I had this draft of a post, that I neglected....
Movies: Anticipated Flicks of 2005
(F--! I was writing this in Feburary...)
The year in movies always gets off to a slow start. Odds are the first movie you see in a year is last years movie, you can’t get started really into the current year unti Feburary really, and even then, there are probably some Oscar nominated flicks you have to backtrack and see… I did get around to one of those; Million Dollar Baby, I liked it,but can’t say I’ll ever watch it again in the next decade… there are just some movies, no matter how good they are, once is enough. But Million Dollar Baby is in the past, with the exception of the upcoming Oscars, so on with the year that is!!!
In a somewhat chronological order, with a few probable omissions, ones not listed either were innocently overlooked, carelessly forgotten or look to be so sucky that no human should waste their viewing life on them.
The Must see in a theatre this year list…
Constantine, actually I already saw it, but am currently delinquent in posting my thoughts…)
Sin City : May be the best comic adaptation ever. Truly a golden age of Graphic Novels come cinema… I’ve so many happy joy joy fuzzie feelings about the potential beauty of this one….
Robots : Less excitement than the feeling of obligatory animated summer flick… Maybe I’m not in a mood right now to think about this one, nut in all honesty, I think I feel obligated to see it, laugh, and even… like this one never really feeling a damn thing towards it…
Kingdom of Heaven: Ooooooooo Blooooom…. Ridley…. Qui Gon…. Oskar Shiendler needs to save more people in the holy land, and gets Legolas to help him!!!, will they face that heavy from D&D or Claus Von Buleo… My name is Legolas Greenleaf, son of Thranduil, King of Mirkwood… I gotta get the high geek factor on this one out of my system… no, I won’t… I may already be in love with it….
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy : Aw FUCK!!! More love. The reality of this movie coming out is more of a milk and honey dreamland… It just doesn’t feel real…
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith : This one does. It’s here, like clockwork. Hey kiddies… Anikin becomes Vader. Star Wars fandom has become like the average marriage… the fire is kinda gone. I love them still, but I need to see others… But, this tart doesn’t care if we see others, so long as she gets hers.
Batman Begins : I hate this movie. I want it to be good…. I so do. But the last generation of Bat films sucked so bad. All of them. I loved the first one, back then. But that wasn’t Batman and the Joker. That was Micheal Keaton and Jack… a star studded Halloween party. For a young fanboy, it didn’t need to create a love for the mythology of Batman, we just need to see a reasonable facsimilie. This is the post Spider-Man era. Seeing a reasonable likeness of the character in a half baked story won’t do. We need to feel like we found the character for the first time, feel the drama of the mythology and thrill to the visuals and even be inspired walking out of the theater.
War of the Worlds : I love Tom Cruise. I love Steven Spielberg… and John Williams, and Dennis Muren and Mecha, and aliens, and apocalyptic destruction… I can’t wait.
Fantastic Four : I predict will be my most hated movie this year…. Last year I said that about I Robot for very similar reasons… I was wrong then…
Serenity: I can’t say I was a fan of Firefly… I never caught even an episode… but I’m a sucker for space opera, and we need a few good ones floating around out there… I wish this flick the best.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Yay!!!!
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe: “Based on the acclaimed novels by the best friend of the author of Lord of the Rings. Filmed in New Zealand, with Special Effects by WETA” Gee, is someone trying to catch lightning in a bottle… but putting it up against….
Underworld: Evolution : This movie also looks very LotRish… the werewolf soldiers look like soldiers of Gondor… (maybe they were vampires… either way) is there a reason for this end of the year LotR love/cash-in fest…. Is this a multi studio attempt to counter program against something…
King Kong: Peter Jackson blesses the world with another film.
Wonderful Days : Ends the current list since I don’t know if it will come to theaters in town… Korean anime. Looks beautiful.
Sound Great but that first trailer may change the situation….
Sky High
Elizabethtown
Doom
Aeon Flux
A Sound of Thunder: MUST SEE!!!!!! In Theater… Q: why am I not on that list…
A: Why haven’t you been released when you were supposed to be?
Corpse Bride
V for Vendetta
Domino
Zathura
The Brothers Grimm
Legend of Zorro
Happily N'Ever After
A Lot has changed since I was writing that. Mostly, we started seeing more behind the veil of Lucas secrecy with the "OC" trailer and the novelizations... It has changed from the obligatory Star Wars flick that the teaser left the taste of to, well, Peter Jackson has his work cut out for him. Episode III looks to be the best flick of the summer if not the event of the year. Other changes; Sin City, which I hadn't even put on the list of flicks to come at the time of typing it (an ommision of labor only) was kinda "wow". Robots was dead on what I expected, BUT... Oh my GOD... Lets look at what I said about HHGTTG.... "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy : Aw FUCK!!! More love. The reality of this movie coming out is more of a milk and honey dreamland… It just doesn’t feel real…" Wow. I was wrong. To everyone I every got excited about this thing... I'm sorry. It was almost pure shit! The song at the begining is nice, but like Final Fantasy the Spirits Within is a poor ambassador for FF to the world, this fucking eyesore of an asinine title thief ruins the name of HHGTTG.
At this point, to be right on FF might be impossible. The Fantastic Four movie could be worse than the Roger Corman version and not be my most despised flick this year. Fantastic Four would have to insult my family, personally. It would have to do physical harm to me to be worse that Hitchhikers. If FF is the second worst movie this year, 10,000x worse than Sahara, it will be less painfull than the rape of Douglas Adams (and Alan J. Bell's) work.
Every year I have a top five and a worst movie slot... The current nomonies are, for flicks I've seen in a theatre excluding Million Dollar Baby (last years movie) and Office Space (1999, but a local place had a screening, otherwise IT would be topping the list EASILY!) Constantine, Robots, Sin City, Sahara, Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy... That's it... boy is this summer off slow.
- Sin City. (Also, this has been though the Most quotable movie yet this year!)
- Constantine (just barely... )
- Sahara (Oh, Matt, see note below*)
- Robots. (My kids couldn't care any less about this movie already.)
- Hitchhikers Guide (Why.... why'd ya do it Disney?)
Worst of the Year. Hitchhikers Guide. More than a bad movie, TECHNIALLY, NONE of these are anywhere near the depths of movie hell that films like Alexander. Robots and Sahara are not that far from Constantine. Constantine is a proffesionally crafted industry film. So is Sahara and Robots, Robots phoned it in creatively thinking, like most of our culture does, that kids are stupid. All of these movies EXCEPT Sin City are corporate created, proffesionally produced entertainments. They're kept in the movie widget until a test audience focus group says okay, OR an executive throws them off the shelf to die. Hitchhikers Guide represents a wasted opportunity. I'm not against a mix of action, romance, and villiany. I love the mix espically in Sci-Fi looking FX feasts. I love movies like Hitchhikers Guide and wish for more of them all of the time. The level of imagination to give us a compelling Sci-Farse universe lacking totally in those elements is what kept Adams books and the TV show so engaging. A big coporation was unwilling to see that Adams work was apart from the flock, not better or above it. Just different. Hitchhikers Guide was supposed to be a change of pace entertainment selection, not a menu standard. Star Wars is the menu standard. It defined it. But this year, Sith looks to be, actually a change of pace.
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