Cuppacafe

One of the richest areas for mining movie material has always been literature. It is probably a safe bet to say that more prose books have been translated into movies than any other previously-published source material. Still, perhaps the most (shall we say) "unusual" form of translation is when a writer takes a previously-published source and then spins it sideways to have it come out as something, well different than the original form.

A couple of prime examples of this are when Rogers & Hammerstein took Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, and turned it into West Side Story or when Amy Heckerling took Jane Austen's novel Emma and (re)made it into Clueless.

Anyways, very soon, there is yet another tome that will be added to these films, it is a epic fantasy adventure involving Dragons, and is based on one of the most seminal works in all of English literature.

Herman Melville's Moby Dick. No, really, I'm not kidding. check it out after the jump.

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So, just a short while ago, Walt posted a video trailer to the up-coming film Monsters, where a US journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the U.S. border. Walt cited that the film was similar in nature to District 9. Only Monsters, takes place some six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe that was launched to collect samples, crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon afterwards, new life-form began to appear and half of Mexico was subsequently quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE.

Well, not quite the same thing, but I spotted another Earth invasion flick that seemed to play along some of the same themes. it is called Skyline. The film's trailer is after the jump.

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In the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Banky (Jason Lee) comments "That's what the Internet is for. Slandering others anonymously, and downloading porn." Well, in the upcoming film, The Middle Men, is the story of the guys who brought porn to the Net.

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I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan, Have been since I was totally creeped out by The Sixth Sense. Yeah, yeah I know what the haters say about the (apparent) diminishing quality of his work (and no, I didn't like Lady in the Water, either), Nor was I (unfortunately) totally thrilled by all of his films, but that never meant that I didn't look forward to any of them.

Most recently he delivered up Avatar, The Last Airbender, and in spite of what you may have read by critics who simply want to jump on the "Let's kick Shyamalan when he's down" Bandwagon, it really was a very good film (I didn't see it in 3D, which (again, apparently) most naysayers did), so I (and my son who was weaned on the Airbender cartoon), really enjoyed it.

Anyway, I just now saw a trailer for M. Night's next film, Devil, which is Due out September 17, and, well, it looks like he's back on his game. Just take a look at the trailer (after the jump) and see if you don't agree

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Yeah, I know that you silly kids love it when I post stuff like this, so here we go, Iron Man toys are now available at Burger King. There are eight toys to this set, but what makes this set really cool, is that for the first time there are four toys in the set targeted for girls. Now I know that these places regularly offer toys for boys and girls and run them together, but this time the four girl toys are also Iron Man-related, and I think that makes them very interesting, especially given that Iron man is so clearly a "boy" movie (even though there are several very strong female characters).

Week 1 Iron Man 2 toys @ Burger King

Week 2 Iron Man 2 toys @ Burger King

The movie hits theaters on Friday, May 7.

The Perfessor

So, I've mentioned my very talented cousin, David Gere, well, I've just learned that he is an associate producer for an upcoming indie flick entitled, Sensory Perception, a feature length, sci-fi drama about a guy named, Jeremy Jacobs, who is a "recovering" drug addict, struggling to get his life back on track. Things for Jeremy become even harder when he starts to have visions of a bleak apocalyptic future. He is stalked by strange messages and shadowy figures, while being persuaded that there's a way to avert this future disaster. Fighting through his addiction, paranoia, and skepticism, he finds it difficult to convince anyone, even himself, that we can change the future that has been laid out to him.

Apparently there is a wrap party happening in a couple of weeks to which I've been invited (and on which I'll report). In the meantime, I'll point you to the film's home page (where you can view a couple of very cool trailers).

Anyway the film looks very cool, and I want you to be on the lookout for it.

The Perfessor