We have two choices this holiday weekend, both film treatments for classic books, and I may need to hit both. The Edgar Rice Burroughs classic The Legend of Tarzan is the first new movie from that franchise in quite a while, and I will definitely be in the audience for the reboot. Hopefully it won’t get killed off by active studio suppression the way John Carter (of Mars) was. Then Roald Dahl’s The BFG is brought to life by Disney Studios, geared to a more family friendly audience. The only real question in my mind is whether I do them back to back with a dinner break in between, or hit Tarzan on Saturday, The BFG on Sunday, and the fireworks on Monday.
My favorite movie title this time is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because I loved it as a book title when Seth Grahame-Smith released it in 2009. I am not normally a fan of Zombie movies, this one made my tiny handful of exceptions, which also includes Shaun Of The Dead and Warm Bodies. Gods of Egypt is the other fantasy movie this week; I missed it in the theaters, and I will be waiting to see it until it comes to a service I already have. If there was any SF/F TV this week I didn’t manage to find it.
Anime has When They Cry: Kai, the second season finding the survivors of the 1983 Great Hinamizawa Disaster continuing to fight for their survival as the time loops keep bringing the disaster back. Log Horizon: Season 2 Part 1 begins six months after thousands of players were trapped in the game, and there is still no escape in sight. With winter coming on they have some hard decisions to make if they want to live into the spring. Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend: Set 2 brings the second season of that story, and the creative team gathered has most of the skills needed to finally build the game. The only aspect they are missing is the music, but the only person they know who creates there own music has no interest in gaming, and urges them to give up their otaku project. The only anime this time around which is not the second season is One Piece – Season 8 Voyage 1, bringing episodes 457 through 468 home; to put that in perspective, they are currently streaming episode 783.
There are two good choices this week, with X-Men: Apocalypse set to roll out the next chapter for that franchise, and Alice Through the Looking Glass bringing another Tim Burton interpretation of the classic story. I am looking forward to both, but if I can only make time for one, the X-Men will get my box office money.
On the Big Screen this July, Nerve was sci-fi until a decade or so back, and looks like a very nicely done thriller. Based on the novel of the same name by YA author Jeanne Ryan, it seems like Eagle Eye meets John Dies in the End could have been the inspiration. I will be in the theater to check this one out when the time comes.
Roald Dahl wrote the story, Steven Spielberg directed the movie, and Disney is distributing it; The BFG is finally coming to the big screen in July. The Big Friendly Giant has been a children’s classic since it was first published, I am looking forward to seeing how they did with this iteration of it.
A year before he became the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton did a BBC Radio production of George Orwell’s 1984. He wasn’t the first actor to give voice to Winston Smith, because that was David Niven in 1949, within a year of the books original publication. He was the first actor to ever play Robin Hood on TV in 1953, and I can’t help but wish at least one complete episode of that show still exists in some format so I could watch it. Video Curios posted his 1984 online a few years ago, and Open Culture posted the heads up, so here you go; enjoy.