Well, I’m baaa-aack! Hope everyone had as good a three weeks as I did. 
Here are the movies-based-on-books for August, and tomorrow I hope to have a whopper of a Bookbits!
… Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and starring Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell and Dominic Cooper. Based on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith.
Abraham Linoln, US president, discovers that vampires are plotting to take control of the country. He tries his best to stop them, but the vampires are aided by slave owners.
At the age of 9, Abraham Lincoln witnesses his mother being killed by a vampire, Jack Barts. Some 10 years later, he unsuccessfully tries to eliminate Barts but in the process makes the acquaintance of Henry Sturgess who teaches him how to fight and what is required to kill a vampire. The quid pro quo is that Abe will kill only those vampires that Henry directs him to. Abe relocates to Springfield where he gets a job as a store clerk while he studies the law and kills vampires by night. He also meets and eventually marries the pretty Mary Todd. Many years later as President of the United States, he comes to realize that vampires are fighting with the Confederate forces. As a result he mounts his own campaign to defeat them.
… Total Recall, directed by Len Wiseman and starring Colin Farrell, Bryan Cranston and Kate Beckinsale. “Inspired” by Philip K. Dick’s short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale; for those of us who are thinking “Haven’t I seen this before?” – it’s a reboot from Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 blockbuster.
For a factory worker named Douglas Quaid, even though he’s got a beautiful wife who he loves, the mind-trip sounds like the perfect vacation from his frustrating life – real memories of life as a super-spy might be just what he needs. But when the procedure goes horribly wrong, Quaid becomes a hunted man as he finds himself on the run from the police.
… Trishna, directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Freida Pinto, Riz Ahmed and Anurag Kashyap. A modern take on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
Set in contemporary Rajasthan, Trishna meets a wealthy young British businessman Jay Singh who has come to India to work in his father’s hotel business. After an accident destroys her father’s Jeep, Trishna goes to work for Jay, and they fall in love. But despite their feelings for each other, they cannot escape the conflicting pressures of a rural society which is changing rapidly through industrialisation, urbanisation and, above all, education. Trishna’s tragedy is that she is torn between the traditions of her family life and the dreams and ambitions that her education has given her.
Bonus movie-based-on-book:
… A Royal Affair, directed by Nikolaj Arcel and starring Mads Mikkelsen, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard and Alicia Vikander. Based on the novels Prinsesse af blodet by Bodil Steensen-Leth and The Visit of the Royal Physician by Per Olov Enquist.
Tags: classics, Fiction, Film & TV Tie-ins, Horror, saw the movie read the book, Science Fiction/Fantasy