Shutter Island
Shutter Island is an upcoming horror thriller directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The film is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. Production started in March 2008; Shutter Island was originally slated to be released on October 2, 2009, but Paramount recently announced that it was going to push the film towards a mid-February release in 2010.
Robin Hood
After one glimpse at the trailer where a bloodied, disheveled-looking Russell Crowe takes devil-eyed aim through his bow and arrow, you already know that this is not the Robin Hood that Bryan Adams swoons to. Ridley Scott’s much-anticipated adaptation of the medieval criminal is not going to vilify the folk hero as was reported back when the movie was still called Nottingham. But the new movie looks epic, like Gladiator-epic, giving the Prince of Thieves a grittier polish and a conceivable historical background. And you know you can’t go wrong with the accomplished Cate Blanchett filling in Maid Marian’s wardrobe. Let’s just hope the studio doesn’t make the director hack an hour off the movie like they did with Kingdom of Heaven, because in that case we might as well wait for yet another Ridley Scott director’s cut.
Inception
We know next to nothing about the closely guarded plot of Inception, but we'll bank on this Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle anyway. It’s a sci-fi detective story that takes place within “the architecture of the mind” and it’s directed by Christopher Nolan, he who gave The Dark Knight box-office wings and gave us one of the best psychological thrillers in decades with Memento. Inception promises blackmail, corporate malfeasance and some Matrix-style ass kicking, and with Nolan behind the camera we’re betting it can’t go wrong.
Iron Man 2
Iron Man re-engineered comic book movies to be mature, socially relevant and totally fun, and we’re expecting more of the same when Robert Downey Jr. returns to his role as the alcoholic, sex-addicted, wise-ass billionaire Tony Stark. While we’re glad to see Gwyneth Paltrow bring back sexually mischievous undercurrents to the role as Pepper Potts, it’s the new additions to the cast that are getting us excited. Scarlett Johansson looks seductive and smashing as the Russian dominatrix Black Widow, and Don Cheadle looks like he’s having a lot of fun in his War Machine getup. And in one of the most ingenuous casting moves of the year, we have Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, looking like a gypsy with a hardcore mean streak.
The American
George Clooney risked over-exposure this year, appearing in a total of three movies. In 2010, he’s focusing on just one and that’s The American. Clooney goes against type, playing a master assassin hiding out in Italy while preparing for his final job. Passing himself off as an artist, the assassin forges new relationships and a new life, meaning this will probably turn into a romantic comedy laced with a violent identity crisis. Why would we be so excited for this kind of flick? Well, disregarding the general appeal that is Clooney and hit men, The American is directed by Anton Corbijn, the indie success story who brought Joy Division back to vivid life in the critically hailed biopic, Control. Clooney and Corbijn sounds like a match made in indie heaven.
Green Zone
With Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon reteaming, you might as well call this Bourne does Baghdad. Damon stars as a U.S. soldier who is searching for weapons of mass destruction but finds lies and treachery instead. Although movies set in Iraq have done poorly at the box office, the critical reception of The Hurt Locker and the involvement of Greengrass and Damon promise to change the atmosphere. Green Zone promises to be a politically edged action thriller from the team that gave us Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum, two of the best action thrillers in recent memory to take a shot at politics.
They Marched Into Sunlight
Paul Greengrass dives headfirst back into politics with a movie that focuses on two events over two days during the Vietnam War. In the U.S., University of Wisconsin students protest Dow Chemicals for producing napalm. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, a U.S. platoon walk into a Viet Cong ambush. The peaceful antiwar protest escalates into violence while 61 American lives are lost in the ambush, and these two events simultaneously stimulated student opposition to the war. With his verite style of camera work, Greengrass brought an intense, visceral energy to both Bloody Sunday and the brilliant United 93. Here’s hoping he can do it again.
The Social Network
This is the true story of two friends who create a profitable website that brings people together, while the success breaks them apart. And it stars Justin Timberlake. Sounds kind of cheesy? Sure. Except that the guys being portrayed are Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg, the site is Facebook and the director is David Fincher Dealing in sex and mountains of money, The Social Network sounds like the online version of Wall Street. And as we mentioned, it’s directed by David Fincher, the man who took a cleaver to social norms with Fight Club. So we can expect a clever dissection of modern social relationships, highlighting how men feel castrated by online “friends” lists.
The Tree of Life
It took Terrence Malick 30 years to make four movies, so when the lyrical director of Days of Heaven has a new project on the way, consider that an event. It stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, two of our most accomplished character actors, and it’s about… god knows what. The period piece, set around the 1950s, has a plot that has been kept top secret. The only official tidbit reveals that the film revolves around a boy’s loss of innocence. But rumors are circulating, and they say Tree of Life is Malick’s most ambitious project to date. It may or may not have segments that deal with the prehistoric or even evolution (Tree of Life, get it) and it may be released in IMAX. True or not, just the suggestion of Terrence Malick’s spectacular visuals in IMAX gets us tickled with anticipation.
The Matarese Circle
Denzel Washington can get pretty boring, as he’s often playing the same role in different movies. Tom Cruise can get pretty creepy, just in general. But you have to cut the two stars some slack. When they want to be good -- Washington in Training Day and Cruise in Magnolia -- they’re damn good. Both Washington and Cruise go head-to-head as two archrival spies, one American and the other Russian, who must gain each other’s trust in order to fight a common enemy called the Matarese. It’s an adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel, the author who conceived Jason Bourne, so expect some riveting high-wire espionage and intense tête-à-têtes. But what has us ecstatic is director David Cronenberg, who’s molding the screenplay to his perversely brilliant taste. So expect a spy thriller that dissects the sex appeal in brutality a la A History of Violence.
Shutter Island is an upcoming horror thriller directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The film is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. Production started in March 2008; Shutter Island was originally slated to be released on October 2, 2009, but Paramount recently announced that it was going to push the film towards a mid-February release in 2010.
Robin Hood
After one glimpse at the trailer where a bloodied, disheveled-looking Russell Crowe takes devil-eyed aim through his bow and arrow, you already know that this is not the Robin Hood that Bryan Adams swoons to. Ridley Scott’s much-anticipated adaptation of the medieval criminal is not going to vilify the folk hero as was reported back when the movie was still called Nottingham. But the new movie looks epic, like Gladiator-epic, giving the Prince of Thieves a grittier polish and a conceivable historical background. And you know you can’t go wrong with the accomplished Cate Blanchett filling in Maid Marian’s wardrobe. Let’s just hope the studio doesn’t make the director hack an hour off the movie like they did with Kingdom of Heaven, because in that case we might as well wait for yet another Ridley Scott director’s cut.
Inception
We know next to nothing about the closely guarded plot of Inception, but we'll bank on this Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle anyway. It’s a sci-fi detective story that takes place within “the architecture of the mind” and it’s directed by Christopher Nolan, he who gave The Dark Knight box-office wings and gave us one of the best psychological thrillers in decades with Memento. Inception promises blackmail, corporate malfeasance and some Matrix-style ass kicking, and with Nolan behind the camera we’re betting it can’t go wrong.
Iron Man 2
Iron Man re-engineered comic book movies to be mature, socially relevant and totally fun, and we’re expecting more of the same when Robert Downey Jr. returns to his role as the alcoholic, sex-addicted, wise-ass billionaire Tony Stark. While we’re glad to see Gwyneth Paltrow bring back sexually mischievous undercurrents to the role as Pepper Potts, it’s the new additions to the cast that are getting us excited. Scarlett Johansson looks seductive and smashing as the Russian dominatrix Black Widow, and Don Cheadle looks like he’s having a lot of fun in his War Machine getup. And in one of the most ingenuous casting moves of the year, we have Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, looking like a gypsy with a hardcore mean streak.
The American
George Clooney risked over-exposure this year, appearing in a total of three movies. In 2010, he’s focusing on just one and that’s The American. Clooney goes against type, playing a master assassin hiding out in Italy while preparing for his final job. Passing himself off as an artist, the assassin forges new relationships and a new life, meaning this will probably turn into a romantic comedy laced with a violent identity crisis. Why would we be so excited for this kind of flick? Well, disregarding the general appeal that is Clooney and hit men, The American is directed by Anton Corbijn, the indie success story who brought Joy Division back to vivid life in the critically hailed biopic, Control. Clooney and Corbijn sounds like a match made in indie heaven.
Green Zone
With Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon reteaming, you might as well call this Bourne does Baghdad. Damon stars as a U.S. soldier who is searching for weapons of mass destruction but finds lies and treachery instead. Although movies set in Iraq have done poorly at the box office, the critical reception of The Hurt Locker and the involvement of Greengrass and Damon promise to change the atmosphere. Green Zone promises to be a politically edged action thriller from the team that gave us Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum, two of the best action thrillers in recent memory to take a shot at politics.
They Marched Into Sunlight
Paul Greengrass dives headfirst back into politics with a movie that focuses on two events over two days during the Vietnam War. In the U.S., University of Wisconsin students protest Dow Chemicals for producing napalm. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, a U.S. platoon walk into a Viet Cong ambush. The peaceful antiwar protest escalates into violence while 61 American lives are lost in the ambush, and these two events simultaneously stimulated student opposition to the war. With his verite style of camera work, Greengrass brought an intense, visceral energy to both Bloody Sunday and the brilliant United 93. Here’s hoping he can do it again.
The Social Network
This is the true story of two friends who create a profitable website that brings people together, while the success breaks them apart. And it stars Justin Timberlake. Sounds kind of cheesy? Sure. Except that the guys being portrayed are Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg, the site is Facebook and the director is David Fincher Dealing in sex and mountains of money, The Social Network sounds like the online version of Wall Street. And as we mentioned, it’s directed by David Fincher, the man who took a cleaver to social norms with Fight Club. So we can expect a clever dissection of modern social relationships, highlighting how men feel castrated by online “friends” lists.
The Tree of Life
It took Terrence Malick 30 years to make four movies, so when the lyrical director of Days of Heaven has a new project on the way, consider that an event. It stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, two of our most accomplished character actors, and it’s about… god knows what. The period piece, set around the 1950s, has a plot that has been kept top secret. The only official tidbit reveals that the film revolves around a boy’s loss of innocence. But rumors are circulating, and they say Tree of Life is Malick’s most ambitious project to date. It may or may not have segments that deal with the prehistoric or even evolution (Tree of Life, get it) and it may be released in IMAX. True or not, just the suggestion of Terrence Malick’s spectacular visuals in IMAX gets us tickled with anticipation.
The Matarese Circle
Denzel Washington can get pretty boring, as he’s often playing the same role in different movies. Tom Cruise can get pretty creepy, just in general. But you have to cut the two stars some slack. When they want to be good -- Washington in Training Day and Cruise in Magnolia -- they’re damn good. Both Washington and Cruise go head-to-head as two archrival spies, one American and the other Russian, who must gain each other’s trust in order to fight a common enemy called the Matarese. It’s an adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel, the author who conceived Jason Bourne, so expect some riveting high-wire espionage and intense tête-à-têtes. But what has us ecstatic is director David Cronenberg, who’s molding the screenplay to his perversely brilliant taste. So expect a spy thriller that dissects the sex appeal in brutality a la A History of Violence.
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