There are a couple of great choices this week. The film Mortal Instruments: City of Bones actually hits the big screen on Wednesday, the 21st. Based on the YA series of urban fantasy novels by Cassandra Clare, Sony is no doubt hoping for the same kind of audience reaction earned by the Twilight and Hunger Games franchises. There are 5 more books already written and ready to turn into films, as well as 3 Steampunk prequels set in the Victorian era, so if this does well expect to see more. Then on Friday, The World’s End completes the Cornetto Trilogy, which started with Shawn Of The Dead and continued in Hot Fuzz.
It came out at the beginning of last week, so you have probably seen this already. About Time is a comedy about love and time travel, with a stellar cast and some great production team members. And did you notice who wrote it? It should be along come October, I fully intend to see this one on the big screen.
There are two tasty choices this weekend; Kick-Ass 2 could be even more off the hook than the original. Hit Girl gets grounded, and Kick-Ass teams with a group of costumed vigilantes inspired by their original antics. Based on the trailers I have to say Jim Carrey’s character looks well and truly twisted. The other film worth checking out this time around is the docu-drama Jobs, and there is one thing I am hoping they deal with. That is their near mythical raid on Xerox PARC, where they supposedly stole the idea of the mouse and its use with clickable icons to create a graphical user interface. That GUI format was later supposedly stolen from them as Bill Gates madly played catch-up and replaced DOS with Windows in his bid to compete with the Mac. As with all such mythologies, the reality was a bit more complex than that (see the Stanford story linked above), but it made a great story.
Another classic film being remade, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a quirky little tale about a man with a rich interior life to counterbalance his rather mundane exterior one. James Thurber wrote the story in 1939, which was turned into a movie starring Danny Kaye in 1947. Now it is Ben Stiller’s turn to play the amazing character, and I am looking forward to seeing how he does with this project.
The original 47 Ronin were a group of Samurai who’s feudal lord was forced to commit suicide; they spent two years plotting to kill the court functionary who ordered his death, and then had to commit suicide themselves for the murder. It is a true story that happened in the early 1700s in Japan, and has been made into a movie half a dozen times already, with numerous TV shows, Operas, and stage presentations, including Kabbuki and Bunraku renderings. As far as I know this is the first time a Hollywood version has been made of the 47 Ronin, but the sheer number of famous Japanese actors who have signed up to take part bodes well for the core story’s being presented properly. Plus, this version has dragons! While not a tale I would have associated with Christmas, I will be seeing in on the big screen come December.
On Wednesday we get Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, second film in the series based on Rick Riordan‘s excellent YA fantasy books. Then on Friday Elysium is the story of orbital class warfare as told by the folks who brought us District 9. Let’s face it, this is yet another weekend where I am going to have to see more than one movie. This has been an amazing summer for films so far!