Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter– **** out of *****
Blu-ray | Digital
Directed by David Zellner
Starring: Rinko Kikuchi, David Zellner, Shirley Venard
Theatrical Release Date: March 18, 2015
Blu-ray Release Date: June 30, 2015

The abilities that film, as an art form, harbors are staggering. Few other art forms have the tendencies to evoke such various forms of emotion with the use of imagery and sound. We know it can inspire and influence an entire generation, spreading across the globe rampantly to speak to each person on an intimate level. It is a fascinating pleasure, though, when one perceives that film’s abilities can be remarkably negative – awakening within a person a mindset that once has been unaccounted for.

Devoid of any sentimentalism that may plague other films that attempt to pay homage to a particular movie, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, directed by David Zellner, who also wrote the screenplay with his brother Nathan Zellner, references Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 film Fargo in a peculiar way that both thwarts and extols that film’s ginormous influence. With Kumiko the Zellner brothers achieve artistic relevance as they ultimately reveal, in a jokingly yet deadly serious way, the limitless plethora of wealth that cinema can afford to us, especially to an individual beaten-up by life who is looking for some meaning to her bland existence.

Whether a sequel to Guillermo del Toro‘s 2013 giant robots vs. giant monsters flick Pacific Rim would be made or not was unknown for a time. The movie cost $190 million to make, but, for reasons beyond human understanding, only made $101.8 million here in the States.

Thankfully the movie still did strong overseas, scoring $111.9 million in China and $309.2 million overall, bringing its worldwide grand total to $411 million. Because of this, Pacific Rim 2 has been confirmed and an official release date has been locked in. Also announced is the development of an animated series set in the Pacific Rim world and the continuation of the comic book series.

Continue below to see a video of del Toro making the announcement.

Pacific Rim
Blu-ray/DVD/Digital l DVD/Digital l Instant
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Written by Travis Beacham and Guillermo del Toro
Starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, and Rinko Kikuchi
Warner Home Video
Release Date: October 15, 2013

The summer of 2013 will likely go down in history as one of the most schizophrenic moviegoing seasons of all time. The third installment of a superhero franchise avoided the creative traps that X-Men: The Last Stand, Spider-Man 3, and in a sense The Dark Knight Rises handily fell into. A Star Trek sequel four years in the making and with near-unlimited support from fans new and old and a massive budget turned out to be a lazy and uninspired quasi-remake of the greatest Trek feature of them all. Superman flew on the silver screen again in a much-touted reboot that was one-third a good movie and two-thirds a Zack Snyder movie. The funniest movies were R-rated comedies from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean about the end of the world starring predominantly male ensembles.

But most peculiar of all, this was the summer that a movie about giant monsters from another dimension emerged from the sea to enslave the human race only to be opposed in grand fashion by skyscraper-sized machine men powered by mentally-linked pilots co-written and directed by the acclaimed Mexican master of fantastic cinema Guillermo del Toro required a heavy dollop of grassroots support in order to avoid getting trounced too hard at the weekend box office by an insipid Adam Sandler sequel. Despite only making a quarter of its $407 million worldwide haul here in the States – and that’s including the 3D ticket sales – Pacific Rim struck a real nerve among lovers of science-fiction and fantasy movies of the past, and is believed by many to be not just one of summer’s most entertaining movies, but also one of the best movies released this year by far. Now del Toro’s splashy monster mash is available on Blu-ray so that audiences that missed out on seeing it on the big screen can experience the FX-enhanced mirth and mayhem in the comfort of their own homes.

Director Guillermo del Toro was in Japan recently to promote his new movie Pacific Rim, which has inexplicably and inexcusably done poorly here in the States (not even breaking $100 million yet), but is thankfully doing better overseas (currently at around $247 million, bringing its grand total to a decent $344 million so far). One foreign market the movie is expected to do well in is, of course, Japan, who has been known to enjoy a big monster movie or two.

A video was released of del Toro in Japan with co-stars Rinko Kikuchi and Mana Ashida checking out some of the sights, and it proves yet again why the director is so gosh darn awesome. Here he is, a hugely popular big Hollywood director (despite the box office not always reflecting the love), and yet he continues to see the world with a warm, sort of childlike wonder, which you’ll see as he visits Gundum Front in Tokyo, where he gets Christmas morning eyes on multiple occasions.

Click on over to the other side to check out the video.

The first trailer for Carl Rinsch‘s samurai epic 47 Ronin has finally been released – you can watch it here. Also, four new character posters have been released for the film; you can see them all here below.

After what seemed like endless reports of extended shoots, budget cuts, numerous release date changes, even the rumored report of Rinsch’s termination from the project plagued the film, we now have our first look at the results.

In the film, Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano) recruits a banished samurai warrior (Keanu Reeves) to his troupe of 47 other capable warriors who are determined to kill the person who is responsible for killing their master. The film also stars Ko Shibasaki, Hiroyuki Sanada and Rinko Kikuchi.