July 19th: THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLANC-SEC (Luc Besson, 2010)

NOTE: This film will be projected in the high-definition Blu-ray format.

A novelist-turned-investigative reporter stumbles upon a web of mystery involving a revived mummy, a newly-hatched pterodactyl, a mad scientist, and inept police during a quest to cure her sister of a horrible disease.

Adele Blanc-Sec is a comic character created in the mid-1970s by French artist and writer Jacques Tardi for a commissioned series of graphic novels and magazine serials, appearing intermittently up until the mid-2000s. Tardi's goal was to have a strong female protagonist as intelligent and daring as her male comic counterparts. Set around the era of the first World War, subject matter often dealt with the criminal underworld and its connections to the occult and supernatural.

Luc Besson is a member of the post-New Wave movement in France referred to by critics in the 1980s as Cinema du Look, due to the bolder visual style of the filmmakers and younger protagonists.  Besson had early success and has alternated between French and English-language films since then, with popular titles La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element, and The Professional, and genres ranging from animated children's features to action franchises to historical epics.

After a long courtship to acquire the rights to the material from Tardi, Besson's screenplay combined elements and characters from various stories, primarily the first Blanc-Sec adventure Adele And The Beast. The film was shot on location in Paris and in Cairo, Egypt by Besson's longtime cinematographer Thierry Arbogast. Another Besson veteran, Eric Serra, composed the musical score.

Besson cast newcomer Louise Bourgoin in the title role, one that required the actress to appear in 15 different disguises. A supporting cast that includes Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, Quantum Of Solace) also went through extensive make-up sessions to approximate Tardi's character designs.

Reviews for the film were positive overall, but it was not the box office success Besson had hoped for. The film won a French César award for its production design.  Plans for more Blanc-Sec films are unclear at the current time.

Running time is approx. 105 minutes.