12 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012

The 12 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012

Every year brings us new and interesting movies as well as a lot of crappy films.  This is a list of 12 movies that are scheduled to be released this year.  If they are or aren't is not my problem.  So, without further ado, I'll leave you to the list.

12)

Looper

Director Rian Johnson, known for his smaller but incredibly quirky movies takes on the sci-fi genre with Looper.  Hollywood darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a killer for the mob of the future that realizes that his target is his future self.  Gordon-Levitt's future self is played by none other than Bruce Willis.  Emily Blunt, Piper Perabo and Paul Dano are also in the cast for the movie.  I know this might not be in a lot of people's top anticipated films, but I really enjoy Rian Johnson's style.  His last two films Brick (which is on Netflix Streaming) and The Brothers Bloom are both really good films that mostly go unnoticed.  There is something about the idea of a sci-fi movie directed by Johnson that makes me excited about what could happen.  Seeing Johnson reunite with Joseph Gordon-Levitt is something I'm looking for and having Willis will also be an extra.  All that I know is that this will definitely be an interesting movie.

No Trailer Available

11)  

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter 

How can anyone NOT be excited for this movie?  President of the United States Abraham Lincoln discovers that vampires threaten to take over the United States and decides to hunt them down and take them out.  What an awesome premise for a movie.  Director Timur Bekmambetov, known for the vampire movies Night Watch and Day Watch and recently the stylish actioner Wanted takes the helm with this interesting film.  This movie will probably be carried by the person who plays Lincoln and since Daniel Day-Lewis was busy with Steven Spielberg's version of the story of Lincoln, they hired Benjamin Walker to play the part.  While he is relatively unknown, I'm hoping that the cast around him will help out.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead will play Lincoln's wife, Dominic Cooper, Alan Tudyk, Marton Csokas, Rufus Sewell among others will round up a pretty good cast.  I am definitely looking forward to this one.

10)

 

Seven Psychopaths

One of my favorite movies from a couple of years back is the hitman movie In Bruges.  The dialogue was sharp, the action was pretty cool and the characters especially were incredibly interesting.  It was probably the first time that I thought Colin Farrell was a good actor.  Writer/Director Martin McDonagh returns with another incredibly interesting premise and the actors to back it off.  If you go to the Internet Movie Database, you will read this summary... "A screenwriter gets caught up in his pal's dog-kidnapping plot".  How is that not incredibly interesting?  If that doesn't catch your attention, maybe the cast will.  Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell and Tom freaking Waits are among the characters in this movie.  With Harrelson playing the main antagonist, I expect this movie (like In Bruges) to walk the line between comedy and borderline intense action.  I can't freaking wait.

No Trailer Available

9)

Yut doi jung si (The Grandmasters)

Probably one of the biggest and best of Hong Kong's cinema returns after a 5 year absence to tackle on a character that has been the focus of two recent films.  Wong Kar Wai is probably one of the most interesting directors to come out of Hong Kong in the last 20 or so years.  His incredibly fantastic films like Chungking Express, Fallen Angels and 2046 have harbored my love for Asian cinema and Eastern sensibilities.  For The Grandmasters, he once again teams up with Zhang Ziyi and Tony Leung Chiu Wai to tackle on acclaimed martial arts master Ip Man.  Now, if you have been paying attention to Hong Kong cinema in the last few years, action star Donnie Yen released two films chronicling the life of the fable teacher to Bruce Lee and of Wing Chung.  While the over saturation of Ip Man films might not be good for the state of cinema in Hong Kong, I can't help but be excited for what Wong Kar Wai might have in store.

8)

World War Z

We already had vampires on the list, so what else could follow but zombies!  Brad Pitt stars in the adaptation of the Max Brooks book of the same name.  While the cast is relatively unknown, besides Pitt, what interests me most is what director Marc Forster can do with this film and this material.  Looking back at his other work, it really goes from one end to the next.  Movies like Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace, The Kite Runner and Machine Gun Preacher really show Forsters range.  Can he do zombies, though?  It will definitely be interesting to see.  The movie deals with a U.N. employee trying to save the world from a zombie outbreak.  Easy.  I always look forward to zombie movies, but most of them are pretty bad.  It takes a certain kind of director to understand what you can do with zombies in terms of satire and/or social criticism.  I'm hoping this will be a bit more than just an action movie dealing with zombies.

No Trailer Available

7)

The Master

What can you really follow a movie such as There Will Be Blood with?  That is exactly what Paul Thomas Anderson will try to do in 2012 with his new film The Master.  It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a cult like leader, Amy Adams as his wife (I'm guessing) and Joaquin Phoenix as Hoffman's right hand man.  I was immediately interested at the teaming of Hoffman and Anderson.  I think Anderson will be able to get another incredible performance out of Hoffman, much like he did with Daniel Day Lewis.  Adams and Phoenix in support also sound like really great choices.  Before he went crazy, Joaquin Phoenix had shown that he was an incredible talent and it will be good to see him back in the big screen.  I'm hoping this film will also send a clear message about cults and fringe groups that will brainwash their members into doing heinous things.  Definitely looking forward to this one.

No Trailer Available

6)

Gravity

Another sci-fi film in my list for 2012.  This one starring Sandra Bullock as an astronaut trying to get back to Earth after the space station she is in is destroyed.  I know that doesn't sound terribly interesting, but the last time Alfonso Cuarón directed a science fiction movie, the amazing Children of Men was conceived.  Some are saying already that this will be Oscar bait for Bullock, but if Cuarón can get an amazing performance from her and not be worried that the movie will probably ride on her shoulders, he will have an interesting movie that might be there for the awards season.  The movie has had some production problems already, with Robert Downey Jr. dropping out due to scheduling conflicts, but now that George Clooney has signed on I'm even more interested.  The teaser trailer they released is pretty lame, but I expect this movie to either be awesome or just boring as hell.

5)

 The Avengers

Any superhero fan out there will be looking forward to this one.  Finally, after years of movies, the stage is set for the epic that everyone was looking for.  Five movies in, this is looking to be one of the biggest blowouts for a franchise and anything less would be disappointing.  Marvel Studios did a fantastic job ever since it began making their own movies of being able to control their own characters and not let seconds and thirds make decisions that they knew would affect not only the fans but the characters themselves (see: Spiderman 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand).  I'm glad that they were able to get most of the players who made the original movies to do this one as well.  With Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, this is looking as an incredibly fun superhero movie.  Joining the cast as Bruce Banner is Mark Ruffalo, who I sort of dislike, but hopefully, the way they use The Hulk will be interesting.  I am a little worried about the villains.  While Tom Hiddleston was fine as the villain for the Thor movie, I'm not yet sure he can carry the Avengers.  Either way, it will be a film I will be looking forward to watching.

4)

  Django Unchained

Everyone should be excited when Quentin Tarantino does a movie.  His is one of my favorite directors and after his work in Inglorious Basterds, I can't wait to see what he has to offer next.  Of course, in true Tarantino fashion, he has decided to make a movie that will probably be equal parts quirky, violent, funny and just plain good.  The blurb is enough to get me excited about the movie... "With the help of his mentor, a slave-turned-bounty hunter sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.".  When you realize that Jamie Foxx will be the titular character Django, Christoph Waltz will play the mentor, and Leonardo DiCaprio as the plantation owner... that makes my mouth water with anticipation.  With Kurt Russell, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Sacha Baron Cohen also playing some part in the movie, I can't help but be excited.

No Trailer Available

3)

Prometheus

I'll admit it.  I'm a big fan of director Ridley Scott.  Gladiator, American Gangster and the original Alien are favorites of mine.  This movie is an Alien prequel but while not directly dealing with anything that really happens in the movies, it does occur in the same universe.  I've always enjoyed the eye that Scott has for science fiction and I'm happy that the studio pushed him to direct this instead of taking a backseat and just producing like he was going to do before.  I'm also excited about the cast he has gathered.  Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace and the always awesome Michael Fassbender will be in this film.  The story itself deals with the spaceship Prometheus and its quest to find alien life.  They become stranded in an alien planet and have to deal with what they find.  Anyway, this looks to be a good one.

2)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

When the Lord of the Rings trilogy was released back in 2001 through 2003, I don't think anybody thought that it would become the phenomenon that it did.  Everyone who worked on it rose to prominence after the trilogy was over and with reason.  Director Peter Jackson, who had only worked on a couple of good movies, suddenly became an incredible visionary.  The three movies are amazing and the extended versions even more so.  The music, the acting, the story, everything about them worked.  For The Hobbit, Peter Jackson goes back to the director chair to adapt the famous work of the same name by author J.R.R. Tolkien.  The movie will be divided in two parts and this would be the first one.  The cast will bring back names from the Lord of the Rings trilogy that reprise their roles like Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Christopher Lee as Saruman, Andy Serkis as Gollum and Cate Blanchett as Galadriel.  It also has new names that will be looking to establish themselves like Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel and Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield (this is the role I'm looking forward to seeing most of all).  As a fan of the works by Tolkien and the Jackson's movies, this is one of those movies that I won't hesitate to check out.

1)

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan took the floundering Batman franchise back in 2005 and turned it upside down.  With a new dark atmosphere that oozed of the Dark Knight, he quickly erased memories of Joel Schumacher's disgrace of a film that was Batman & Robin.  The movie Batman Begins basically turned the opinions of most people that Batman could not be a character that is taken seriously on the big screen.  With the The Dark Knight, Nolan, Christian Bale (who plays the titular role) and the magnificent Heath Ledger (who did the best Joker I could remember) reminded people that Batman was still a viable asset to hold.  With this one, Nolan finishes his trilogy and doesn't look back.  He and Bale have already said this would be the last one and I am glad.  In this one, Bane (played by Tom Hardy) terrorizes Gotham City and brings Batman out from self exile.  Joining an already pretty stellar cast are Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway, the aforementioned Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Juno Temple.  It will be incredibly hard for Nolan and company to do a better movie than the previous one, but they will certainly try.  He will be looking forward to closing this trilogy in as epic a way as possible.  Everyone has this movie in their 'To Watch' list, and I am no different.  I trust in Nolan to give this fantastic trilogy a ending that is worthy of its awesomeness.

I would also like to mention three other films that are Honorable Mentions and didn't quite make the list.  The three are movies that I'm interested in for different reasons.

Honorable Mentions

Argo

Ben Affleck might not be the best actor around, but in the two movies he directed, he has finally found his niche.  Argo is a spy thriller with an interesting cast.  Look out for this one.

 Lincoln

 

Steven Spielberg teams up with Daniel Day-Lewis to bring to life the sixteenth President of the United States Abraham Lincoln.  With an awesome cast and freaking Daniel Day-Lewis, its hard to see anything go wrong with this.

Inside Llewyn Davis

This one would probably have been in the top twelve, but there are no assurances that it will be out in 2012 so I left it as an Honorable Mention.  The Coen's tell the story of a folk singer during the 1960s.  Anything the Coen's do interests me, so I'll be looking out for this.

Requested Reviews: Bronson

Bronson is a 2009 film based on and around important events in Michael Gordon Peterson, aka Charles Bronson's life. Bronson, constantly refereed to as the "most violent prisoner in Britain", is played by Tom Hardy who is virtually unrecognizable, he truly did throw himself into this role and visibly transformed himself into this character.

I'll be totally honest, I had no idea who Charles Bronson was before watching this. But, like any half decent bullshitter, I went to Wikipedia to pad out this review. At first glance all I can say is that Charlie Bronson is one of the most interesting stories I've ever seen. This man is 58 years old today- yes, he's alive- and he's spent over thirty years of his life in prison, most of that time in solitary confinement. But the interesting part of this man's life is that as far as I've seen, and I've been reading for a while now, he's in jail mostly for being a dick.

Seriously, I've been researching for hours, and Charlie Bronson has never killed anyone. Sure, he's beaten the living piss out of a lot of people, kidnapped a couple of guards, but never really committed that one huge offense that defines a criminal's career. But enough about real life stuff, lets get to the movie.

I must say, for my first requested review, this sure was a nice surprise. It really is a great movie, mostly because it's almost a one man show, fuck it, it is a one man show. Hardy really does make this character watchable. He really appeals to that dark humor in all of us (or maybe just in me) and makes a truly monstrous character quite funny with simple expressions, only to switch it on you seconds later and make him equally as terrifying with the same ease of expression.

The movie's mood follows Bronson's character. Since he's almost always on screen the film just feels unpredictable. And it fits. You expect Bronson to snap on anyone and/or everyone at any moment, and it really does create a special tension that makes the movie feel like something different.

Then we have the music, which was a real highlight for me. It almost feels like it's coming from Bronson's mind itself. Again, the silly synth music goes along with some pretty gruesome scenes, and it just helps the viewer see how little Bronson really cares about what he's doing, almost like he's playing around.

Interesting enough, the movie itself doesn't seem to go in a particular direction. It almost seems to pride itself on getting the viewer to position himself against, or for Bronson. I find this odd, because usually in a biopic like this one you can easily tell if the movie is in favor or against the character being described. This just feels like Bronson being Bronson, and it feels real enough that you can't imagine the person being any other way. It might be a bit more outlandish but the closest thing to a portrayal like this, to me, might be Val Kilmer's portrayal of Jim Morrison in the sense where at the end of the movie it's just hard to tell the two character's apart simply because the actor becomes how you imagine the person.

All in all, it really is a great movie. And if you're doubting that Tom Hardy can pull off a villain role in a Christopher Nolan directed Batman film, you should really watch this movie. It will reassure you, and actually get you pumped for his portrayal of Bane. I actually see him as that character now more than ever.

8.5/10