As I transition off the Hugo Awards, I figure I’ll return the other hobby horse of this blog: movies. I’ve actually been keeping up with new releases and will probably do some recapping in the near future, but for now, let’s look ahead at some movies I’m excited for as we enter the fall movie season:
- Guardians of the Galaxy (August) – A cheat, as I’ll be going to see this tonight, but I will include it because it was, by far, my most anticipated summer movie. Why, you ask? Because I’ve really come to enjoy the Marvel universe movies, but this particular property is something that I’m almost completely oblivious to – I know nothing about it, and that excites me. It won’t be a rehash of an origin story I’ve seen 10 times already (i.e. Batman, Spider Man, Superman, and all the other big super heroes) and it honestly sounds kinda bonkers (in a good way). I’m not expecting hard SF, but something along the lines of the original Star Wars (though I’m obviously trying to keep expectations in check, that’s the sort of adventure film I’m expecting out of this). Add in the genuinely intriguing talent behind the movie (James Gunn directing and co-writing), not to mention the onscreen talent (Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, and a CGI Racoon, etc…), and I’m totally game.
- The Green Inferno (September) – Probably the least exciting entry on this list, I’ve got mixed feelings about Eli Roth. On the one hand, I appreciate a lot of things about his movies, and he does tend to make them into fun affairs (if sometimes overly gory, and I’m not a squeamish kinda guy). And honestly, this looks to be a pretty brutal movie that I’m not entirely sure I’ll be into… but that is often more interesting than typical mainstream fair, so I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.
- Gone Girl (October) – It’s been a few years since David Fincher’s disappointing Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake, but he’s a director I’m always on the look out for, as even his failures tend to be interesting in some way. In this case, I know little of the story, just that it’s a sorta crime thriller thing, which Fincher has proven to be pretty good at…
- Interstellar (November) – I’m deliberately trying to stay away from details on this one, as all I need to know is the talent behind it (Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and so on…) and the general premise (humanity expanding into the stars) to know I want to see it. I have some real hesitations, as filmic depictions of hard science fiction are few and far between, and often suffer in comparison to their literary counterparts, but Nolan has proven that he can pull of the internal consistency, sense of wonder, and conceptual breakthrough that is required in great science fiction. So basically, sign me up.
- Inherent Vice (December) – This is a film that’s already been pushed back once, so I’m not positive if it will actually be released this year, but it is a film I am very much looking forward to. Of course, most film nerds will look forward to anything that director Paul Thomas Anderson sets his sights on, but this one hold special promise for me because of the source material. I think Anderson is a fantastic director with a profound visual talent and ambitious attitude, but I’ve found has last few efforts to be disappointing. To be sure, I’m in the minority on that, but I feel like he’s been hewing towards the obtuse a little too much. I think you could probably say something similar about the author of the book this movie will be based on, Thomas Pynchon. The man is an unparalleled prose stylist and this will carry his novels far, but with Inherent Vice, Pynchon did something amazing: he included a plot. And not a lame or tacked on plot, a real, honest to goodness private eye story with a somewhat unique setting. So Pynchon was slumming it, and it was absolutely fantastic, and now we have Paul Thomas Anderson picking up that source material. That’s got winner written all over it.
- Honorable Mentions: Kingsman: The Secret Service, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, The Drop, The Interview, BirdmanBig Hero 6, Fury, Foxcatcher, V/H/S: Viral, and maybe even Dumb and Dumber To…
So there you have it. I’m sure there will be about a dozen or two additional movies that I’ll get excited about as prestige movie season approaches, but I’m sure the above will keep me pretty busy…