There are a bunch of movies on last-year's list that I still haven't been able to watch: Svankmajer's Insects, which has actually been mentioned in three of these in a row now; Tickled, a documentary about competitive tickling; Flooding with Love for the Kid, a one-man remake of Rambo; Kuso; Replica, a James Nguyen movie; Neil Breen's last movie, Pass Thru; She's Allergic to Cats; The Brand New Testament, a Jaco Van Dormael flick; Sylvain Chomet's The Thousand Miles, a cartoon about a long-distance car race; and Aki Kaurismaki's last movie.
These aren't really in any particular order.
The Happytime Murders, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, and Abruptio
Three movies, all having something to do with puppets. If you know anything at all about me, you know that I love puppets of all kinds. Most intriguing to me would be The Happytime Murders, a film directed by Bryan Henson, the offspring of Jim Henson. He’s done some TV work, but this is the first feature film from Henson since Muppet Treasure Island and Muppet Christmas Carol, and those were over twenty years ago. The plot of this one has to do with puppets from an 80’s television show being murdered one by one. Melissa McCarthy in it, but that isn’t enough to scare me away.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor is a Mr. Rogers biopic. I like him, and I’m sure the Neighborhood of Make-Believe has to be involved. I doubt there will be a Henrietta Pussycat sex scene, but a guy can dream, right?
And Abruptio is about a poor fellow who wakes up with a bomb strapped to his neck and finds himself in a situation where he has to do awful things or be blown to smithereens. That doesn’t sound like anything, but all of the characters are apparently lifelike latex puppets which puts me right back on board. Oh, and Sid Haig is also in it. He, as you know, is a lifelike latex puppet. We might have to wait until 2019 for this one.
The Other Side of the Wind
I didn’t even realize that Orson Welles was working on a new film, so this is surprising news.
Welles is dead apparently, but this was a mockumentary he was working on in the first half of the 70s. It’s about the making of a film (and apparently lampoons Antonioni) and is hopefully as much fun as F is for Fake. Peter Bogdanovich, who was in the film, claims that Welles made him promise on his deathbed that he’d finish the film. That sounds sketchy to me. There’s a long and labyrinthine legal history of this film that you can read about on Wikipedia if you want, but it seems as if a cut was shown to a handful of people including Tarantino, Rian Johnson, and Crispin Glover. I am a little troubled that this might be coming out on Netflix because they do not have the best track record. Of course, they’ve never released an Orson Welles movie before. Welles wouldn’t even know what Netflix is, but I doubt he’d like it very much because of all the Adam Sandler movies they release.
The Old Man and the Gun
There are several factors attracting me to this one. It’s based on the true story of a guy who escaped from prison about twenty times and who, at the age of 80 or something, decided to pull off one last heist. He’s played by Robert Redford who says this is his last performance. It’s directed by David Lowery who directed one of my favorites from last year--A Ghost Story--so there might be a scene where Redford eats an entire pie. And Tom Waits is in it, his first movie role since Seven Psychopaths. Maybe they’ll give him a bunny.
An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn
As a fan of The Greasy Strangler, I’ll obviously get excited for Jim Hosking’s next feature even though he looks like the guy pictured above. This sounds like it might be a bit more conventional, and it’s got a cast filled with performers people have actually heard of--Jemaine Clement, Aubrey Plaza, Maria Bamford, Emile Hirsh, Craig Robinson. Still, Strangler was so idiosyncratic that it’s hard to believe this comedy will be conventional. Hopefully, this will take place in that same sort of world he created in Strangler that sort of resembles ours but isn’t quite ours and filled with characters who are sort of like real people but not quite like real people. If so, I won’t even complain if there aren’t characters covered head-to-toe in lard.
Au Poste
The only information I can find about this movie is a really detailed plot synopsis on imdb. It reads, “Police officer’s [sic] at a station must solve a murder case.” That doesn’t sound like much at all, but I’m ready to follow Quentin Dupieux anywhere after Reality, Wrong, Rubber, and Wrong Cops. His particular brand of absurdism is right up my alley, and nobody’s making movies quite like these. This one will be in French, and that means I’ll get to practice my reading, too.
Deadpool 2
It won’t seem as fresh as the first one, but I’m willing to see what Ryan Reynolds and company do with this character next. Odds are, it won’t be as entertaining as the marketing campaign or even the brilliant opening credit sequence of the first movie, but with John Wick and Atomic Blonde director David Leitch at the helm, at least the action scenes might be good. There’s a good chance I’m sick to death of superhero movies, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing them all. I’m looking forward to this one way more than the Avengers movie, Venom, Ant-Man and the Wasp, or Aquaman.
You Were Never Really Here
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Mary Magdalene
The Sisters Brothers
Joaquin Phoenix has been on some kind of role, odd since he retired from acting to become a rapper a few years back. He is not only really really good in every role he’s in but he also always seems to choose interesting projects. I’m not sure if all of these are interesting projects. He’s Jesus in one of them. That’s probably the Mary Magdalene one. He’s a troubled hammer-wielding hitman in You Were Never Really Here, a movie directed by Lynne Ramsey, the woman who did We Need to Talk about Kevin and Ratcatcher. Both of those are really good movies. In Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry. . ., he plays a quadriplegic who becomes a cartoonist, a film based on the memoir of John Callahan. And The Sisters Brothers, which seems like it’s missing punctuation, is a Western, and he plays one of the titular Sisters Brothers who chases around Jake Gyllenhaal. That movie’s also got John C. Reilly and Rutger Hauer in it. So at least three Joaquin Phoenix movies look interesting, and being the only actor to play both Jesus and the Joker in movies is pretty special.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that Terry Gilliam wasn’t able to get this thing off the ground twenty years ago because now Johnny Depp is nowhere to be found on the cast list. Instead, it’s got the ubiquitous Adam Driver. I haven’t exactly liked anything Gilliam’s done since Tideland, and I’m not sure if I liked that one or was just fascinated by it. So maybe I’ve not liked anything he’s done since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and that was released twenty years ago! But one can hope this passion project of his turns out to be some kind of return to form. I want to go opening night so that I can stand up during the opening credits and high-five everybody around me while screaming, “He finally did it! Way to go, Terry!” I haven’t seen Lost in La Mancha in over ten years, so it might be time to give that documentary another spin before seeing this one.
Mandy, Wendy
Two movie titles with a five-letter female name ending in a y, both overdue follow-ups to very good movies.
One apeshit Nicolas Cage performance per year is all I really ask for, and I already got that with Mom and Dad. This one promises an apeshit Nicolas Cage performance, one where he brandishes a chainsaw to battle motorcycle-riding demons summoned by some sort of religious cult. Hell yeah! Most intriguing, however, is that this is directed by Panos Cosmatos, his follow-up to 2010’s strange and beautiful Beyond the Black Rainbow.
Wendy is directed by Benh Zeitlin whose last movie was Beasts of the Southern Wild, and it seems to cover similar themes. It’s got a kid in it and has been described as a “psychotic adventure” and as “totally bonkers,” the kinds of descriptors that get me excited.
The Beach Bum
Seems like it’s been a while since Harmony Korine, a director with whom I really have a love/hate relationship with, came out with Spring Breakers, a movie that I seemed to like a lot more than everybody but my brother. This one’s about an aging stoner named Moondog played by Matthew McConaughey, a guy whose name I still can’t spell despite running a highly successful movie blog for over ten years. This movie, if it was just your everyday Hollywood comedy, would likely be a disaster. It still might be a total disaster, but with Korine, it will at least not be boring.
Unsane
Soderbergh came out of retirement to make movies with stupid titles. I didn’t care for Logan Lucky, the redneck heist movie that came out last year, even though it featured the ubiquitous Adam Driver. This one has my attention though. First, it’s Soderbergh’s first venture into the horror genre. As it takes place in a mental institution, I’m willing to bet it’s more psychological horror than jump scares and screechy violin noises. Second, it was filmed on iPhones, like Tangerine. I was wondering why Soderbergh decided to come out of retirement if he was only going to make movies as pedestrian as Logan Lucky. Maybe he was shaking some rust off with that one and feels more comfortable dicking around with something a little more unique. This comes out soon, by the way, and is getting mixed reviews.
Isle of Dogs
Even that poster makes me happy! I was going to leave things off that were coming out in March, but I couldn’t help it with this one since Wes Anderson is probably my favorite director and stop-animation is my favorite medium and dogs are my fifth favorite domesticated animal. I’ve seen the previews for this on the big screen a handful of times, and I end up with a giant smile on my face. Afterward, I’ve turned to the person next to me (or behind me) and said, “I’m totally seeing that son of a bitch!” and attempting a whoop or two. I was thrown out of the theater once and told to “Sit my ass down” another time. If I was planning on taking my own life, this would be the #3 reason why I wouldn't end up doing it.
Mary Poppins Returns
Boy, oh, boy. I’m getting hard just thinking about this one. I’m not sure I can see this one in a theater because there’s a strong possibility I’ll end up arrested after a Paul Reubens fiasco. I’m going to have to take Jen along to make sure I behave myself, I guess. If Disney sticks with the same feel as the P. L. Travers books, which are slightly surreal and filled with fantastic events and some darkly-shaded humor, this follow-up to one of the hottest movies ever made could be great. And I know Travers would have been thrilled that this sequel was finally being made. Fifty-four years is a long time between sequels, isn’t it? And people thought that the time between Blade Runners was huge.
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Solo could also have been the title to a movie about my sex life in high school. Hi-yooo!
I’m getting Wookiee and Lando action, and that’s probably going to be enough to make the trip to the theater worth it. It’ll be hard to know if I really need a Han Solo solo movie in my life until I see this, and I’m starting to get to the point where I think one Star Wars movie per year might be too much Star Wars. At least it’s not seven Star Wars movies a year though. Right, Marvel? Ron Howard isn’t the director I would have picked for this thing, and with the troubled production, there’s a lot to be fearful about. But it’s a Star Wars movie, so I’ll get to go to the theater and feel like I’m 8 years old again which is better than going to the theater and feeling like I’m 44.
The Favourite
Well, Yorgos Lanthimos’s next movie is a bawdy period piece from early 18th Century England. That’s doesn’t really sound like Lanthimos territory to me and I’m not sure how I feel about having to put that “u” in “favourite,” but he hasn’t given me a reason to doubt him yet. Rachel Weisz is in it and promises that it’s still got that Lanthimosian uniqueness and tone and will be darkly funny. She also compared it to All About Eve. Anything Lanthimos decides to make will be worth including on a list like this. He's the only Greek director I can name and therefore my favorite one. Or favourite one.
Annette
Holy Motors is wonderful enough for me to be excited about Leos Carax’s next project. But this sounds intriguing anyway. It’s a musical with songs by Sparks, and it’s got the ubiquitous Adam Driver in it. I don’t really care what it’s about, but it’s about a comedian whose wife, an opera singer, dies. Hopefully, Michelle Williams plays the wife and dies early on and isn’t seen again after the first five minutes of the movie. Michelle Williams is just as ubiquitous as Adam Driver, so it was inevitable that they'd end up in the same movie together.
First Man
Damien Chazelle is on a freakin’ roll, and even though I understand people’s gripes with Whiplash and La La Land, I just can’t wait to see what he does with an old-school Hollywood musical sci-fi biopic about Louis Armstrong going to the moon. I might be confused by the details of this one actually, but after that one-two Chazelle punch (and Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench ain’t bad either), I’m ready to see whatever this guy does next. Apparently this isn’t a musical at all, and it’s about a different Armstrong. I’m curious to see what Chazelle can do with something that has nothing to do with music. I wonder if it's still going to somehow be musical without being a musical or having an actor everybody hates pretend to play the drums while a bald guy curses at him. And by the way, I would love to see a musical about Neil Armstrong and the first moon landing.
The House That Jack Built
The only natural place to go for Lars von Trier after the Nymphomaniacs is violence since sex and violence go hand in hand. I’m not sure the world needs another movie about a serial killer, but this is von Trier we’re talking about, and I just don’t see him giving us the same sort of serial killer movie we’ve seen before. Of course, the titular killer sees his crimes as works of art, and that’s not exactly an original idea either. “Jack” is played by Matt Dillon who probably hasn’t had a good movie since playing Trip Murphy in Herbie Fully Loaded, and Uma Thurman, my favorite Uma, is also in this. I think I’ve almost talked myself out of being excited about this movie, but von Trier is, according to von Trier, the greatest director alive.
Best F(r)iends (two volumes)
Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero, after becoming household names thanks to Franco, are reuniting onscreen for what looks to be a strange movie. Or movies since it’s being released in two separate volumes a couple of months apart. Sestero wrote this based on a road trip he took with Wiseau somewhere around 2003. Wiseau, before he plays the Joker, is a quirky mortician in this one. And let’s be honest--Wiseau could play any character at all in something that looks like the most excruciatingly awful movie ever made, and I’m still going to be interested in seeing it. But a quirky mortician in a movie that looks like it’s going to be a little bit of strange fun will end up very high on my list! The first installment of this comes out right at the end of March.
Other movies I’m excited about:
Bad Times at El Royale, Drew Goddard’s long-awaited follow-up to Cabin in the Woods
Under the Silver Lake, David Robert Mitchell’s follow-up to It Follows, one of the more interesting horror movies of the last half decade
I Think We’re Alone Now, in which Dinklage plays a misanthrope who’s happy to be the last man in the world until Elle Fanning comes along
Where’s You Go, Bernadette?, another Linklater movie
The Incredibles 2: More Incredibler, a Pixar sequel that actually doesn’t seem like a terrible idea
Susperia, a remake from the Call Me by Your Name guy, something that might actually end up as pretty as the original Dario Argento flick
Black Klansman, a Spike Lee joint that I can’t put on a “most anticipated” list because I haven’t even bothered to see most of his other joints
Widows, an all-female heist movie directed by Steve McQueen
Leave No Trace, the tardy encore to Debra Granik’s Winter Bone
The Art of Self-Defense, a Jesse Eisenberg movie
The Women of Marwen, which I’d have no interest in because there’s already a documentary (Marwencol) that covers the subject well enough but similar feelings before seeing Zemeckis’s The Walk was surprisingly enjoyable so this could be as well
Mission: Impossible--Fallout, but only because of the title’s punctuation and the possibility that this could finally be the movie where we get to see Tom Cruise die on screen during a stunt mishap
Wildlife, because Paul Dano seems to pick interesting projects and has worked with some very talented directors and I’d like to see what he does in his directorial debut
At Eternity’s Gate, because Dafoe is playing Van Gogh
If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins’ next movie based on a James Baldwin book
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which I’d have no interest in at all except the trailer looks really beautiful and Morgan Freeman gets to wear an eyepatch
Slice, a horror-comedy that manages to combine Chance the Rapper, pizza delivery, and werewolves
Ip Man 4, even though only the odd-numbered Ip Mans have been any good
Backseat, because the cast looks fun (Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush) and I want to see Dick Cheney shoot people on the big screen
Birds of Passage, because Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent was really good
Rampage and Skyscraper, and that’s because The Rock is a force to be reckoned with
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