I have been looking forward to The Boxtrolls for a while now, and it is finally time to see them on the big screen. Based on Alan Snow’s children’s novel Here Be Monsters, it is one of a series. I am hoping that the film does well enough at the box office that they decide to go ahead and make the rest of them. If you are looking for something a bit grittier, The Equalizer is also coming out this week. It stars Denzel Washington, and is based on the 1980’s TV show of the same name.
This week we get several interesting choices, starting with The Maze Runner based on the great YA novel by James Dashner. I expect this one to pull the best numbers at the box office because of the popularity of the book, so it got the first mention. In limited release we have the new Terry Gilliam film The Zero Theorem, about a computer hacker trying to figure out the reason humans exist. While this one might be the hardest to find on a local screen, it could be the most interesting film out of the group. Space Station 76 definitely gets my vote for silliest movie this time around, with the tag line A 1970s version of the future, where personalities and asteroids collide. I have seen more than one review saying it is the best sci-Fi comedy since Galaxy Quest, which I dearly love. It isn’t the only comedy choice, since we also have Simon Pegg’s rendition of a psychiatrist searching the world in Hector and the Search for Happiness.
There are a couple of choices, but I don’t know how many screens they are going to be on as neither film is spending a lot of money on publicity. Alas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt? is the third film in the series and finishes the story with the romantic bits. The Ayn Rand book was too big to do as just one movie, it seems. Bird People is a French fantasy romantic drama/comedy that looks pretty interesting, but it may not get a lot of screens because many audience members don’t like to read subtitles.
This film won’t be out until February, but Seventh Son looks like a tasty adventure fantasy. It stars Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes, and Julianne Moore, and is based on Joseph Delaney’s The Last Apprentice.
They had an H. P. Lovecraft festival this weekend in Second Life, and there were a lot of creatures to see and become. This one towered over the trees.
Starring Antonio Banderas and Melonie Griffith, Automata looks to be on the cutting edge of the revolution that might be coming if the world evolves in the AI direction. It has a tip-of-the-hat to Asimov’s 3 Laws, and it is a pretty convincing Turing Test if the robots are more human than the people, after all. It says something interesting about the current state of the film industry that it was written and directed by a Hispanic team, filmed in English in Bulgaria, and will be released on October 10th, 2014, with a world premiere in South Africa.