This week’s movie releases

Coming in to land this week is Pedro Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited, which marks the director’s first out-and-out comedy since 1988’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. It’s a funny if frothy journey set aboard a plane suffering mechanical failure and features a starry ensemble cast that includes Javier Cámara, Carlos Areces, Raúl Arévalo and Cecilia Roth, as well as cameos from Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas.

Oz the Great and Powerful is former Spider-Man director Sam Raimi’s kind-of prequel to the Judy Garland MGM classic, telling the story of how the wonderful wizard first ended up in the magical land. Taking elements from L. Frank Baum’s novels, it stars James Franco as a huckster circus magician who’s whisked away to the land of Oz where he runs into three witches (Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams).

Jason Statham moves up a rung on the action movie ladder as he’s teamed with Jennifer López in Parker, based on the character created by author Donald E. Westlake. The British hard man plays a professional thief (Statham) out for revenge on the crew that ripped him off and left him for dead.

The dog-eat-dog world of a cappella singing forms the background for campus comedy Pitch Perfect. Anna Kendrick is the freshman spicing up the traditional arrangements with some modern mash-ups.

Set during the 1937 Nanking Massacre, The Flowers of War teams Christian Bale with Raise the Red Lantern director Zhang Yimou. The Empire of the Sun actor plays an American trying to save a group of Chinese courtesans and schoolgirls sheltering in a church as the Japanese run amok outside.