yokai.
There are several interesting films out this week, although some of them will be in limited release. The classic Terminator 2: Judgment Day has been reprocessed into 3D, and there are now a couple generations of Terminator fans who have never seen it on the big screen in the first place to enjoy it. Birth of the Dragon tells some of the Bruce Lee story, although according to his daughter they completely bypassed his philosophy of both Martial Arts and storytelling, so she bailed on the project as not representing her dad. Unleashed is a modern fantasy about a woman whose cat and dog were turned into handsome male humans, it has been winning awards all over the festival circuit and looks very amusing. There is a new French animation called Leap!, original title Ballerina, also coming to theaters on Friday. France has been at the forefront of international film making since the 1890s, and has been creating some amazing animations at least since WWII. They may only have a few movies which break across the language barrier each year, but the ones that do are usually minor (and sometimes not so minor) masterpieces. If you live within driving distance of one of the larger Megaplex theaters, one of them may be carrying The Villainess, a South Korean movie about a woman trained from youngest childhood to be an assassin for a criminal organization. When a government agency offers her freedom and a place in society if she works for them for a decade, she jumps at the chance to escape. When they betray her in turn, the vengeance train goes off the rails and rampages down main street. And one more that I really want to see is the Bollywood film A Gentleman. A RomCom where a case of mistaken identity changes everything!
The best western option this week is Gotham: The Complete Third Season, and I do love how each season is a little more twisted than the last. The related DCU release is DCU: Batman and Harley Quinn, a road trip story where the two are tracking down Poison Ivy, and Batman is losing it still more by the minute! And then there is Killing Hasselhoff, possibly the strangest and funniest movie of the actors career. Anime releases include Bakuon!!: Complete Collection, plus Beyond the Boundary, and finally Rainbow Days: Complete Collection.