There are two excellent choices this time around, the live action option being Tomorrowland from Disney. I have been watching that one spit out new trailers for a while now, and am quite excited about it. We also get the animated When Marnie Was There from Studio Ghibli in a noticeably more limited release. I plan to try to make both of them.
In Movies we have Hot Tub Time Machine 2, a movie I haven’t seen but which was panned by just about every critic I have read. My thoughts are to watch this one when it comes to one of the streaming services I am already paying for anyways. We also get the animated fantasy Strange Magic from Disney and George Lucas, which looks like it could be quite fun (yep, I haven’t seen this one either).
TV gives us Beauty & The Beast: Season 2, which sadly only seems to be available in Standard Def. But it is in time to be able to binge watch it before season 3 kicks off on June 11th.
There is a single new entry in the Anime category this week, in the form of .hack//Roots: The Complete Series. One of this seasons shows which I am really enjoying, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, is up to episode 7 on the anime series, but its Manga only becomes available in the US this Tuesday; I mention it because it usually works the other way around.
One of the silliest Japanese trailers I have seen in a long time, The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji looks like a lot of fun. At least if you enjoy Yakuza Comedy and Police Silliness, which I do. As near as I can tell, this one is only available as an Import so far, hopefully it will be released in the US soon. Here is Exhibit A:
The one everybody knows about this week is Mad Max: Fury Road, yet another entry into the Mad Max apocalyptic franchise that began back in the late 70s. Like all the other films in this series, this one takes place in a desert, which Australia has a lot of. The filming location this time was the Namib Desert in Namibia, so I guess they decided the Australian deserts they did the first few films in just weren’t post-apocalyptic enough. Fewer people know about Time Lapse, a movie which has been racking up the awards on the Film Festival circuit for the last year, and is finally making it to some regular theaters. As near as I can figure it, this is a modern retelling of the 1960 Twilight Zone episode A Most Unusual Camera, where a camera that takes pictures of the future makes life in the present much more complicated (and possibly much shorter) then it would have otherwise been.
In movies, The Cobbler is a story about a shoe repair man working in the same shop his family has run for generations who is granted the ability to live his customers lives by walking in their shoes… literally. The premise has a lot of potential, but the critics paned the movie brutally, and is is coming out on disc only a month after it was in the theaters for very little money, not a very promising sign. These Final Hours is a film about the last 12 hours before a meteor wipes out all life on Earth; but even though its theatrical run was limited to a handful of screens in Australia, it has received acclaim from the critics and a 78% rating from Rotten Tomatoes. While not genre, Blackhat does star Thor’s Chris Hemsworth, but that may be about all that can really be said for it. In western animation we get Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts, a new Batman vs. Penguin story.
In Anime, Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse, Collection 2 the fight to save humanity from alien invaders continues, but mankind may be its own worst threat. The leaders of several nations are willing to sabotage each other in an attempt to gain power, allowing the invaders to conquer still more of the planet. The Familiar of Zero: “Rondo” of Princesses brings season 3 of Louise the Zero and her magical misadventures with her human familiar and newly undead husband Saito. Finally, Michiko & Hatchin is having the complete series released in a S.A.V.E. edition, meaning you can now pick it up for somewhere in the neighborhood of $20.
This time around the Cosplay is from a number of places, in honor of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection going into wide release. You can go to the home page or just enjoy the video, your choice.