The latest incarnation of the John Carter trailer is stripped down to 30 seconds for airing on TV. According to the team at SFX, who are not usually in favor of the way 3D is used in movies, the 3D on this film version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic is awesome.
On Sunday I mentioned John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There because the latest iteration of the story, in movie format, is being released on disc today. But I thought I should also mention that you can read his stories online, or a number of the ones in the public domain at least. He also did a radio program of science fiction stories called Exploring Tomorrow that you can listen to or download for your favorite portable media player. Campbell was best known as an editor, although a lot of folks now know him as the guy the awards were named after. But he wrote some pretty interesting stuff, and you might enjoy checking it out.
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.
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.