The good news keeps coming for all Babylon 5 fans: The entire series is coming to Blu-ray just a few months after sharing that an animated feature-length film is in the works. The 30th-anniversary release will include all 110 episodes of its five-season run and its pilot TV movie, The Gathering. Show creator J. Michael Straczynski shared a celebratory tweet directed at fans stating, "YOU WANTED IT, YOU ASKED FOR IT, AND IT'S FINALLY HAPPENED!"

Straczynski's series followed the inhabitants of a 23rd-century Earth Alliance space station set up to mediate peace between five powerful empires. Its initial production wasn't the highest quality — to say the least — jumping between acted scenes and blurry CGI frames. But, in 2021, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment released Babylon 5 Remastered to stream on what was then called HBO Max and as a digital download on iTunes and Amazon. The original camera negatives were scanned in 4K and then downscaled to HD with a clean-up and color correction to boot. The CGI sequences were upscaled to HD, and the show has been available to watch in its original 4:3 ever since.

The Blu-ray release will be "fully remastered in HD," which could be the 2021 update or a newer version. Babylon 5's Blu-ray edition is now available to pre-order for $100 and will be released in the US and Canada on December 5th.

Hayao Miyazaki’s first film in ten years (and supposedly his last) premiered in Japan today — without any lead-up marketing from Studio Ghibli. Soon after, Gkids announced that it had acquired the animated movie’s North American rights. Called Kimitachi wa Do Ikiruka (translated as “How Do You Live”) in Japan, the international release will use the title The Boy and the Heron. Gkids says it will arrive in North America “later this year.”

Little is known about the new movie, but Gkids describes the hand-drawn animated feature as “an original story written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.” Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki produces it with a musical score from Joe Hisaishi. It was previously announced that Miyazaki’s next film would have an IMAX release (as well as Dolby Atmos, Dolby Cinema and DTS:X) in Japan. However, it isn’t clear if it will screen in IMAX in the US.

When the film arrives stateside, don’t expect to see any more promotion than it got in Japan. Gkids says it will follow Studio Ghibli’s “unprecedented decision” to premiere the film in Japan without any marketing images, trailers, synopses ads — or any information — ahead of its surprise premiere today. Suzuki attributes the decision to honoring another era while hoping to spark imagination. “A poster and a title — that’s all we got when we were children. I enjoyed trying to imagine what a movie was about, and I wanted to bring that feeling back,” Suzuki reportedly told Japanese broadcaster NHK via The Japan Times and Deadline.

Gkids has distributed the North American versions of previous Miyazaki films, including The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There and From Up on Poppy Hill (among others). The 15-year-old producer and distributor has 12 Best Animated Feature Oscar nominations in its short history. “Hayao Miyazaki is a living legend in filmmaking, as evidenced by his Academy Award win for Spirited Away and his two Oscar nominations for Howl’s Moving Castle and The Wind Rises,’” David Jesteadt, president of Gkids, wrote in a press release today. “It’s been ten years since the world has seen a new film from Miyazaki-san, and Gkids is so proud and honored to unveil his latest, highly anticipated masterpiece in North America.”

For almost three decades in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt has gone head to head in high-speed motorcycle battles, climbed Dubai's Burj Khalifa, and hung from the side of a plane during takeoff. Oh, and he also died at one point (following an extended free dive into an underwater data bank). But in the latest film, Dead Reckoning Part 1, Ethan Hunt faces his toughest opponent yet: an omnipotent AI that could reshape geopolitics as we know it. After defying the laws of physics, it only makes sense that he has to defeat a god.

As ludicrous as that may sound, it also fits perfectly within the Mission: Impossible series, a universe where Ethan Hunt has been described as the "living manifestation of destiny," and everyone is well aware that the "Impossible Mission Force" sounds like something pulled out of a comic book. At this point, it's a franchise that exists for Tom Cruise and his collaborators — most recently, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie — to go wild with spy gadgets and death-defying stunt sequences. It's made by spy movie geeks, for spy movie geeks.

That's been true of the series from the start. The original TV show centered on grounded spy craft, albeit in a world where people could easily impersonate others with realistic face masks. Brian de Palma's 1996 film was a throwback to paranoid '70s spy thrillers, but it also made room for gadgets like glasses that wirelessly transmitted crystal clear video. And, of course, there's the nail-bitingly tense infiltration of a CIA server room, a scene that infiltrated pop culture for years.

John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2 is far less cerebral, but it also leans heavily into his operatic Hong Kong action style. It's not a great movie, I'll admit, but as a fan of Woo's action films, I can't help but be thrilled by the car chase meet cute, and the balletic finale which morphs from a motorcycle chase into a hand-to-hand fight on a beach.

Paramount Pictures and Skydance

After a slight hiatus, JJ Abrams rebooted the franchise in 2006 with Mission: Impossible 3, a film that built upon the spy shenanigans from his TV series, Alias. Since then, the franchise has been on a constant quest to one-up itself. 2011's Ghost Protocol goes full on Buster Keaton with every set piece (director Brad Bird essentially turns Ethan Hunt into a character from The Incredibles), culminating in the scene where Cruise himself actually scaled the Burj Khalifa.

Arriving amid Daniel Craig's James Bond run (which is filled with movies I either love or absolutely hate), and the end of the original Jason Bourne trilogy, Ghost Protocol felt like a throwback to everything that made the Mission: ImpossibleTV show so addictive. There's a loyal and highly-skilled team, a nefarious villain and tons of gadgets on display. But crucially, things don't always work out as Hunt and crew expect, which makes the franchise more relatable to all of us with failing gadgets. (Every time my iPhone crashes, I can't help but be grateful I'm not climbing the Burj Khalifa with only a single high-tech gecko glove.)

With the arrival of Christopher McQuarrie, who directed 2015's Rogue Nation and its sequels, Mission: Impossible found a groove that differentiated it from most other modern franchises. Almost like action film jazz, McQuarrie and Cruise frequently came up with ideas for set pieces and built movies around them. Scripts were reworked on the fly. Normally this would spell disaster, but McQuarrie ended up thriving in the chaos. Together with stunt coordinator Scott Eastwood, he also managed to push the series into astounding new practical set pieces (see: Ethan Hunt hanging out of a plane in Rogue Nation, or the extended skydiving sequence in Fallout).

Paramount Pictures and Skydance

Dead Reckoning Part 1 builds on McQuarrie's previous entries. This time, Hunt and a new companion (Hayley Atwell's Grace) are chased through Rome's narrow streets while driving a souped-up, tiny Fiat. He base-jumps off of a mountain using a motorcycle. He fights on a real train speeding along at 60MPH. All the while, he's trying to stop the villainous AI, known only as The Entity.

On the face of it, Dead Reckoning shares plenty with Mrs. Davis, the latest show co-created by Damon Lindelof which also features a tough protagonist against an all-powerful AI. The film also dabbles in similar themes: Surely an omnipotent artificial intelligence would also inspire near-religious devotion. In Dead Reckoning, that's embodied by Gabriel, the angelically named sociopath played by Esai Morales.

While the film rarely slows down to explore the true impact of AI, Hunt and his team — Simon Pegg's Benji, Ving Rhames' Luther — instantly grasp the larger implications. Whoever can control the AI could basically control the world — not merely through physical force, but by defining truth and reality itself. An AI could erase a person from surveillance footage, or turn them into someone else entirely. Nothing can be trusted. As we grapple with the impact of ChatGPT and generative AI in real life, it’s hard not to feel like we’re on a similar path. (It's also funny to see in the midst of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which are directly tied to complaints about studios taking advantage of creatives with AI.)

As much as I love other action film franchises – like John Wick’s increasingly elaborate choreography, or the sheer ridiculousness of the Fast and the Furious –Mission: Impossible remains uniquely enjoyable. It’s committed to delivering astonishing practical stunt work. It’s self-aware just enough to poke fun at itself. And a part of me hopes that somehow, a team of geeks can also fight back against the excesses of AI.

Hayao Miyazaki's final film, the tentatively titled How Do You Live?, is coming to IMAX theaters. The milestone marks a first for Miyazaki and the animation studio he co-founded nearly four decades ago. According to Anime News Network, the film will also screen in Dolby Atmos, Dolby Cinema and DTS:X when it arrives in Japan on July 14th.

As Gizmodo notes, past Studio Ghibli films did not receive the IMAX treatment during their original theatrical runs. When you add that to the fact How Do You Live? is supposed to be Miyazaki's swan song (or so the auteur claims), you have the makings of a must-see movie event. However, one potential hitch is that the film doesn't have an international release date yet, and it's unclear if a North American distributor could secure IMAX screens for How Do You Live? when and if it arrives outside of Japan. In recent weeks, the availability of IMAX screens has been a contentious issue in Hollywood, with Tom Cruise reportedly calling some theaters to convince them to screen Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One instead of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.

Details on How Do You Live? are sparse. Studio Ghibli has not released a trailer for the film or bought any TV spots. In fact, the only promotion it has done so far for How Do You Live? is the single poster the studio released last month. The film is an original work but is named after the 1937 novel of the same name by Genzaburo Yoshino. In interviews, Miyazaki has said the book plays an influential role in the life of his film's protagonist.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been available for digital purchase and download from various sources for a little while now. The film will be available to rent starting July 11th on services such as Apple TV and Amazon Video. It was even available to watch through Twitter for a short period of time. But for those who prefer (or already subscribed to a ton of) streaming services, the movie will be hitting Peacock on August 3rd, according to Deadline. 

Despite some earlier mixed reviews, most fans seemed to like it overall. The Super Mario Bros. Movie even broke box office records. When we checked the movie out, our reviewer Devindra Hardwar thought that it was great for all ages with endless references that didn’t take you out of the movie if you’re not a diehard Nintendo fan. Its A-List cast includes Jack Black as Bowser, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad and Chris Pratt as the lovable Mario. The movie follows the Mario Bros struggling to get their Brooklyn-based plumbing business off the ground. Somehow, someway (you’ll have to watch the movie to find out) the duo falls into the Mushroom Kingdom and ultimately have to battle it out with the one and only Bowser.

The success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie hopefully sets a precedent for more films from Nintendo. It’s long been rumored that Nintendo is working on a Legend of Zelda movie or TV series, and the success of Mario might give them reason to finally do it.

A documentary about Hideo Kojima, one of the most lauded video game designers on the planet, is on the way. A trailer offers a first peek at what's in store for those who plan to check out Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds.

Kojima wrote on Twitter that the film will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the development of Death Stranding, as well as "shots from the early days of our independent studio, memories from my childhood and my creative journey." The trailer encapsulates all of that while suggesting the film is a celebration of Kojima and his work. Friends, collaborators and fans including Geoff Keighley, Guillermo del Toro, Norman Reedus and George Miller are shown talking up Kojima and his credentials.

Whether Kojima truly is "the first auteur of video games" is up for debate, especially if you're of the mind that the auteur theory can't apply to the highly collaborative process of game development. Still, there's no denying that Kojima is a vanguard in his industry. He's a fascinating guy who is behind some of the most memorable and inventive games of the last few decades, which makes him good fodder for a documentary.

PlayStation Studios and Kojima Productions helped to produce Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds, for which there's no release date as yet. The film will premiere at the Tribeca Festival on June 17th and Kojima will be in attendance for a Q&A. In the meantime, we may learn more about Death Stranding 2 during Summer Game Fest.

MoviePass has been gearing up for a wide relaunch since 2022 when it started beta testing a new subscription format in several cities, and now it’s here. Introducing MoviePass 2.0, or 3.0 depending on who you ask. The phoenix has risen from the ashes to once again offer you access to a bunch of theatrical films for a monthly subscription cost, and just in time for Memorial Day weekend.

The nationwide re-launch includes over 4,000 movie theater locations throughout the country, such as those operated by AMC Theaters, Regal Cinemas, Cinemark and a slew of smaller regional chains. So what’s the catch? The subscription model now costs more, likely because the company figured out the hard way that charging $10 per month for unlimited in-person movies makes it tough to turn a profit.

This latest iteration of MoviePass offers several subscription plans to suit how often you like sitting in a darkened movie theater. Plans still start at $10 per month, but this is only good for up to three movies each month, instead of one each day like the MoviePass of old. Subscription tiers go all the way up to $40 per month, which allows for up to 30 theatrical screenings. In other words, it’s four times as expensive as the OG plan. Still, $40 for 30 movies is a great deal, considering a single ticket costs $10 to $14 in most places.

Just like before, you can make arrangements to see a film right on the MoviePass app, as long as the theater has partnered directly with the company. You should be able to reserve a space and even select your seats, just like you were buying an actual movie ticket. It also looks like MoviePass reservations are exclusive to 2D screenings, so toss those 3D glasses in the trash.

The movie-reservation subscription app has had a long and storied history, capturing the hearts of theater-goers upon its launch in 2011. This love affair couldn’t last, however, as it ceased operations in 2019 and filed for bankruptcy in 2020. Since that time, original co-founder Stacy Spikes acquired the company’s assets, brought on new investors and went ahead with this re-launch. Cheaper movies are never a bad thing, so here’s hoping the app has some staying power this time.

Skynet. Ultron. HAL-9000. These are but a few artificial intelligence systems that have gone rogue in films. Whether The Creator can produce a fictional AI that would make a mark on popular culture remains to be seen, but it is another movie that pits humanity against artificial intelligence. Its official website says the movie is about Joshua, an ex-special forces agent recruited to hunt down the Creator. That's the architect behind the advanced AI that was developed to protect humanity only to detonate a nuclear warhead in Los Angeles. 

The Creator apparently also developed a weapon with the power to end all war and all of humanity, and Joshua and his team were tasked to destroy it. They then discovered that the world-ending weapon is an AI in the form of a young child. Of course, Joshua couldn't kill it and ended up taking it places and letting it do kid things like playing with other children. Is it evil or not? We don't know at this point. The trailer released by 20th Century Studios, New Regency and Entertainment One only shows the AI as a playful, inquisitive child. 

The film was directed and conceptualized by Gareth Edwards, the same director behind Rogue One. John David Washington (Tenet) plays Joshua, the protagonist grieving the disappearance of his wife played by Gemma Chan. Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson and Allison Janney also play roles in the movie, which will arrive in theaters on September 29th.

Get ready to deal with things that go clank in the night on the big screen. A Five Nights at Freddy's movie is on the way later this year, and Universal Pictures has revealed the first teaser for the long-gestating adaptation. The clip doesn't seem to hold too many surprises for those who are familiar with the jump scare-laden FNaF games, but it captures the aesthetic well enough.

It focuses on a character played by Josh Hutcherson as he starts a new gig as a night-time security guard at a family entertainment center. However, the animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's pose a terrifying threat to anyone still in the building after the doors close. The animatronics look spot on, which isn't exactly a shock given that Jim Henson's Creature Shop brought them to life.

Five Nights at Freddy's will arrive in theaters and on Peacock on October 27th. If you can't wait that long and simply need to watch a movie in which possessed animatronics go on a killing spree, check out Willy's Wonderland. It has both a similar concept and Nicolas Cage, and it's enjoyable enough.

Avatar: The Way of Water will be available to stream on both Disney+ and Max (the new name for HBO Max) on June 7th. It's a bit unusual to see a major, recent movie land on two platforms at the same time, but there was a deal in place between 20th Century Studios, which Disney has owned since 2019, and HBO for streaming rights to certain theatrical releases.

The sequel to 2009's Avatar hit theaters in December and it went on to become the third highest-grossing movie of all time (as long as you don't factor inflation in). Director James Cameron made intriguing use of high frame rates in The Way of Water, with action-filled scenes typically playing at 48 frames per second to make them look smoother. More tranquil scenes appeared to run at 24 fps. The frames were doubled in those parts of the movie to make it seem as though they played at the frame rate we're used to seeing in theaters.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely that there will be an option to stream the film at higher frame rates at home anytime soon. Still, those who've been waiting for Avatar: The Way of Water to pop up on Disney+ or Max only have a few weeks longer to wait.