Booking some offbeat summer movies

To say that this past week of summer has been rather overheated in more ways than one is quite the understatement there. Let’s just say any relief from the daily heat is more than welcome.

A good place to cool off is at the movies and if you want to do some page turning along with your popcorn munching, here are three adaptations coming to a theater near you:

The Life of Chuck: Based upon a Stephen King novella from his 2020 collection If It Bleeds, the entire story is based around Chuck(Tom Huddleston), whose seemingly ordinary existence has more meaning than anyone realized. It’s a tale told in reverse order and I can’t describe it more than that in order to not get into spoilers.

No, I haven’t seen the film but did read the novella(which is separately published as well) and it’s not the usual King fate in the best sense of the term. Also, director Mike Flanagan did a great job in adapting Doctor Sleep(The Shining sequel) a couple of years ago, pulling off the major magic trick of staying true to the book as well as the movie legacy wrapped all around that project.

The Life of Chuck is currently in theaters and if you can catch a screening, you may be pleasantly surprised which is a feeling hard to come by these days:

Don’t Let’s Go to The Dogs Tonight:  For something a bit more dramatic, this adaptation of Alexandra Fuller’s memoir from 2001 is set in Rhodesia(now known as Zimbabwe) in the aftermath of the infamous bush war during the 1980s.

Embers Davidtz not only stars as Nicola, Alexandra’s troubled mother struggling to keep the family farm intact, she’s also the director and one of the executive producers as well. Clearly, this is a project that she’s artistically passionate about and given our current state of global affairs, might be something to talk about indeed this July:

The Roses: This is more than just an adaptation of the  1981 dark comedy novel by Warren Adler; it’s also a remake of the first cinematic version of this book that famously featured Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito(outside of their Romancing the Stone movies)back in 1989.

Here, we have Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch as the title couple, ready to get divorced after many years of marriage but not prepared to surrender their mutual house to one or the other during the fractious proceedings.

This is a very high bar to meet as the original movie was one hell of a ride there, with critical and audience acclaim alike. Not to mention this is a late August release to boot but perhaps it can be a jumpstart to the fall film season instead of a late summer leftover, we shall see:

Of course, the biggest adaptation most people will see this summer is the new take on Superman from director James  Gunn and that’s fine by me. 

I hope to see it myself as this movie radiates positive entertainment energy from the cast to the visuals and the inclusion of several unsung comic book characters in DC Comics adaptation lore(I’m a cat person but Krypto is adorable!).

Yes, The Fantastic Four movie looks awesome as well but I think more folks will be drawn to Superman for emotional reasons. It has been said that this movie draws on the Silver Age of comics, which were rather upbeat in tone and we could all certainly use a little of that right now.

Granted, being blindly optimistic about the future isn’t the best course going forward yet total nihilism helps no one here. Superman is one of those iconic fictional figures in our collective history that can help rally our spirits and showcasing him at his best,as the refugee from a destroyed civilization who wants only to use his unique gifts to protect the people of his adopted homeworld,is definitely the true and just way to do so.

Let’s all have a good summer of reading and watching wonderful movies together with hope for better days ahead this fall: