Chronicle is the story of three teen friends who gain superpowers, only to loose themselves to their darker sides. While not exactly a movie I have been waiting for (and there are lots of those in 2012), it may be OK for a weekend’s distraction.
There isn’t much coming out this week, but a few of them are quite good. In Time is a brutally intense little film about using your lifespan as money, and all the implications of that shift on society. The Thing is done as a prequil to Carpenter’s 1982 cult classic film, which was a remake of the 1951 movie The Thing from Another World, which was based on the John W. Campbell story Who Goes There.
I couldn’t find any live action TV this week, and even the anime is barely genre, although I did find B Gata H Kei: Yamada’s First Time quite amusing. And the Straw Hat Gang is back in One Piece – Collection 4, which brings that series to episode 103.
The new movie Mirror Mirror just looks like too much fun, I am going to have to catch this one on the big screen. It may also be Julia Roberts only time to play the bad guy, since she gets to be the evil witch in this Snow White live action reimaging.
With the full title Every Doctor Who Story 1963 to Now – A Babelcolour Tribute, this is a wonderful little video. And while any given show generally gets around 5 seconds of video, he really did manage to cover at least all the surviving stories, and gave the name and number of the ones that didn’t survive. Also included were various spinoffs, Children In Need specials, movies, parodies, games, and animations. There are a number of other Who tributes on the site you should check out; since I particularly like the Sarah Jane tribute, I am including that one as well.
They just keep making the Resident Evil movies, and another one will be coming our way in September. This trailer is kind of cute; it starts out like a smartphone add, but it isn’t. This is the 5th movie for the franchise, which is pretty intense when you realize most games made into movies never get a sequel.
No actual genre films this week, although Man on a Ledge could be entertaining. Do not despair, because there actually are a ton of great movies coming out this year yet. Chronicle is out next week, a story about 3 high school friends who gain superpowers and risk loosing their souls. In February we get Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, based on Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island, it is the sequel to 2009’s film version of Journey to the Center of the Earth (the good one). There will be various 3D versions of the Star Wars franchise released in theaters in the course of the year. Also in February, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance for the adrenalin junkies, and a new treat from Studio Ghibli, The Secret World of Arrietty being a retelling of The Borrowers.
Then in March it all goes nuts, starting out with the long-awaited John Carter movie, which is actually the first book in Edgar Rice Burrough’s Mars series, not the later story the title might suggest. Near future Apocalypse tale The Hunger Games was written by Suzanne Collins, and Mirror Mirror is a Snow White update with Julia Robert’s as the evil queen. And of course The Pirates! Band of Misfits from the creators of Wallace and Gromit is insane animated fun. The Raven is the fictionalized account of Edgar Allen Poe out to catch a serial killer who has been plagiarizing his books to commit his crimes, and for some strange reason someone thought it would be interesting to make a sequel called Wrath of the Titans. And that’s just the next few months; should be a pretty interesting year in the theaters.