January 03, 2009

In the year 2009...

There's all sorts of things in the air for the coming year - I'm predicting right now that Inglorious Bastards is in my Top Ten about 360 days from now - but what about Star Trek and the new Harry Potter(s)? And there's a new Miyazaki floating out there; a couple of Miikes; a new Kim Ki-Duk as well - I'm intrigued as hell by Trick 'R Treat and Sly's gonzo The Expendables. Of course there's Watchmen if it ever clears litigation and what about Wes Anderson's foray into the animated medium? The trailer for 9 looks fucking amazing and call me an idiot, but I'm sweatin' for Terminator 4 with Christian Bale. . .

I can't wait for Coraline; the new Tom Tykwer; Pixar's Up; Spike Jonze's amazing looking Where the Wild Things Are; Benicio as the Wolf Man and Guy Ritchie's Robert Downey Jr.-starring Sherlock Holmes.

There's going to be a sequel to Donnie Darko (that looks dumb as a bag of hammers) and Peter Jackson does Lovely Bones. Biggest news? James Cameron's Avatar.

Red Cliff at last? The Road with Viggo? Nispel's Friday the 13th reboot?

What're you waitin' on? What're you dismissing sight-unseen?

17 comments:

Ryan said...

Can't wait for...

- Mann's Public Enemies with Depp and Bale... apparently there's some reports of early test screenings saying that it's incomprehensible, but those reports can go fuck themselves
- Watchmen, hoping that the crap between Warner Bros. and Fox is resolved
- Inglorious Bastards
- Malick's Tree of Life... that's this year, right?
- Where the Wild Things Are looks phenomenal
- The Road
- The Lovely Bones
- Sherlock Holmes
- Friday the 13th, although I hated Nispel's TCM reboot
- Harry Potter

The others...

- willing to give Terminator a chance
- same with Star Trek, even though the cast looks ridiculous
- ready to dismiss Wolverine, Transformers 2, GI Joe and The Wolfman, although Benicio looks great
- Apatow's Funny People... wondering if it's another nail in the coffin for him or something a little different

Dave Gibson said...

The Taking of Pehlham 123 looks good in theory and in casting--but that director? Yowch--I'll expect thirty-eight cuts, four lens changes and one IMAX sequence in the first six minutes...

Always tough to get out to the flicks, but I--shamefacedly--guess that I will make time for My Bloody Valentine and Piranha (in 3-D!)

Anonymous said...

38 cuts in 6 minutes wouldn't be so bad. That works out to 1 cut every 9 seconds; most shots last half that

Dave Gibson said...

Apologies, anonymous--my flippant dig at Mr. Scott was, of course, meant to be parsed carefully for technical accuracy--I should have said 677,890 cuts--but that's just silly.

Would also like to see the Gilliam film--I assume that will probably be dumped out in September?

Anonymous said...

Theres sure to be a lot of shit coming out next year but at the top of the list has to be Bay's Transformers sequel... Ill probably see the Nine (in addition to 9) because of Daniel Day-Lewis. Ill check out H2 because Rob Zombie is a good thing if you are a horror film junkie. Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro stars Vincent Gallo, so, cool. Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is something I'm looking forward to as well.

Stuart

Anonymous said...

- Mann's Public Enemies with Depp and Bale... apparently there's some reports of early test screenings saying that it's incomprehensible, but those reports can go fuck themselves

Miami Vice proved that Mann is anything but infallible.

Is The Lovely Bones even happening?

Where The Wild Things Are will probably even exceed my expectations.

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to:

- Ashecliffe, although I'm a bit tired of the Scorsese/DiCaprio connection.
- The Box, just to see how Richard Kelly recovers from the Southland Tales fiasco.
- Antichrist, L.v.Trier.
- Tokyo Sonata, which is from 2008 but I will hopefully see this year. Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a genius.

Will be terrible:

-Hellraiser remake.
-Donny Darko sequel.
-Wolverine.
-T4. Trailer is too good to be true and we're still dealing with McG here.

Will be good, but not great:

-Inglorious Basterds, because Till Schweiger and Diane Kruger are in it.
-Star Trek. The trailer looks really campy, which could be fun, but not more. Abrams fully embraces Trek's stupid military fetish, instead of deconstructing it.
-Avatar, cause most won't be able to see it properly in IMAX 3D.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't be so quick to denounce the Hellraiser remake, if Pascal Laugier is writing and directing it could be something rather special.

Personally I'm very much looking forward to Where The Wild Things Are and Inglorious Basterds while dreading Ashecliffe/Shutter Island (source material is baaaaad)

Anonymous said...

I freely admit I never heard/seen anything of Pascal Laugier. I'm just guessing the Weinsteins will fuck it up somehow.

Regarding Where The Wild Things Are - the stills released so far look fantastic (see here). But the shitload of problems during production, the fact that a kid is starring and the book not containing that much of a story leave me doubtful.

JG Friend said...

Looking forward to Trek and The Informant (with Patton Oswalt and Joel McHale!)

Rachel Andelman said...

Oh god, but McHale is great, isn't he?

Anonymous said...

I was highly anticipating the new Crank, but the latest trailer for it was terrible, so I dunno...

Patrick said...

I'm really looking forward to Inglorious Bastards. Whatever his personal failings may be, Tarantino has yet to make a movie I disliked; even in Four Rooms I found his part to be the strongest.

I'm torn on Watchmen, because everything up until now looks really good, but it's not like Allan Moore had a great track record when it came to films based on his works, and it's the director of the godawful 300.

Wolverine will suck ass, Trek will also suck. Terminator might as well go that route, too.

I really dislike that Avatar will be made with caucasian actors, so I'm not sure I'm even gonna see it, especially since I don't know much about the source material and thus have no fan connection to it.

Some more hopefuls for the year are Coraline, 9, Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes.

Anonymous said...

Woody Allen's Whatever Works. Back in New York and, more importantly, working with Larry David is enough to draw 10 bucks out of me.

Anonymous said...

I was incredibly piss-peeved that Lovely Bones was moved from March to December, but I'll still be there.

Up will be great, can't wait for it. My longshot hope and prayer is that it contains a teaser trailer for Toy Story 3.

Those are the two I'm most excited for. I'm also intrigued by Funny People & Observe and Report (somehow that Apatow/Rogen fatigue hasn't set in with me yet), and Final Destination 4 3D (which I'm fairly confident will be the best of the 3D horror entries).

Will be completely ignoring the existence of: H2, Street Fighter, Wolverine, The Proposal, Ugly Truth, and (God-willing) Transformers 2.

Anonymous said...

Hey Walter, could you explain what you mean by "it's in a tradition of storytelling that's organic to the fabric of the character's development" regarding Kill Bill in the Revolver review?

Also, when you alluded to the Blood Simple DC pseudo-commentary in expressing your feelings regarding Burn After Reading, what were you implying? That you think the movie is too condescending for its own good?

Joan said...

Not so much movies as actors: Christian Bale, Robert Downey, jr... probably a few others that aren't coming to mind right now.

Will go to Trek with zero expectations so as not to be let down, same with many others (Wolverine). Reality is I see fewer and fewer films each year and find myself not missing the experience.