JOIN US A sequel to Wall Street will release in April called Money Never Sleeps. Michael Douglas returns to his iconic Gordon Gecko role, as greedy corporate raider. Shea LaBeauf and Carey Mulligan co-star in this Oliver Stone movie about the 2008 stock crash. May will see Iron Man 2 and Sex and the City 2. Downey pairs off with Scarlett Johansson this time and City 2 revives Carrie Bradshaw’s ex, Adrian, on the scene. June will conclude the third part of the Twilight Saga, Eclipse.
I hold no hopes for Little Fockers where Ben Stiller and Robert De Nero team up from where they left off in the middling Meet the Fockers. November and December will bring to conclusion-or near conclusion- two most beloved screen adaptations of children’s classics: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part I and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, third in the Narnia Chronicles. A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas will be a treat. Sequels just getting on the floor include: Jurassic 4, War of the World 2, The Untouchables: Capone Rising (helmed once again by Brian De Palma), and Will Smith double bill: I Robot 2 and I am Legend 2.
And finally, here are 13 new releases worth anticipating this year:
The Ghost Writer
Roman Polanski’s new thriller opened to fantastic reviews. This in spite of the deep controversy he’s right in the middle of which only goes to show that the movie must be very good indeed. I’ve read the Robert Harris thriller it is based on (the book came out at least a few years ago) but I’m sure Polanski’s film will be more of a pleasure to watch.
Ewan McGregor plays a gifted writer forced to make a living ghostwriting. He lands the commission of a lifetime when he’s asked to ghostwrite the bio of a British PM (shades of Tony Blair, played by Pierce Brosnan), and stumbles on some very dark secrets.
Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese returns to B picture heaven after Cape Fear. He’s done all kinds of genre movies but a pure horror thriller is new from him. Set in a spooky mental hospital it stars Leonardo Di Caprio and Ben Kingsley. It just had a release in the States to mixed reviews; hopefully it won’t be too long before it plays here.
Alice in Wonderland
The film everyone agrees Tim Burton was born to make. Finally, a filmmaker to match the imagination of Lewis Carrol in 3D. Johnny Depp of course is the Mad Hatter. Burton uses a combination of live and stop motion technology to immerse us down the rabbit hole. Will he succeed in making his true masterpiece? A mid March release.
Green Zone
Paul Greengrass the maker of those adrenaline charged Bourne movies and his star Matt Damon opted out of the franchise to make their own kind of thriller. Its plot setting is strange: Damon as an agent at the start of the Iraq war in search of those mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Inception
This will be the one to queue up for: A 200 million budget sci-fi epic with Leonardo Di Caprio directed by Christopher Nolan, newly christened master of fantasy films after The Dark Knight. Little or nothing is known of the plot, except that it involves a fantastic concept where the hero can shrink and resize cities with his thoughts.
The Social Network
This is the one I’m personally interested in, and a little curious about. Why would the director of Fight Club and Se7en be interested in a movie about Facebook? Yes, you read right. It’s about the founding of Facebook and the two young men who got it going, from an already acclaimed screenplay by ace scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin.
The Tree of Life
A new film from reclusive artist Terrence Malick is always an event. He makes one film every 10 years or so. Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, A New Earth, and his newest starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. Strangely, Malick had begun work for this movie three decades earlier with the working title Q. All we know is that it is a multi-generational family saga.
The Killer Inside Me
I have come to eagerly look forward to the work of British director Michael Winterbottom. There is no saying what genre of film he’ll be tackling next. A grisly adaptation of a noir classic, Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me where a policeman narrates the story of how he moonlights as a killer when he’s not keeping the law! It won acclaim at the recently concluded Berlin film festival.
Eat, Pray, Love
There’s been a lot in the Indian press about the film’s shooting with Julia Roberts camped here to play Elizabeth Gilbert in this adaptation of her bestselling memoir. Pray is the part that concerns India, where the heroine comes seeking to find peace and answers and meaning after a divorce.
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
The Woody Allen film that stars Freida Pinto. Allen snapped her up after Slumdog. Nothing is known about the plot except that like all his recent ventures it is being shot in Europe. It also stars Anthony Hopkins (his first Woody movie?) and Naomi Watts. Should be fun to see if there’s chemistry between Pinto and Woody.
Area 51
After his spectacular box office success of the no budget Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli got a deal from Hollywood to make this sci-fi thriller for $5 million. Small change unless you compare it to what he made PA for: $15, 000. The movie sounds just as spooky as PA: Instead of a haunted house you have a secret government facility that could be hiding alien presence.
Howl
At last a movie dramatisation of the life of the Beat poet Allen Ginsburg. We get a quick look at the life and times of the Beat movement in this film which revolves around the 1957 obscenity trial for Ginsberg’s now iconic poem Howl. James Franco is Ginsburg. What especially interests me about the film is that it features City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, the place where it all began.