Books Into Movies

February 2012  

 

Cast: Kristen Bell, Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Dermot Mulroney
Director: Ken Kwapis
Distributor: Universal Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG
Release Date: February 3rd
Based on: FREEING THE WHALES by Thomas Rose
 
Inspired by the true story that captured the hearts of people across the world, the rescue adventure Big Miracle tells the amazing tale of a small town news reporter (John Krasinski) and an animal-loving volunteer (Drew Barrymore) who are joined by rival world superpowers to save a family of majestic gray whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle.
 
Local newsman Adam Carlson (Krasinski) can’t wait to escape the northern tip of Alaska for a bigger market. But just when the story of his career breaks, the world comes chasing it, too. With an oil tycoon, heads of state and hungry journalists descending upon the frigid outpost, the one who worries Adam the most is Rachel Kramer (Barrymore). Not only is she an outspoken environmentalist, she’s also his ex-girlfriend.
 
With time running out, Rachel and Adam must rally an unlikely coalition of Inuit natives, oil companies and Russian and American military to set aside their differences and free the whales. As the world’s attention turns to the top of the globe, saving these endangered animals becomes a shared cause for nations entrenched against one another and leads to a momentary thaw in the Cold War.

 

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer
Director: James Watkins
Distributor: CBS Films
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: February 3rd
Based on: THE WOMAN IN BLACK by Susan Hill
 
Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), a widowed lawyer whose grief has put his career in jeopardy, is sent to a remote village to sort out the affairs of a recently deceased eccentric. But upon his arrival, it soon becomes clear that everyone in the town is keeping a deadly secret. Although the townspeople try to keep Kipps from learning their tragic history, he soon discovers that the house belonging to his client is haunted by the ghost of a woman who is determined to find someone and something she lost… and no one, not even the children, are safe from her vengeance.

 

Cast: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum, Jessica Lange
Director: Michael Sucsy
Distributor: Sony Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: February 10th
Based on: True events, now published as a book: THE VOW: The True Events that Inspired the Movieby Kim Carpenter, Krickitt Carpenter, Dana Wilkerson
 
A newlywed couple recovers from a car accident that puts the wife in a coma. Waking up with severe memory loss, her husband endeavors to win her heart again.

 

Voice Cast: Bridgit Mendler, Amy Poehler, Carol Burnett, Will Arnett, David Henrie, Moises Arias
Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures
MPAA Rating: G
Release Date: February 17th
Based on: THE BORROWERS by Mary Norton
 
Residing quietly beneath the floorboards are little people who live undetected in a secret world to be discovered, where the smallest may stand tallest of all. From the legendary Studio Ghibli ("Spirited Away," "Ponyo") comes "The Secret World of Arrietty," an animated adventure based on Mary Norton's acclaimed children's book series The Borrowers.
 
Arrietty (voice of Bridgit Mendler), a tiny but tenacious 14-year-old, lives with her parents (voices of Will Arnett and Amy Poehler) in the recesses of a suburban garden home, unbeknownst to the homeowner and her housekeeper (voice of Carol Burnett). Like all little people, Arrietty (AIR-ee-ett-ee) remains hidden from view, except during occasional covert ventures beyond the floorboards to "borrow" scrap supplies like sugar cubes from her human hosts. But when 12-year-old Shawn (voice of David Henrie), a human boy who comes to stay in the home, discovers his mysterious housemate one evening, a secret friendship blossoms. If discovered, their relationship could drive Arrietty's family from the home and straight into danger. The English language version of "The Secret World of Arrietty" was executive produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, and directed by Gary Rydstrom. 
 
 

 

January 2012  

 

Cast: Kenichi Matsuyama, Rinko Kikuchi, Kiko Mizuhara, Reika Kirishima, Kengo Kora, Eriko Hatsune, Tetsuji Tamayama
Director: Tran Anh Hung
Distributor: Curious Films
MPAA Rating: Not rated
Release Date: January 6th (NYC only)
Based On: NORWEGIAN WOOD by Haruki Murakami 
 
Tokyo, the late 1960s... Students around the world are uniting to overthrow the establishment, and Toru Watanabe's personal life is similarly in tumult. At heart, he is deeply devoted to his first love, Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman. But their complex bond has been forged by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Watanabe lives with the influence of death everywhere. That is, until Midori, a girl who is everything that Naoko is not --- outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident --- marches into his life, and Watanabe must choose between his past and his future.
 

 

 

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, John Kani, James Nesbitt, Paul Jesson, Lubna Azabel, Ashraf Barhom
Director: Ralph Fiennes
Distributor: The Weinstein Company
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: January 20th
Based On: Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
 
Caius Martius "Coriolanus," a revered and feared Roman General, is at odds with the city of Rome and his fellow citizens. Pushed by his controlling and ambitious mother Volumnia to seek the exalted and powerful position of Consul, he is loath to ingratiate himself with the masses whose votes he needs in order to secure the office. When the public refuses to support him, Coriolanus’s anger prompts a riot that culminates in his expulsion from Rome. The banished hero then allies himself with his sworn enemy, Tullus Aufidius, to take his revenge on the city.

 

 

Cast: Ryan O'Nan, Leonardo Nam, Gillian Jacobs, James Chen, Keong Sim, Peter Scanavino, Michael Esper, Ron C. Johns, Idara Victor, Constance Wu
Director: Shimon Dotan
Distributor: Roam Films
MPAA Rating: Not rated
Release Date: January 20th (limited)
Based On: WATCHING TV WITH THE RED CHINESE by Luke Whisnant 
 

When Tzu, Wa and Chen come to New York City in the summer of 1980 to study, they find themselves in a strange land far, far away from life in communist China. Consuming a heavy daily diet of American TV, they are captivated by the cacophonous culture surrounding them. They make friends with their next-door neighbor Dexter, his sometimes girlfriend Suzanne and the struggling filmmaker Billy. They party. One falls dangerously in love. But a brutal mugging and an ex-boyfriend’s crazed jealousy plunge them into a state of cultural confusion and fear. When, on December 8, 1980, John Lennon is murdered, the trio fatefully confronts the social violence that surrounds them.

 

 

Cast: Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson, Janet Mc Teer, Pauline Collins, Brenda Fricker, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Rodrigo Garcia
Distributor: Roadside Attractions
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: January 27th
Based On: ALBERT NOBBS: A Novella by George Moore
 

Award-winning actress Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) plays a woman passing as a man in order to work and survive in 19th century Ireland. Some 30 years after donning men's clothing, she finds herself trapped in a prison of her own making. Mia Wasikowska (Helen), Aaron Johnson (Joe) and Brendan Gleeson (Dr. Holloran) join a prestigious, international cast that includes Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Janet McTeer, Brenda Fricker and Pauline Collins.

Rodrigo Garcia directs from a script that Glenn Close, along with Man Booker prize-winning novelist John Banville and Gabriella Prekop, adapted from a short story by Irish author George Moore. 

 

Cast: Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale
Director: Joe Carnahan
Distributor: Entertainment Film Distributors
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: January 27th
Based On: The short story “Ghost Walker” by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers
 
A group of oil-rig roughnecks are left stranded on the sub-arctic tundra after their plane experiences a complete mechanical failure and crashes into the remote Alaskan wilderness. The survivors, battling mortal injuries, biting cold and ravenous hunger, are relentlessly hunted and pursued by a vicious pack of rogue wolves.

 

 

Cast: Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara, Daniel Sunjata, John Leguizamo, Sherri Shepherd
Director: Julie Anne Robinson
Distributor: Lionsgate
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: January 27th
Based On: ONE FOR THE MONEY by Janet Evanovich
 
A proud, born-and-bred Jersey girl, Stephanie Plum's got plenty of attitude, even if she's been out of work for the last six months and just lost her car to a debt collector. Desperate for some fast cash, Stephanie turns to her last resort: convincing her sleazy cousin to give her a job at his bail bonding company...as a recovery agent. True, she doesn't even own a pair of handcuffs and her weapon of choice is pepper spray, but that doesn't stop Stephanie from taking on Vinny's biggest bail-jumper: former vice cop and murder suspect Joe Morelli --- yup, the same sexy, irresistible Joe Morelli who seduced and dumped her back in high school.
 
Nabbing Morelli would be satisfying payback --- and a hefty payday --- but as Stephanie learns the ins and outs of becoming a recovery agent from Ranger, a hunky colleague who's the best in the business, she also realizes the case against Morelli isn't airtight. Add to the mix her meddling family, a potentially homicidal boxer, witnesses who keep dying and the problem of all those flying sparks when she finds Morelli himself...well, suddenly Stephanie's new job isn't nearly as easy as she thought.

 

December 2011  

 

Cast: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Distributor: Oscilloscope Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: December 2nd (limited)
Based on: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lionel Shriver
 

A tormented mother grapples with feelings of accountability and intense grief after her troubled 15-year-old son commits an act of violence that shakes their community to its very core. Eva had a promising career when an unplanned pregnancy threw her life off-balance, though she selflessly put her own ambitions aside to give her son, Kevin, a good life. From the moment Kevin was born, there was a palpable tension between mother and son. Years later, as a teenager, Kevin snaps. As the community recoils from Kevin and his family, Eva begins to question whether or not she ever really loved her son in the first place. 

 

 

Cast: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Distributor: Universal Pictures
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: December 9th (wide)
Based on: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY by John le Carré
 

Based on the classic novel of the same name, this international thriller is set at the height of the Cold War years of the mid-20th century. George Smiley, a disgraced British spy, is rehired in secret by his government --- which fears that the British Secret Intelligence Service, a.k.a. MI-6, has been compromised by a double agent working for the Soviets.

 

 

Cast: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook, Daniel Mays, Gad Elmaleh, Joe Starr
Director: Steven Spielberg
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG
Release Date: December 21st (wide)
 

Based on the internationally beloved and irrepressible characters created by Hergé, the story follows the unquenchably curious young reporter Tintin and his fiercely loyal dog Snowy as they discover a model ship carrying an explosive secret. Drawn into a centuries-old mystery, Tintin finds himself in the sightlines of Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine, a diabolical villain who believes Tintin has stolen a priceless treasure tied to a dastardly pirate named Red Rackham. But with the help of his dog Snowy, the salty, cantankerous Captain Haddock and the bumbling detectives Thompson & Thomson, Tintin will travel half the world, outwitting and outrunning his enemies in a breathless chase to find the final resting place of The Unicorn, a shipwreck that may hold the key to vast fortune…and a ancient curse.

From the high seas to the sands of North African deserts, every new twist and turn sweeps Tintin and his friends to escalating levels of thrills and peril, proving that when you dare to risk everything, there’s no limit to what you can do.

 

 

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Jared Harris
Director: Guy Ritchie
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: December 16th (wide)
Based on: Characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
 

Sherlock Holmes has always been the smartest man in the room...until now. There is a new criminal mastermind at large --- Professor Moriarty --- and not only is he Holmes's intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective. When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, the evidence, as construed by Inspector Lestrade, points to suicide. But Sherlock Holmes deduces that the prince has been the victim of murder --- a murder that is only one piece of a larger and much more portentous puzzle, designed by Professor Moriarty. The cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead of Holmes as he spins a web of death and destruction --- all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history.

 

 

Cast: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara
Director: David Fincher
Distributor: Music Box Films
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: December 21st (wide)
Based on: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson
 

Hoping to distance himself from the fallout of a libel conviction, journalist Mikael Blomkvist retreats to a remote island in Sweden's far north where the unsolved murder of a young girl still haunts her industrialist uncle 40 years later. Ensconced in a cottage on the island where the killer may still roam, Blomkvist's investigation draws him into the secrets and lies of the rich and powerful, and throws him together with one unlikely ally --- tattooed, punk hacker Lisbeth Salander.

 

 

Cast: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church
Director: Cameron Crowe
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
MPAA Rating: PG
Release Date: December 23rd (wide)
Based on: WE BOUGHT A ZOO by Benjamin Mee
 

WE BOUGHT A ZOO, a memoir by Benjamin Mee, tells the true account of how the author and his family used their life savings to buy a dilapidated zoo, replete with 200 exotic animals facing destruction, in the English countryside. Mee, along with his children, had to balance caring for his wife, who was dying of brain cancer, with dealing with escaped tigers, raising endangered animals, working with an eclectic skeleton crew and readying the zoo for a reopening. 

 

 

Cast: Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock
Director: Stephen Daldry
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: December 25th (limited)
Based on: EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer
 
Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close tells the story of one young boy’s journey from heartbreaking loss to the healing power of self-discovery, set against the backdrop of the tragic events of September 11th. Eleven-year-old Oskar Schell is an exceptional child: amateur inventor, Francophile, pacifist. And after finding a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, he embarks on an exceptional journey --- an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. As Oskar roams the city, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity, who are all survivors in their own ways.

 

 

Cast: Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, David Thewlis
Director: Steven Spielberg
Distributor: Buena Vista Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: December 25th (wide)
Based on: WAR HORSE by Michael Morpurgo
 
War Horse is a tale of loyalty, hope and tenacity set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War. It begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets --- British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter --- before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man’s Land.
 
 
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