There are two interesting films hitting the theaters this week. If you are in an Action kind of mood, the one you want is Bunraku, starring Ron Perlman, Woody Harlson, Demi Moore, and Gatk (I believe this is his first time in an American movie). Kind of American movie anyways; the title and the plot line came from a traditional school of puppet shows from Japan, Gakt is a Japanese rock star, and they filmed the movie in Rumania. It is opening in very limited release, if it does well it may go to wider release down the road. If you are more in the mood for a dark comedy, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is the way to go. It is about two good ole boys on vacation at their dilapidated shack in the mountains when they are attacked by a bunch of preppy collage kids who have seen Texas Chain Saw Massacre one too many times.
According to the folks at Deadline, it looks like Fox has picked up the option to turn Issac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel into a movie. Considering what they did with the Will Smith version of Asimov’s I, Robot I don’t expect this one will be very close to the book either. Still, I will be in the theater when it hits the big screen, if only to see how close they came. Hopefully they will at least let the robot be one of the good guys this time. I should mention that I enjoyed their version of I, Robot, it just wasn’t very close to the book.
According to Anime News Network, the latest film from Studio Ghibli, From Up on Poppy Hill, has blown away the competition to become the number one box office film in Japan for 2011. It did it so completely that it exceeded the box office draw of its next two competitors combined by $400,000 US, and is currently pushing the $54 million range. This is another work directed by Goro Miyazaki, son of renowned filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki who wrote and planned the movie. No word yet on when Disney will be releasing the film either in theaters or on DVD for the US market, but it is at least making the rounds of the usual film festivals in North America.
There really aren’t any genre films this week, so this might be a good time to catch up on anything you missed. We have two for next week however; the long-awaited Bunraku, and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.
Real Steel hits the big screen in October, and they have turned loose another few trailers to get us ready for it. If you have ever built your own combat bot (all of mine have been in the Nano class, I can’t afford the heavy weight hardware it takes to make it to Robot Wars), you will appreciate this movie. It is also yet another Sci-Fi movie starring Hugh Jackman that has no mutants in it (remember The Fountain, or Van Helsing , or Kate & Leopold?).
According to Digital Spy, there will be a live action version of the Anime classic Kite coming to the big screen. The director will be David R Ellis, probably best known for Snakes on a Plane, with no word yet on the expected release date or rating. The original anime was Hentai and would have been rated X in the US, but it was so popular it went through two different edits, one to bring it down to R, and another that brought it to PG13 or so, and released in theaters worldwide.