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Tag: monster
Adaptation of Modern Day Masterpiece ‘Monster’ Gets Re-titled and a Release Date
The film adaptation of The Walter Dean Myers novel, Monster, hit Sundance with a bang a year and a half ago, but finally this masterpiece has been acquired and not only been given a release date but also a new name!
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Published by Harper Collins, the novel was nominated for the 1999 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, won the Michael L. Printz Award in 2000, the same year it was named for the Coretta Scott King Award Honor.
The plot follows Steve Harmon, a seventeen-year-old honor student who is accused and convicted of felony murder, a crime he did not commit in a modern day struggle against racism.
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The film was produced by BRON Studios, Tonik Productions and Get Lifted Film Co. in association with Charlevoix, Red Crown and Creative Wealth Media. The screenplay was written by Radha Blank, Colen C. Wiley and Janece Shaffer, all of whom worked on relatively small projects before this massive hit. The film director wasn’t even all that experienced: Anthony Mandler directed music videos for Jennifer Lopez, Jay-Z, and Selena Gomez, and Monster was his debut feature film.
The cast was top-notch.
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Kelvin Harrison Jr, known for playing Simon in The Birth of a Nation and Travis in It Comes at Night, portrays the Steve Harmon.
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Jeffrey Wright, known as James Bond’s American counterpart Felix Leiter in Casino Royale, portrays Steven’s father.
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The case also featured Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson who portrayed Steven’s mother.
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Jennifer Ehle, known for playing Jessica in Zero Dark Thirty, portrays Steven’s lawyer Kathy O’Brien.
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Tim Blake Nelson, know for playing Delmar O’Donnell in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, portrays Steven’s film club mentor George Sawicki, who serves as a character witness
Deadline has revealed that Endeavor Content negotiated the deal that helped for Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures to buy the film. The movie has been re-titled All Rise.
Byron Allen, Founder/Chairman/CEO of Entertainment Studios told Shadow and Act:
“This is a very important and timely film which inspires and reminds us that together we have the power to make the necessary positive changes…This excellent story shows us how every day, African-Americans are positioned to fail in the schoolroom, the boardroom, and the courtroom long before we bleed to death in the streets.”
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5 Differences Between ‘Frankenstein’ and the Film Adaptations
Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley is hailed as the first real science-fiction novel. Following Dr. Victor Frankenstein, it chronicles Frankenstein’s journey to create life and his clash with his creation after he succeeds. Touching on themes of ambition, lost of innocence, revenge, humanity, responsibility and creattion, Frankenstein is a dense but very worthwhile classic of its genre. However, it unfortunately has been largely displaced in the popular consciousness by its film adaptations. To celebrate its publication anniversary, here are five facts about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and its many differences to work that adapted its spooky tale.
1. The Framing Device
The original novel uses a framing device to tell its story. Captain Walton, a sailor in the arctic, picks up Victor Frankenstein on the ice and brings him aboard his ship. There, Frankenstein tells the tale of how he got here, turning the entire book into one long flashback. The Creature confronts Captain Walton at the end, vowing it will destroy itself via funeral pyre. However, Captain Walton is a character who is very rarely adapted, the framing device being almost entirely omitted from films based on or inspired by the book.
2. There was no Igor
Dr. Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant, Igor, is purely a creation of popular culture. In the original novel, Frankenstein worked entirely alone, creating the monster in a hidden room at his college. He kept the experiment entirely secret and had no outside help at all. The character of an assistant first appeared in 1931’s Frankenstein film in the form of Fritz, before being codified, ironically enough, by Mel Brook’s spoof film Son of Frankenstein.
3. The Monster Speaks
The Monster is a very different character from the mute, lumbering brute that was made famous in the Universal Horror films. Although he begins as a borderline feral creature after his ‘birth’, the Monster slowly learns language and reasoning over the course of the novel. He becomes extremely intelligent and articulate, often spending pages contemplating his unnatural existence. He even learns how to make clothes and uses weapons to defend himself as he survives in the wilderness. Compared to his film counterpart, he’s a wholly different beast.
4. The Creation is Offscreen
Doubtlessly one of the most famous in cinema is the creation of Frankenstein’s monster. Everything about it is iconic, from the slab the monster rests upon to the flashing laboratory equipment to the bolt of lightning that brings him to life to Frankenstein proclaiming “Its alive, its alive!” But the sequence in question actually isn’t in the original novel! Yes, the creation of the Monster in the book is entirely offscreen and left to the reader’s imagination. Oddly, this makes it more compelling to the imagination…how did Frankenstein do it? We’ll never know but it certainly makes good food for thought.
5. Frankenstein Dies
In the novel, Victor Frankenstein pays for his hubris. After trekking the Monster to the Arctic, he collapses on the ice and is rescued by Captain Walton. But it is too late for him and after telling the Captain his story, he expires. Subsequent adaptations have spared Frankenstein his untimely demise, doubtlessly to keep a relatively happy ending.
What are your favorite moments from the book that didn’t make it to the screen?
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