The eleventh and last part (W-Z) of my extensive 2010 preview guide I'm still at work on and should be hitting the site either Tuesday or Wednesday. Before that though it is time to plug a few holes.
With release dates always in flux, there is no true definitive list of films opening this year as the number of titles change day-by-day and many aren't really locked in yet. As a result, there's definitely been some guesswork assembling this list, albeit carefully considered and researched to try and fit in what will come out, what's important enough, and what can be reasonably done.
However, there are always titles that slip through the cracks. Thankfully some ever vigilant readers have been keeping an eye out and sent in some suggestions of key projects I've missed. Not everything can be included of course, otherwise this list would take forever, but there are fourteen films that I'm hitting myself over for not previously incorporating.
These entries will be added into the earlier guide sections with the next update, and there'll be some re-ordering to even out the number of entries per part. To save you having to wade back through all ten previous sections though, below are all the additionals that will be added to the guide. Hope you enjoy:
Abel
Opens: 2010
Cast: Carlos Aragon, Christopher Ruiz-Esparza, Gerardo Ruiz-Esparza, Jose María Yazpik
Director: Diego Luna
Summary: About a peculiar young boy who, as he blurs reality and fantasy, takes over the responsibilities of a family man in his father's absence.
Analysis: "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Milk" actor Diego Luna makes his feature directorial debut on this coming of age drama which is getting a non-competition premiere at Sundance later this month. Shot in Mexico City back in late Summer, the $2.7 million production is told from a child's perspective but otherwise very little is known about it. A lot more details and some early reaction from Park City should give us a better clue as to what to expect and will potentially start some buzz.
After.Life
Opens: 2010
Cast: Christina Ricci, Liam Neeson, Alfred Molina, Justin Long, Josh Charles
Director: Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo
Summary: A young woman is caught between life and death and a funeral director, who appears to have the gift of transitioning the dead, might just be intent on burying her alive.
Analysis: Though it hasn't scored an American distributor yet, this very strange take on both life and death did manage to get quite a bit of buzz surrounding it when it was on offer at the AFM back in November (and not just for a mostly naked Ricci). Wojtowicz-Vosloo's first feature, the psychological thriller features some top notch talent with Neeson's unsettling performance as the funeral director said to be the highlight.
Ricci's character and the writing were criticised, mainly for being not that clear, but the visuals and smarts of the film were praised even with its obvious budgetary limitations. Expect a quick theatrical release before a healthy life on DVD later in the year.
Biutiful
Opens: 2010
Cast: Javier Bardem, Bianca Portillo, Martina Garcia, Ruben Ochandiano
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Summary: A loner uses shady dealings to maintain a balance between survival in a marginal neighborhood and safeguarding the future of his young children who are floating aimlessly through life. Things take a turn for the worse when he is confronted by his childhood friend, who is now a policeman.
Analysis: Inarritu ("21 Grams" "Amores Perros") returns to directing four years after his last effort, "Babel", scored multiple award nods. Story details on the Mexican/Spanish drama are scarce but the director's flawless track record has already set this up to be one of the big awards contenders of 2010. Originally scheduled for December last year, post-production on the film took longer than anticipated. It is now likely to score a high-profile Cannes Film Festival premiere in May before a platform release sometime in the Fall.
Bran Nue Dae
Opens: 2010
Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Magda Szubanski, Tom Budge, Ernie Dingo, Deborah Mailman
Director: Rachel Perkins
Summary: A musical set in Broome, Western Australia in 1965. A young fisherman quite comfortable with his life of freedom finds himself forced to return to a religious mission for further schooling by his mother. Punished for an act of youthful rebellion, he runs away on a journey that ultimately leads him back home.
Analysis: Scoring a release next week on its home turf, the feature film adaption of the 1990 musical scored somewhat mixed reviews from critics but won audience awards at both the Melbourne and Toronto International Film Festivals. Award-winning "Radiance" director Rachel Perkins helms the upbeat road movie with strong performances from Geoffrey Rush, Magda Szubanski, Ernie Dingo and singers like Missy Higgins and Jessica Mauboy.
Originally planned as a TV movie, the project became a feature and the involvement of Rush pushed it into a more international spotlight with a highly publicised premiere in Broome the other month for international guests (sadly no invite here). The film should be getting a further push at Sundance later this month, but the up-tempo feel good vibe and lack of authenticity will certainly impact the reaction (though may improve sales).
Buried
Opens: 2010
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Ivan Mino, Anne Lockhart, Jose Maria Yazpik
Director: Rodrigo Cortes
Summary: Paul is a U.S. contractor working in Iraq. After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. With only a lighter and a cell phone it's a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap.
Analysis: The Spanish indie thriller from director Rodrigo Cortes ("15 Days," "The Contestant") scores a midnight world premiere at Sundance in January where reviews will have a big impact on its release plans. Script reviews paint this as a very dark feature, a film that piles one tragedy on top of another with a believable sense of realism and a fair albeit shocking end - one daring enough that it might be toned down to be more wide appealing.
Though there have been plenty of films and series featuring scenes of someone buried alive from the original "The Vanishing" to Tarantino's "Kill Bill Volume Two" and "CSI" episode, few spend over an hour trapped in a confined space with most of the dialogue taking place over the phone. Joel Schumacher's "Phone Booth" did it several years ago and the result was a very strong and enjoyable thriller, can we hope for the same here?
Carlos the Jackal
Opens: Spring 2010
Cast: Edgar Ramirez, Alexander Beyer, Anna Thalbach, Susanne Wuest, Julia Hummer
Director: Olivier Assayas
Summary: The story of Venezuelan revolutionary, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who founded a worldwide terrorist organization and raided the OPEC headquarters in 1975 before being caught by the French police in 1994. For twenty years he was known to the world by a different name, the assassin Carlos the Jackal.
Analysis: It's funny to think that despite being one of the most famous assassins to have ever lived, there hasn't really been an accurate biopic about Carlos even as his moniker has been used numerous times in film and fiction with little care for the real life facts. The closest I can recall, aside from Barbet Schroder's 2007 documentary "Terror's Advocate" about Carlos' lawyer, was 1997's little seen but enjoyable "The Assignment" which still ended up being only very loosely based on true events. Certainly that film was a lot better than the odious Bruce Willis-led "The Jackal" which opened the same year.
Now, along comes director Olivier Assayas ("Summer Hours," "Alice et Martin") delivering his first biopic which traces the life of Carlos from his first operation in London in 1974 to his capture and arrest by the Sudanese and French authorities in Khartoum in 1994. Edgar Ramirez ("Che," "The Bourne Ultimatum") stars as Carlos in the project which will include events such as the 1975 OPEC hostage-taking in Vienna. The possibilities here are rich considering Carlos had dealings with all sorts of different regimes throughout the Cold War including the PLO, the Soviets, the East German Stasi, the Japanese Red Army, Iraq under Saddam, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
In interviews, Assayas said he had an incredible level of freedom for the project and could essentially do what he wanted with a rather sizeable budget. Blending Super 16 and 35mm film photography, the film's language is around half-English, the rest in mostly Spanish or French. Shot during the first half of 2009 in Austria, France, Germany, Hungary and Morocco, the project will be released in two different versions. A 120-minute theatrical cut will be screened internationally in the Spring after a three-part 270-minute mini-series version airs on French cable television next month. IFC Films will release the shorter cut States-side in theatres and on VOD, the longer cut will probably have to be imported on DVD later in the year.
Confucius
Opens: 2010
Cast: Yun-Fat Chow, Xun Zhou, Yi Lu, Jianbin Chen, Lu Yao
Director: Mei Hu
Summary: Set in 6th Century BC and follows the highly-influential Chinese thinker and philosopher, from his days as a court official through battles and political intrigues, to his old age as a disillusioned sage.
Analysis: With only a few weeks to go before its official release in China, this $23 million biopic about one of the world's most famous philosophers has drawn quite a bit of controversy over its accuracy. Much like the way many Hollywood films tend to gloss up the romantic and action-related angles of famed historical figures, so to has this film undergone criticism for casting an action hero (Yun-Fat) as the man himself and portraying him as romantically attracted to a concubine.
Outside Asia where his backstory is less known, Mei Hu's filmmaking itself will likely get a more objective consideration. The trailers, generally a mishmash of scenes without any real context or order, have sparked both interest and confusion with the disappointing visual effects and overuse of battle scenes scoring criticism. As the Chinese government was heavily involved in the project, don't expect much in the way of a truly independent look at the revered thinker.
Cyrus
Opens: 2010
Cast: Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener, John C. Reilly, Matt Walsh
Director: Jay & Mark Duplass
Summary: John, a lonely divorcee can’t believe his luck when he becomes involved in a passionate affair with a beautiful and charming woman. Then he meets her 21-year-old son, can the deep and idiosyncratic bond between mother and child leave room for John?
Analysis: Having become indie filmmaking darlings and pioneering the 'mumblecore movement', the Duplass Brothers ("The Puffy Chair," "Baghead") have scored their biggest budget yet by far with this Fox Searchlight comedy premiering out of competition at Sundance this year. Despite having a script on hand, the actors and directors found themselves improvising a lot with Hill in particular apparently showing off a quite different character to his previous onscreen personas. Carefully taking time with it in post, the Park City premiere will be the first time anyone's seen anything from the film so the critical reaction should have a significant impact on its release plans and box-office chances.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec
Opens: 2010
Cast: Louise Bourgoin, Philippe Nahon, Gilles Lellouche, Mathieu Amalric, Frederique Bel
Director: Luc Besson
Summary: Adèle Blanc-Sec is an intrepid young reporter in 1912, will go to any lengths to achieve her aims, including sailing to Egypt to tackle mummies. Meanwhile in Paris a pterodactyl egg in the natural history museum has hatched, and the bird subjects the city to a reign of terror.
Analysis: One of the first films I covered on this site back in 1997 was a then little known property called "The Fifth Element". Having broken through worldwide with "La Femme Nikita" and "Leon: The Professional", French helmer Luc Besson delivered a trippy sci-fi action fantasy that, despite mixed reviews upon release, has only gone up in many's estimation in the subsequent thirteen years. Though he's produced a hell of a lot since then, his few directorial efforts have either been flops ("Angel-A," "The Messenger: Joan of Arc") or just generally uninteresting (the "Minimoys" series).
Here though, Besson returns with his most interesting effort since and the first in a potential film trilogy. 'Adele' adapts Jacques Tardi's nine-volume comic series from the 70's which lent a satirical and supernatural adventure spin on the pre-WWI Belle Epoque era. This fusion of well-researched alternative explanations to historical events, a feisty heroinne who had no problems smoking or drinking, and 'out there' elements from dinosaurs and mummies to mad scientists and demon worshippers all became a trademark of the series.
Will it translate though? European comics are hits internationally bar the biggest market of all - the United States. The live-action film versions of "Asterix" and the heavily panned recent "Lucky Luke" didn't get theatrical releases in America or many countries outside of their home soil. Even with the likes of both Spielberg and Peter Jackson attached, the upcoming film versions of Herge's brilliant adventure books "Tintin" are meeting a surprising amount of venomous hatred online by many who've zero familiarity with the property and a passion for comic titles not fit enough to wipe the Belgian author's ass with.
Besson though has a strong enough reputation amongst the film geek crowd to push through this 25 million Euro production into at least a decent limited theatrical run States-side. The lure of the epic scale, visual effects and crowd-friendly tone might be enough to overcome any aversion to the subtitles and make this one of the top grossing foreign-language films to get a release in the US, even if it doesn't you can still expect this and any further sequels to become cult hits on DVD and Blu-ray.
The First Gun
Opens: 2010
Cast: Sun Honglei, Ni Dahong, Xiaoshenyang, Yan Ni
Director: Zhang Yimou
Summary: A Chinese-language remake of the Coen Brothers' "Blood Simple". A restaurant owner finds his wife cheating on him and therefore hires a corrupt police officer to kill his wife and her new man. But the killer has his own greedy plan, which is to swallow up the restaurant owner's every possession.
Analysis: With Hollywood having remade so many foreign films, it's only fair that foreign filmmakers start adapting American films for their own markets. Yet no-one predicted that internationally-renowned helmer Zhang Yimou ("Hero," "House of Flying Daggers," "Curse of the Golden Flower") would choose to use the Coen Brothers' very first feature, 1985's "Blood Simple", as the basis for this period-set farcical thriller.
This transports the original film's plot from a town in Texas, to a noodle shop in a small desert town in northern China's Gansu province. Released at Christmas in China, reviews paint the film as surprisingly faithful to the source material and keeps its inherent darkness, though adds a more frentic pacing, some regional comedic elements and Zhang's usual use of garish colors. One highlight is said to be a complicated noodle spinning sequence choreographed to Ride of the Valkyries.
Previously titled "Amazing Tales: Three Guns" and released as "A Simple Noodle Story" in China, the film will be called "The First Gun" in its international theatrical release. Aimed distinctly at the Chinese market, Sony Pictures Classics has worldwide distribution rights but probably won't see much return outside of film lovers curious about the concept.
The Hungry Rabbit Jumps
Opens: 2010
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Guy Pearce, January Jones, Harold Perrineau
Director: Roger Donaldson
Summary: When his wife is the victim of a brutal crime, a man subsequently becomes entangled with an underground vigilante organization in an effort to get revenge. He soon finds himself in too far over his head.
Analysis: Coming off "The Bank Job", one of my favourite films of 2008 and amongst its more critically acclaimed entries, Australian director Roger Donaldson helms this $30 million thriller which sounds like it'll hopefully explore the downside of a genre that has seen a resurgence in popularity lately - the vigilante movie. From "Taken" to the upcoming "Edge of Darkness", revenge thrillers have become kind of tedious lately and often avoid the truly dark costs that come with seeking one's own form of justice.
Reviews of Robert Tannen's script however paint this as something more along conspiracy thriller lines - with a secret society having dealt with his wife's attacker, they now require a favour from Cage's character which puts him in the position of either acquiescing, fleeing or attempting to expose them. It sounds like direct-to-video nonsense, but the story is apparently a fun little surface-level diversion with strong pacing that was good enough to make last year's Blacklist. Currently filming in the US, expect a potential Fall release.
The Next Three Days
Opens: Late 2010
Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Russell Crowe, Brian Dennehy, Olivia Wilde, Jason Beghe
Director: Paul Haggis
Summary: With no legal means left to him, an English teacher devises a daring plan and takes extreme actions to rescue his wife from jail where she has been wrongfully imprisoned for murder...or has she?.
Analysis: He cleverly reinvented James Bond with the brilliant "Casino Royale", then made him an unrecognisable thug with the contemptible "Quantum of Solace". For several years he was the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood and his second feature "Crash" won the Oscar for Best Film. Yet now that's seen as one of the least deserved wins in the Academy's history, while his next directing effort "In the Valley of Elah" came and went with barely a whimper. However you feel about Paul Haggis, his name attached to any project still draws a lot of notice.
Here he remakes Fred Cavaye's 2007 effort "Pour Elle" (aka. "Anything for Her") which starred Diane Kruger as the wife. Haggis' version transfers the location to Pittsburgh where he shot the film late last year with an impressive cast. The idea of Crowe and Liam Neeson teaming had many salivating at first, but Neeson's role is just a cameo sadly. Haggis says theme wise one thing he wanted to explore here is "that by saving the woman you love, you could quite possibly turn into someone she could no longer love." Sounds like he's reaching there, but no doubt the marketing will likely play this up as a "Taken"-style actioneer with Crowe - that will definitely sell tickets.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
Opens: 2010
Cast: Jake Hoffman, Devon Aoki, Kris Lemche, Ralph Macchio, Jeremy Sisto
Director: Jordan Galland
Summary: An indie comedic horror film about an unemployed film director who scores a break as the helmer of an off-Broadway play, a bizarre adaptation of Hamlet written by a pale Romanian who is actually a master vampire.
Analysis: A rather bizarre looking little existential indie comedy fusing relationship quirks, vampire conspiracies, even the Holy Grail thrown in for good measure. Highly self-referential to many films before it, award-winning music video and shorts director Galland plays this as a self-aware farce of macabre overtones and showed it at packed screenings at almost every film festival under the sun last year. John Lennon's son Sean does the mostly instrumental score of the film and a limited theatrical release has already been scheduled for April 16th.
Tomorrow, When the War Began
Opens: 2010
Cast: Rachel Hurd-Wood, Phoebe Tonkin, Lincoln Lewis, Caitlin Stasey, Matthew Dale
Director: Stuart Beattie
Summary: When their country is invaded and their families are taken, eight unlikely Australian high school teenagers band together to fight.
Analysis: On the surface sounding like "Red Dawn" set in a small Australian town, John Marsden's seven book 'coming-of-age in a war zone' series was sold on the pitch of it being one of the most popular Australian series ever published. As someone who has lived in Sydney almost all my life, I'd never heard even a mention of it until the film announcement - and I read a lot. However the series didn't start until the late 90's, after my time at school, so its fanbase is very much the teenagers and early twenty-somethings of today.
Screen Australia and Paramount Vantage are teaming for this purely Aussie production that hopes to be the first in a trilogy and is helped immensely by a big fat tax break for keeping its shoot local. Stuart Beattie, best known for his scripts for the likes of "Australia," "Collateral" and "G.I. Joe", is adapting and directing the film which hopes to be the first fully Australian commercial action movie since the "Mad Max" films. Certainly its budget, around $54 million U.S. dollars, is quite considerable for a 'purely local' film.
The cast is made up of a few soap stars (Lewis, Stasey) and some young unknowns aside from British actress Rachel Hurd-Wood who worked Down Under before on 2003's "Peter Pan". Tone wise don't expect the seriousness of "Red Dawn", Beattie saying if 'Dawn' is "Striptease", then 'Tomorrow' is more like "The Full Monty" - similar premise, completely different approaches. Shot around the Hunter Region in New South Wales over October and November last year, the film is already in post.
Several questions come up here. First is tone, the books are apparently quite realistic and dark which makes the film's rating likely to be higher but could alienate the core audience of young teenagers. Second is the enemy troops whose country of origin goes unnamed in the books, an idea that simply doesn't work on film - how will that be handled? Finally there's appeal - can a story like this cross over with international audiences. We'll know more around the end of the year.
