2011 looks to be an amazing year for movies with some of the biggest and best directors in Hollywood producing new and ever-so-creative visions of another world. Included in this list of directors are the amazing Duncan Jones (Moon), the legendary Terence Malick (Days of Heaven, Badlands, The Thin Red Line), the hysterical Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland), and the imaginative Zack Snyder (Shaun of the Dead, 300, Watchmen). All of these movies are capable of being amazing… but which ones will be great, and which ones will be let-downs? Only time, literally, will tell.
20. The Cabin in the Woods – Pending Release Date – Imaginative creator and Jesus-Christ-Superstar Joss Whedon co-wrote this supposedly well made slant on your usual woods-terrain horror flick.
19. Hall Pass – February 25 – Two married men are given, by their spouses, a break: one week without stipulations on their relationship. they can do whatever however they want. But will the rest of us let them have the fun they want? This comedy movie from the Farrelly Brothers (There’s Something About Mary) is sure to be a hit!
18. Arthur – April 8 – This remake of the classic Dudley Moore hit places Russell Brand as the drunken playboy with too much (and soon to be too little) money who needs a wife to keep it.
17. Priest – May 13 – The adaptation of the timeless graphic novel about a post-apocalyptic church-run mega-society. A priest (Paul Bettany) defies church rule and goes on the hunt for vampires who kidnapped his niece.
16. Ceremony – April 8 – A young man crashes the wedding of a 30-something-year-old woman who he wants for himself. Written and directed by Henry Winkler’s son, Max Winkler.
15. Meek’s Cutoff – April 8 – A western about a man who leads a group of emigrant Americans to the west in 1865. Much critical appraise.
14. Contagion – October 21 – A famous-actor-filled Soderbergh flick that is about CDC-contracted doctors who aim to stop the threat of a new deadly disease.
13. Paul – March 18 – Greg Mottola (Superbad), Simon Pegg & Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) team up for this story of two nerds who stumble upon an alien whilst traveling west.
12. Battle: Los Angeles – March 11 – A movie I’ve been looking forward to for 3 years, Battle: Los Angeles is essentially District 9 mixed with Halo. Booyah.
11. War Horse – December 28 – Though it may sound stupid, the movie is a WWI story by Steven Spielberg about a boy and his horse and how their bond is broken when his horse is taken to France for support in WWI. Because of his love for his horse, the boy goes to France to try to find him. This may be a terrible movie, especially given that the idea is idiotic, but Spielberg may be able to make it good.
10. The Rum Diary – October – Johnny Depp plays the Hunter S. Thompson’s character Paul Kemp in this hopefully-faithful adaptation.
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II – July 15 – The final chapter of the Harry Potter series, the film looks to be the best one in the series. The story of a young, but not amateur, wizard who is being hunted down for death by multiple different parties, all working under the darkest, possibly strongest wizard every, Voldemort.
8. SuckerPunch – Zack Snyder’s comeback after his “Legend of the Guardians” flop, SuckerPunch, the tale of a girl locked up in a psycho ward who goes into her own mind to find the answers (through ass kicking of imaginary, and perhaps realistic simultaneously, enemies) looks to be the comeback that he needs.
7. Super 8 – June 10 – J.J. Abrams, knowing his secretive ass, only released a little bit of information about Super 8, his most recent writing-directing job. All anyone can say is that it is about an alien that gets out from a military base and is involved with open society. It looks really good, though, the parts I can see.
6. Cowboys & Aliens – July 29 – Jon Favereau (Iron Man) directs this cowboy movie about a man who wakes up with an alien technology on his wrist. Awkward, but the setting makes it more so: 1873 Arizona.
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – December 21 – David Fincher directs this adaptation of the world acclaimed books. It stars Daniel Craig as a former newspaperist whose reputation has gone to hell, and is out of work and out of ideas on how to come back until, one day, a man asks him to help find his daughter.
4. Water For Elephants – April 22 – This adaptation of the acclaimed novel stars Christophe Waltz and Robert Pattinson, as well as the magnificent Hal Holbrook as people involved with a circus in the early 1900’s. It looks to be an Oscar contender.
3. Warrior – September 9 – Gavin O’Connor (Pride and Glory) directs this seemingly amazing drama about two rivals (one of which being a possible Best Actor Tom Hardy) in the world of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).
2. Source Code – April 1 – Ducan Jones (Moon) and Ben Ripley (His first feature writing)’s brain child, Source Code is the story of a soldier (Jake Gylenhaal) who wakes up on a train as a different person just before everyone on the train dies. With the technology they have, the soldier has the mission to go back and collect information on why the death-enducing incident occured, who did it, and if something may happen the same way in the future.
1. The Tree of Life – May 27 – Terrence Malick and his genius brings together a tale of a rough family life through generations. A mind bender, and certainly, before seeing it, an Oscar contender, The Tree of Life looks to be the best movie of the year, and perhaps even one of the best of the decade.
Sorry, 2011 is what I should have written.