Adding some creative toppings to my Movie Trailer Park popcorn

One pop culture crop that always is ready for harvest this time of year are literary adaptations at the movies. Particularly since award season is not too far off there…

Yet my film focus for today is on those current and upcoming movies that take some creative chances with the source material.

To start, let’s look at Frankenstein , Guillermo Del Toro’s latest movie that will be available for streaming this No and is arriving in theaters this very week. Oscar Issac plays the well known creator of the creature (Jacob Elordi), shunned by society and rejected by the one that made him even before the death toll begins.

Critical praise for the film has been strong and given not only the magnificent visuals that Del Toro is renowned for but the screenplay that he also wrote showcases the creature in a more sympathetic light(another hallmark of his work), this new production of Mary Shelley’s iconic novel should be a fresh vision that honors the original story beautifully:

Also in November is The Running Man , based on one of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman books, which is technically a remake yet not at all.

Instead of following the formula of the earlier Arnold Schwarzenegger action film version, director/co-screenwriter Edgar Wright takes the story straight from the book itself.

Here, Ben Richards(Glen Powell) signs up for the futuristic reality show that hunts him down within the larger population in order to pay for his child’s medical bills.

 The  popular show, gleefully run by producer Dan Killian(Josh Brolin) and hosted by Bobby Thompson (Coleman Domingo), encourages regular people to assist the Hunters and claim some rewards of their own but as Ben continues to defy the odds, more and more folks are betting against the house and rooting for a potentially ground shifting winner this time around.

As entertaining as the 1987 movie adaptation was, this one should blow the roof off of that film in more ways than one. Seeing this as well as The Long Walk(which had it’s first adaptation released over the summer) be made available to wider audiences promises to widen the circle of Richard Bachman readers as well:

However, if you want to see a movie right now that takes it’s cues from the literary realm, then I highly recommend One Battle After Another.

This latest work by Paul Thomas Anderson is said to be inspired by iconoclastic writer Thomas Pynchon’s book Vineland and granted, this is an author whose works I find much too daunting to dive into yet PTA does capture the flavor of that style of writing quite nicely.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob aka Pat Calhoun, a former revolutionary turned stoner slacker dad to daughter Willa(Chase Infiniti), who have been on their own since the disappearance of his romantic partner and Willa’s mother Perfidia Beverley Hills(Teyana Taylor).

When a past enemy, Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), decides to use what powers are available to him to track Bob and Willa down for his own personal purposes, that awkward existence quickly changes for parent and child, taking them and anyone who joins them along the way on a long, strange journey that’s hard to predict how it ends.

I saw this movie over the past weekend and it is quite the wild ride indeed. Yes, it’s long(about two and an half hours) but never boring. Instead, this story is a heady mix of humor, tension and emotional drama blended with some sharp edged social satire that strongly resonates with today’s headlines. I don’t want to get into too much detail here but this is a movie that very much ,like a good book, sucks you into the world it’s created and doesn’t let go for a second.

 While OBAA is more of an “inspired by” than a direct adaptation of Vineland, PTA is a major fan of Thomas Pynchon and has made a movie based on that writer’s work before(Inherent Vice in 2014) yet it received a mixed reception at best. Perhaps it was by being a bit more free and easy with this particular story that helped him showcase why Pynchon is one of his all time favorites.

The performances are amazingly great, the look of the film(made in old school Vista Vision) is captivating and even if you haven’t read or heard of Pynchon, director/co-writer PTA gives you a very good idea of what that author’s writing is like and why it’s one of his artistic inspirations to this day:

Interesting how all three of these adaptations have their directors take part in writing the screenplays as well. Guess it really can be a bonus to have a visual creator be able to see and feel the depths of the tale he or she is translating from one medium to another there.

That trend seems to be continuing into next year as actress Maggie Gyllenhaal gives us The Bride! in March of 2026.  This new twist on The Bride of Frankenstein is set in Chicago during the 1930s with Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale as an undead Bonnie and Clyde.

This is Gyllenhaal’s second film as a writer/director and certainly one to watch out for. Whether it makes its mark as a new cult classic or simply inspires an eyebrow raise or two, such chances taken are what the best movies and books are all about. At the very least, all roads here will lead back to the book, the truly desired result of them all: