Happy New Year everyone!
Here is my movie guide for the first three months in 2014. It looks like the beginning of the year is going to be crammed full of exciting films. What films are you looking forward to this year?
JANUARY
MY PICK:
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Stars: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund
UK Release Date: 24/01/14
A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.
Another film from the Coen Brothers and their first film since "A Serious Man" (which remains my personal favourite of theirs).
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SOME OTHER INTERESTING RELEASES:
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013)
Director: Justin Chadwick
Stars: Idris Elba, Naomie Harris, Terry Pheto, Robert Hobbs
UK Release Date: 03/01/14
A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.
Just the idea of Idris Elba taking on the role of Nelson Mandela in a film about this iconic politician and freedom fighter (and one about his actual struggle rather than about rugby this time...).
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12 Years a Slave (2013)
Director: Steve McQueen
Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael K. Williams, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt
UK Release Date: 10/01/14
In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.
I'm more interested in this for Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance than anything else.
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FEBRUARY
MY PICKS:
RoboCop (2014)
Director: José Padilha
Stars: Joel Kinnaman, Douglas Urbanski, Abbie Cornish, Gary Oldman
UK Release Date: 07/02/14
In 2028 Detroit, when Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) - a loving husband, father and good cop - is critically injured in the line of duty, the multinational conglomerate OmniCorp sees their chance for a part-man, part-robot police officer.
While there's been a lot of scepticism in regards to this Robocop reboot recently, I am actually very interested to see what Jose Padilha, director of the Elite Squad movies, decides to do with the property. The Elite Squad movies were all about the militarising of the police force and issues of corruption and the influences of right-wing charismatic television personalities. Whatever happens, Padilha is definitely
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Her (2013)
Director: Spike Jonze
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Rooney Mara
UK Release Date: 14/02/14
A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly purchased operating system that's designed to meet his every need.
Director Spike Jonze has had a pretty consistent track record with "Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation" and "Where The Wild Things Are". A movie about a man who falls in love with the artificial intelligence in his phone sounds right up Spike Jonze's alley and I'm excited to see what he does with the premise.
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The Lego Movie (2014)
Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Stars: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Morgan Freeman
UK Release Date: 14/02/14
An ordinary LEGO minifigure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil LEGO tyrant from gluing the universe together.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the directors of "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, take on yet another bizarre animation project and I'm expecting similar brilliance this time around.
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ANOTHER INTERESTING RELEASE:
The Invisible Woman (2013)
Director: Ralph Fiennes
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Jones, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tom Hollander
UK Release Date: 07/02/14
At the height of his career, Charles Dickens meets a younger woman who becomes his secret lover until his death.
Until I saw "Coriolanus" I was quite interested to see what Ralph Fiennes would be like as a director. However, I'm still interested in seeing the performances from Kristin Scott Thomas and Felicity Jones here.
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MARCH
MY PICK:
Noah (2014)
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Stars: Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Jennifer Connelly, Russell Crowe
UK Release Date: 28/03/14
The Biblical Noah suffers visions of an apocalyptic deluge and takes measures to protect his family from the coming flood.
I've been following Darren Aronofsky's directorial career ever since his art film "Pi: Faith in Chaos". He hasn't been as prolific as some other directors in that time, but his five movies so far have all been excellent. His latest movie "Black Swan" was arguably the best yet. The Biblical story of Noah is a strange choice of subject matter, but with Aronofsky in the director's chair that just makes me all the more intrigued.
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SOME OTHER INTERESTING RELEASES:
The Zero Theorem (2013)
Director: Terry Gilliam
Stars: Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Thierry, David Thewlis, Lucas Hedges
UK Release Date: 14/03/14
A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.
Director Terry Gilliam is a little inconsistent, but he's still a visionary all the same. "Time Bandits" and "Twelve Monkeys" remain my favourite films of all time. This looks like a bizarre dystopian story rather like Gilliam's movie "Brazil".
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Stars: Chris Evans, Frank Grillo, Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson
UK Release Date: 28/03/14
Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world and battles a new threat from old history: the Soviet agent known as the Winter Soldier.
Joe and Ant Russo are most well known for directing work on comedy tv series including "Community", but the last film they directed which reached cinemas was "You, Me and Dupree", a film with very little in the way of acclaim. I've had a lot of fun with the Marvel movies and they only seem to be getting better, but "Captain America" was the most disappointing of the lot. I know that the Winter Soldier is a major Captain America storyline, but the idea that they are going to bring back the most boring character of the series as a zombie that is now randomly being controlled by the Russians (or some other sinister group) is just beyond bizarre. Perhaps I'll be surprised. I hope so.
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