10 to look out for in 2010
It’s already the end of April and the summer blockbusters are beginning to dominate the cinemas. It’s been a surprisingly strong start to the year for us genre fans, with films like The Book of Eli, The Crazies and Daybreakers turning out to be pretty damn good. I was gazing over the release schedule for the remainder of the year and there seems to be a lot of absolute garbage coming out, and next to nothing in the way of decent genre fare, unless you want to count Piranha 3D or Resident Evil 4. I don’t.
If you think that the year would continue as strongly as the first three months or so, consider these upcoming classics; Sex and the City 2, Get him to the Greek, Marmaduke, Twilight 3, Step Up 3D, Yogi Bear, Little Fockers and some movie called Walter the Farting Dog that stars the Jonas Brothers. But, there are a few interesting possibilities in the mix, which you may or may not be aware of. I will try to cover a few international releases of interest as well, mainly Aussie or UK. If anyone wants to cover foreign language/asian cinema go for it.
Set in World War I this film recounts the true story of Captain Oliver Woodward and the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company’s efforts to tunnel under a german bunker and detonate explosives that will aid the Brits advance. Hopefully this will be a throwback to the terrific Aussie war films of the late 70’s and early 80’s like Gallipoli, Breaker Morant and The Light Horsemen. This was recently released in Australia, but I’m not sure when it will be released overseas.
Based on a series of young adult novels by John Marsden about a foreign invasion of Australia, this is adapted and directed by Pirates of the Caribbean screenwriter Stuart Beattie. Cheers to Koutch for spotting this one. No definitive release date on this one yet. Expect it later this year.
If you’ve seen Chopper or The Square, you know that Aussie crime flicks can be pretty bloody good when they work. This one stars Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn, and Guy Pearce and it won the Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema Dramatic) at this years Sundance Film Festival. It’s coming out in the US around July if I’m not mistaken.
Adapted from the book by Kazuo Ishiguro by Alex Garland and directed by Mark Romanek, NLMG tells the story of reunited friends (Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield) who face the dark secrets buried in their communal past. With no contact or knowledge of the outside world during their years at the boarding school, they discover they are clones, born and raised for the sole purpose of providing organs for transplants. I haven’t read the book, but it’s supposed to be terrific, and Garland and Romanek are enough to have me very interested.
Brighton Rock (remake)
I’ve never seen the original (which I need to rectify), but I’m sure this remake will get quite a few people up in arms. It’s written and directed by Rowan Joffé (son of Roland) and stars Helen Mirren, Pete Postlethwaite, Carey Mulligan (again!) and Sam Riley (from the terrific ‘Control’). Word has it that the script is a cracker. I would think it will need to be to appease the fans.
I wouldn’t normally show any interest in a film about ballet, but when it’s directed by Darren Aronofsky and has the jiblet tingling trio of Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Winona Ryder in it I am willing to give it a go. It’s a thriller about rival ballet dancers and apparently there is some erotic shenanigans rumoured to be involved. All that adds up to me being interested.
David O. Russell is a bit like Richard Kelly in that he made a critical darling film, received the keys to the kingdom and followed it up with a bafflingly awful film that makes no sense. If you’ve endured I Heart Huckabees you know what I’m talking about. Good god that was garbage. Here, Russell gets another crack at the big time with a straightforward story. And unlike Kelly screwing the pooch with his chance (The Box), I really can’t see how Russell can fuck this one up. It stars Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg as real life half-brothers who were professional boxers in the 70’s – 90’s. Looks to be a pretty straightforward biopic of these two guys and hopefully will make a decent flick.
Hunter S. Thompson. Johnny Depp. Aaron Eckhart. Amber Heard. Richard Jenkins. Directed by Bruce Robinson. Do I really need to say any more? Probably top three most anticipated for me. Can’t wait.
Another in my top three most anticipated. Terence Malick is one of the best directors alive and he is never anything but ambitious. No one really knows what this is about. Apparently there are scifi elements. And it’s a period piece. What we do know is that it stars Sean Penn and Brad Pitt. It comes out towards the end of the year (hopefully). Who knows what to expect?
Ben Afflecks follow up to Gone, Baby Gone stars himself alongside Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner and the awesome Chris Cooper in a film based on the Chuck Hogan novel Prince of Thieves about four bank robbers being pursued by the FBI. I love a good crime flick and this one is looking promising.
A few others to look out for
Mad Mel stars as a depressed bloke who befriends a hand puppet. Directed and co-starring Jodie Foster. Not quite sure what to make of this one yet.
A Seabiscuit-esque tale of the real life champion horse Secretariat, which was the first horse in 25 years to win the Triple Crown. Starring Diane Lane, John Malkovich and Scott Glenn, this will presumably be uplifting feelgoodery, but if it’s anywhere near as good as Seabiscuit I’ll be very pleased. Yes, I love Seabiscuit.
Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley as two scientists who fuck with nature. Directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube and Cypher), both Jarv and I are attending the London premiere next week so you can expect a review from one of us soon.
And here are a few of the available trailers
Barfy
kloipy
Echo the Bunnyman
Judge Droid
Jarv
ThereWolf
Xiphos0311
NICE!!! Some films here to look forward to that I probably wouldn’t have heard about elsewhere. Well done Droid.
No worries, HOD. I also hadn’t heard of a few of them until I scoured the list of releases.
Anyone else getting a Red Dawn via CW feel about Tomorrow, When The War Began?
I haven’t seen Red Dawn (which I also should rectify), but from what I know of the story it does sound similar. But why CW? It’s also teenagers in Red Dawn.
Just saying because it looks like a CW show that’s all. I haven’t seen Red Dawn either. Maybe I have like a long ass time ago but don’t remember any of it.
Piranha 3D or Resident Evil 4.
I do.
But ohhhh yeah, I can’t wait for The Rum Diary.
Will I see Piranha 3D or RE4? Yes.
Do I think that they will be good? No.
I really like the sounds of ‘the Town’, and you are right Droid-Chris Cooper’s great. Ever see Lonestar? one of his best right there.
Droid and Jarv are going to see the premiere-now have you two actually met before and if so how did you raise the bail money afterwards?
Seabiscuit is great.
I haven’t seen Lonestar actually. Been meaning to for ages. Thanks for reminding me.
I haven’t met Jarv before. They wouldn’t offer him bail. They’d lock him up and throw away the key.
Coopers best I think is either Adaptation or October Sky. Also he is great in American Beauty.
The restraining order that I’ve taken out on the cunt doesn’t expire until 2012. He has to stay more than 50 feet from me at all times.
If there was such a thing as a mutually beneficial restraining order that would be it.
I’m up in arms about the Brighton Rock remake.
Droid, you totally missed a movie: PAVLOV’S HOUSE, with Christian Bale as Sergeant Yakov Pavlov and directed by Werner Herzog.
Yeah, finally one of the bloodiest battles in WWII history will come to the big scr-…what’s that? I just imagined they are making this? Ah fuck me…
Yeah, I’m not to happy about it either ThereWolf. I’m trying to figure out what was wrong with the original that demanded they remake it.
Nothing wrong. I’ve not read the Greene novel – apparently the film differs from that, but not to any kind of detriment.
Presumably the remake will stick to the book.
I’m fucking livid about that Remake. Brighton Rock is an out-and-out classic.
The film doesn’t differ that much from the novel, actually- aside from the end. The British censor couldn’t take Pinkie’s message in full so made them change it.
Fucking soulless bastards.
I’m currently acquiring it and will watch it this weekend.
Well, it’s a great film. Attenborough has never been better.
I don’t know Richard At was the BOMB in Jurrassic Park!
It was on not too long ago, except I was out of space on the ole DVR trying to record it. It was on early in the morning and when I woke up I turned on the DVR JUST IN TIME to see the VERY end. Still wanna see it though.
Christ, I’ve just discovered that the BBC have shitcanned Ross from Film 2010 (good).
They had a chance to do something great, so what have the clueless fuckers done?
Hired Claudia Winkelman to do it.
Jesus Christ, she’s the most irritating woman on TV. Ross was a cunt, but at least had a film criticism background. She’s just a red-carpet rent-a-mike with nothing noteworthy to say that isn’t about fucking shoes.
Was Mark Kermode busy?
I don’t know who that is. I never really watched that show. Seen bits of it every now and then.
Which one? Claudia Winkelman or Mark Kermode.
You do know who Winkelman is- you’ll have seen her talking absolute shite pretending to be a journalist. She’s a talentless cunt- she’s one of a legion of identikit whores that the TV employs in the absence of talent, they’re all the fucking same and they appear on sport, arts, news, and the rest of it without having a fucking clue. (See also Tess Daly, Davina McCall etc)
Both.
Ok-
Mark Kermode is an excellent film critic/ theorist. Produces lots of first-rate docs on things like Straw Dogs. Really knows his shit and detests the mainstream.
Winkleman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Winkleman
Irritating, stupid, cretinous, empty-headed, fringe flicking panda-eyed twat.
Admittedly, Film XX has been shite since Barry Norman left, but there really is room for a proper criticism show in this country. Hiring that talent vacuum just takes one of the last cultural things and dumbs it down to T4 level. It’ll be fucking her sitting on the sofa wittering on about “Brangelina” and how SATC2 is great because they’ve all got really good shoes.
In fact, now I think about it:
BRING BACK MOVIEDROME.
Cunts. What the fuck do we pay the license fee for?
Looking at the Moviedrome list has just reminded me of an absolutely cracking film that’s perfect for an Underrated. I shall procure it later.
Videodrome?
Bio Drome? Oh wait…
Moviedrome was an excellent series where Alex Cox (directed Repo Men) picked a “cult” film then gave an intro to it before the film ran.
I saw lots of cracking stuff on it that I’ve not seen before or since. Darkness in Talinn (the underrated I’m going to do) is a simply fucking superb film.
Never heard of it. I’ll wait for your review then.
No-one has.
It’s based on a true story and is a magnificent little film
Alex Cox also made Sid & Nancy which was terrific. Have you seen Walker? That looks good.
No, I’ve not seen Walker.
I wonder what he’s doing now.
According to Wiki he made a sequel to Repo Man in 2009 called Repo Chicks.
I’ll have to see that.
I also want to see The Revengers Tragedy. At the very least the dude makes really interesting films.
Also on Wiki, he said the last film he was ever offered by a studio is The Running Man, but he couldn’t do it because he was doing Walker.
He was blacklisted by studios for some reason.
He did something or other as a director for hire and then had his name taken off it.
That shit never goes down well. I suspect he’s just an eccentric that’s happier making strange films like Searchers 2.0
I’ve only seen Repo Man and S&N.
He was also attachd to Fear & Loathing for a long time before Gilliam.
He fell out with Hunter S. Thompson over creative choices- which is probably why Gilliam was so slavish.
I’m just reading about it now on Wiki (what else?). Cox fell out with the producer, who forced the studio to choose between the two of them, and since she had some sort of deal with Hunter they fired Cox. And Gilliam was hired, then dumped the Cox script 10 days before shooting started and started over.
I’m not a great fan of F&L actually. I loved the book, but at the end of the day it’s basically 2 guys getting fucked up in a room. That is not great cinema, and a lot of the savage stuff in the novel didn’t translate to the screen and Gilliam had to do crass things like have Depp snort ether off the Stars and Stripes to make the point.
Having said that, the first third is superb.
The book is genius. I love the film but I do admit that it gets to a point and begins a steady decline and kind of runs out of steam. But, I also believe that the film is designed like a drug high, so that was intentional.
I think the first third of the film in particular is spot on in capturing the feeling of the book. And Depp and Del Toro are hilarious. The scenes in the car near the start, particularly where they pick up Toby Maguire never fails to make me laugh out loud.
I think you may be right, but I reckon it’s because of the book-
The last section of the book as I remember it, was always going to be difficult to translate to the screen, and I don’t think Gilliam managed it.
He says that he was the one that brought Mars Attacks to the studios but they gave it to Burton. Hmmmmmm
Not a big fan of Repo Man, but I really like Mars attacks though I wouldn’t mind seeing someone else do it.
http://www.alexcox.com/writing.htm
There are pdf’s of a lot of his scripts inc. both of these.
I saw in some paper the other day a huge article about Wossy’s wife and how the film she co-wrote was a massive hit in the US. I went looking for the film, but could only find Kick Ass. And that’s obviously not it. So which one were they talking about? Stardust? Can’t be that either. hmmm….
Funny.
He apparently “advised” on Kick Ass. Which makes me think it’s shit.
Claudia Winkelman, what? That’s horrific news.
Moviedrome was ace.
Hahahahahahahaha
Fucking splice.
20-20 Hindsight needed now.
Oh, and fuck you murphy.