With a New Year comes a new thread to keep our movie reviews together.
So, what can we look forward to over the coming year?
Well, as always January will see a glut of artsy, meaningful movies as the race to beat the Oscar deadline nears and passes, and to capitalise on any buzz the academy awards creates for some movies. Ones to look forward to would include The King’s Speech, Black Swan and 127 Hours
Remakes appear to be as popular as ever, with the likes of I Spit on Your Grave. True Grit, Brighton Rock, Footloose, Fright Night, Conan the Barbarian and closing out the year, a remake of this year’s Scandinavian release The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo coming out in the next twelve months.
We also have Big Screen adaptations for The Inbetweeners, Johnny English, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Smurfs, and Yogi Bear to come, with the last two seeing cartoon characters cross over into the real world.
Comic Book continue to be a source of inspiration for movie companies. Perhaps the most intriguing is Thor. Marvel continue their big plan for multi-film universe, but unlike The Incredible Hulk, X-men, Iron Man, or Spider-man, Thor doesn’t have a huge cartoon series or built in mainstream recognition. This film will show how viable their decision to mirror their comic world in film will be. The added variable in this is the interesting choice of Kenneth Brannagh as director. Also vying for Comic Book Movie honours this year are Green Lantern, Green Hornet, and Captain America: The First Avenger
There are a lot of sequels (and a few prequels) due out this year, some to recent hit, some to older franchises. Tom Cruise returns for Mission Impossible 4, can Guy Ritchie recapture the magic for the return of Sherlock Holmes, Twilight 4 steals marketing ideas from Harry Potter splitting its final instalment into two parts to grab more cash from the fans, (Harry Potter 7 part two is also out this year to close that franchise out, at least until they're inevitably remade), Paranormal Activity 3 continues the trend of asking people to pay to watch nothing happen, it turns out what was supposed to end with number four, continues with Final Destination 5, Spy Kids 4 is on its way, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 hopes we haven’t grown tired of Captain Jack, and the dormant Scream returns for a fourth with Kevin Williams back as writer, and Wes Craven still in the director’s chair.
Happy Feet 2 3D, Kung Fu Panda 2, Alvin and The Chipmunks 3D and Cars 2 make sure you get your fill of animated sequels.
The Thing is a prequel that give us the story of what happened to the Norwegian crew Kurt Russell and friends came upon in that horror classic, Rise of the Apes hopes you forget about that Burton mistake, by telling you how the apes came to power for the classic movie instead of the wahlberg one, Bryan Singer is back on board as producer for X-men: First Class to tell us the story of a young Magneto and Young Professor Xavier.
If you’re looking for something a little more original, The Fighter sees Christian Bale teach Mark Wahlberg to box, Zack Snyder brings us Alice in Wonderland with machine guns in Sucker Punch, Jon Favreau gives us the supposedly serious Cowboys and Aliens, JJ Abrams has kept tightlipped about his new film Super 8, Red Riding Hood seems to be asking “Do people want to see how fairytales were before they were sanatised for kids?” as we see the non-child friendly version of the story, and the futuristic Real Steel sees Hugh Jackman as a promoter of robot boxing.
Of course, as Uncle Spielberg started this thread in 2009 (and I presume before then) I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of the big releases this summer will be Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which sees the team behind this beast hoping for a return to form of the first movie, no Megan Fox, replaced by Rosie Huntington-Whitely and rumours of Unicron (the planet sized bad guy from the animated movie). With the people working on the movie admitting they slipped up with the second, hopes are (comparatively) high for this one. Some interesting casting choices (John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk) also have people hoping for the best.
Here's hoping this year shows an improvement in cinema offerings. Leave your reviews for his year's movies here.
So, what can we look forward to over the coming year?
Well, as always January will see a glut of artsy, meaningful movies as the race to beat the Oscar deadline nears and passes, and to capitalise on any buzz the academy awards creates for some movies. Ones to look forward to would include The King’s Speech, Black Swan and 127 Hours
Remakes appear to be as popular as ever, with the likes of I Spit on Your Grave. True Grit, Brighton Rock, Footloose, Fright Night, Conan the Barbarian and closing out the year, a remake of this year’s Scandinavian release The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo coming out in the next twelve months.
We also have Big Screen adaptations for The Inbetweeners, Johnny English, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Smurfs, and Yogi Bear to come, with the last two seeing cartoon characters cross over into the real world.
Comic Book continue to be a source of inspiration for movie companies. Perhaps the most intriguing is Thor. Marvel continue their big plan for multi-film universe, but unlike The Incredible Hulk, X-men, Iron Man, or Spider-man, Thor doesn’t have a huge cartoon series or built in mainstream recognition. This film will show how viable their decision to mirror their comic world in film will be. The added variable in this is the interesting choice of Kenneth Brannagh as director. Also vying for Comic Book Movie honours this year are Green Lantern, Green Hornet, and Captain America: The First Avenger
There are a lot of sequels (and a few prequels) due out this year, some to recent hit, some to older franchises. Tom Cruise returns for Mission Impossible 4, can Guy Ritchie recapture the magic for the return of Sherlock Holmes, Twilight 4 steals marketing ideas from Harry Potter splitting its final instalment into two parts to grab more cash from the fans, (Harry Potter 7 part two is also out this year to close that franchise out, at least until they're inevitably remade), Paranormal Activity 3 continues the trend of asking people to pay to watch nothing happen, it turns out what was supposed to end with number four, continues with Final Destination 5, Spy Kids 4 is on its way, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 hopes we haven’t grown tired of Captain Jack, and the dormant Scream returns for a fourth with Kevin Williams back as writer, and Wes Craven still in the director’s chair.
Happy Feet 2 3D, Kung Fu Panda 2, Alvin and The Chipmunks 3D and Cars 2 make sure you get your fill of animated sequels.
The Thing is a prequel that give us the story of what happened to the Norwegian crew Kurt Russell and friends came upon in that horror classic, Rise of the Apes hopes you forget about that Burton mistake, by telling you how the apes came to power for the classic movie instead of the wahlberg one, Bryan Singer is back on board as producer for X-men: First Class to tell us the story of a young Magneto and Young Professor Xavier.
If you’re looking for something a little more original, The Fighter sees Christian Bale teach Mark Wahlberg to box, Zack Snyder brings us Alice in Wonderland with machine guns in Sucker Punch, Jon Favreau gives us the supposedly serious Cowboys and Aliens, JJ Abrams has kept tightlipped about his new film Super 8, Red Riding Hood seems to be asking “Do people want to see how fairytales were before they were sanatised for kids?” as we see the non-child friendly version of the story, and the futuristic Real Steel sees Hugh Jackman as a promoter of robot boxing.
Of course, as Uncle Spielberg started this thread in 2009 (and I presume before then) I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of the big releases this summer will be Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which sees the team behind this beast hoping for a return to form of the first movie, no Megan Fox, replaced by Rosie Huntington-Whitely and rumours of Unicron (the planet sized bad guy from the animated movie). With the people working on the movie admitting they slipped up with the second, hopes are (comparatively) high for this one. Some interesting casting choices (John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk) also have people hoping for the best.
Here's hoping this year shows an improvement in cinema offerings. Leave your reviews for his year's movies here.
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