This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
February is the month of love … what with Valentine's Day and shops filling up with chocolates and heart-shaped cards. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean the film releases will reflect this. Adaptations out in February include murder, witch hunts, zombies and a curse that will claim you on your sixteenth birthday. There is a bit of romance in there too though … if you look really, really closely.
Friday 8th
Hitchcock stars Anthony Hopkins as the directing legend Alfred Hitchcock and Helen Mirren as his wife Alma. The film is based on the book 'Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho' by Stephen Rebello and follows the efforts Hitchcock went to to adapt Robert Bloch's novel Psycho into the film that would become his shocking masterpiece. Supporting cast include Scarlett Johansson, Toni Colette and Jessica Biel.
Moving away from the scarily real horror of Psycho, Warm Bodies sees Nicholas Hoult (Skins, About a Boy) play R, a zombie who stops eating brains after meeting Julie. R becomes more human the more time he spends with her and the pair try to find a way to do more than just keep going in a dystopian future where the zombie epidemic has forced the remaining humans into camps. This unlikely romance is based on the book by Isaac Marion and is thought-provoking and fun, with added brains.
Wednesday 13th
Vying for the new YA series to watch title – after the end of Twilight and with the incredible success of The Hunger Games – Beautiful Creatures is based on the first book in a series by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia. The story sees Ethan meet the new girl in town, Lena, and fall for her – only to learn that she is the latest in a long line of casters and victim of an old curse that will claim her powers for the light or the dark on her sixteenth birthday. There's peril, humour, romance and a mythical backstory. The film may just launch the two stars Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich to stardom and has the support of Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons.
Thursday 14th
Valentine's Day this year will see a limited re-release of the Baz Luhrmann adaptation of Shakespeare's classic tragedy/romance, Romeo and Juliet. The intoxicatingly romantic Moulin Rouge! will also be in selected cinemas.
Friday 22nd
One of the most stand out pieces of literary fiction of recent years has to be the epic Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. The story is a complex interwoven plot that follows six different stories through six different eras, using different language styles. The film adaptation – a massively ambitious project given the complexity of the source text – has an all-star cast that includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant and many, many more.
What film are you looking forward to seeing this month? And what's your greatest romantic film to watch on Valentine's Day? Let us know in the comments…