GET HIM TO THE GREEK
COMPOSER: Lyle Workman
WRITERS: Nicholas Stoller, Jason Segel
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Stoller
CAST: Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Rose Byrne
This latest Judd Apatow production is sort of a rock-n-roll My Favorite Year, with Hill as Mark Linn-Baker and Brand as Peter O'Toole.
COMPOSER: Alexandre Desplat
WRITERS: Robert Harris, Roman Polanski
DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
CAST: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson
McGregor finds that ghostwriting the memoirs of a former Prime Minister can be life-threatening in Polanski's first thriller since The Ninth Gate.
GREEN ZONE
COMPOSER: John Powell
WRITER: Brian Helgeland
DIRECTOR: Paul Greengrass
CAST: Matt Damon, Jason Isaacs, Brendan Gleeson, Greg Kinnear, Amy Ryan
Bourne sequel director Greengrass reunites with star Damon and composer Powell for another exercise in shaky camerawork and hair-trigger editing, as an Army operative hunts for Weapons of Mass Destruction in the war-torn Middle East. My hunch: he doesn't find them.
GREENBERG
COMPOSER: James Murphy
WRITERS: Noah Baumbach, Jennifer Jason Leigh
DIRECTOR: Noah Baumbach
CAST: Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Stiller plays an aging slacker (a role originally announced for Mark Ruffalo) in the new comedy from the director of The Squid and the Whale and Kicking and Screaming. Composer Murphy is best known as part of the group LCD Soundsystem, which mean his music is almost certainly better known to people who don't read this site than to those who do.
GROWN UPS
COMPOSER: Rupert Gregson-Williams
WRITERS: Fred Wolf, Adam Sandler|DIRECTOR: Dennis Dugan
CAST: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello
A group of friends reunite decades after high school; the fact that the friends are played by Sandler, Rock, James, Schneider and Spade means that this will probably be a very big hit.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART I
COMPOSER: Alexandre Desplat
WRITER: Steve Kloves
DIRECTOR: David Yates
CAST: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Billy Nighy, Cirian Hinds, Miranda Richardson, every other great actor in the United Kingdom
Part Seven, Part One. Confused yet? Looking forward to the Desplat score, but hoping they bring Williams back for Part Eight (aka Part Seven, Part Two) and that he references the Doyle, Hooper and Desplat scores -- that would be classy.
HOT TUB TIME MACHINE
COMPOSER: Christophe Beck
WRITERS: Josh Heald, Sean Anders, John Morris
DIRECTOR: Steve Pink
CAST: John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, Clark Duke, Chevy Chase, Lizzy Caplan
Four friends find themselves transported to 1986 thanks to the tub of the title. It's a little surprising to find Cusack in something like this, but the trailer's fairly amusing and it can't be any dumber than 2012.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
COMPOSER: John Powell
WRITERS: Peter Tolan, Cressida Cowell, Adam F. Goldberg
DIRECTOR: Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders
CAST: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill
A young Viking (voiced by Baruchel) befriends a young dragon in DreamWorks latest CG attempt to see if 3D is a sure-fire route to boxoffice gold (I guess it didn't hurt Avatar, anyway).
I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS
COMPOSER: Nick Urata
WRITERS: John Requa, Glenn Ficarra
DIRECTORS: John Requa, Glenn Ficarra
CAST: Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor, Leslie Mann
Policeman-turned-conman Carrey unexpectedly finds the love of his life in cellmate McGregor in this true-life comedy from the creators of Bad Santa, which gained a lot of attention at Sundance last year.
INCEPTION
COMPOSER: Hans Zimmer
WRITER: Christopher Nolan
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
CAST: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine
The new sci-fi thriller from the director that brought Batman back from the dead. I couldn't tell you what this one is actually about, but the trailer sure looks cool. Dark Knight co-composer James Newton Howard is letting his friend Hans fly solo this time.
IRON MAN 2
COMPOSER: John Debney
WRITER: Justin Theroux
DIRECTOR: Jon Favreau
CAST: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Rockwell
Downey faces two new villains, Rourke and Johansson, in the inevitable sequel. The double-villain thing didn't hurt the Christopher Nolan Batman films, so with luck we'll end up with something closer to Batman Begins than Batman and Robin. And the trailer's pretty cool too.
JONAH HEX
WRITERS: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor, William Farmer
DIRECTOR: Jimmy Hayward
CAST: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Michael Shannon, Michael Fassbender
Really? Another Josh Brolin horror Western? Seen it! (Okay, maybe not.)
THE KARATE KID
COMPOSER: Atli Orvarsson
WRITER: Michael Soccio
DIRECTOR: Harald Zwart
CAST: Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson
The 80s classic gets a cast makeover and a change in location to China. The film was produced by star Smith's parents Will and Jada, so I'm guessing the crew didn't yell at him much. The director made Pink Panther 2 and Agent Cody Banks, in case you were worried this might actually be good.
KICK-ASS
WRITER: Matthew Vaughn
DIRECTOR: Matthew Vaughn
CAST: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Moretz, Mark Strong
Teen Johnson becomes a superhero despite having no superpowers, and the trend catches on. The trailer makes it look pretty entertaining, though apparently it's going through a lot of composers (including Ilan Eshkeri, Marcus DeVries and John Murphy) which may not be a good sign.
KILLERS
WRITER: Bob DeRosa
DIRECTOR: Robert Luketic
CAST: Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Tom Selleck, Catherine O'Hara
A young married couple think they're being targeted by assassins in a comedy thriller from the director of Legally Blonde, Monster-in-Law, 21 and The Ugly Truth. Given the filmmaker's previous projects, expectations should be suitably lowered.
KNIGHT AND DAY
COMPOSER: John Powell
WRITER: Patrick O'Neill
DIRECTOR: James Mangold
CAST: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Maggie Grace, Paul Dano
That stellar pair that made Vanilla Sky such a modern classic (inset sarcasm tag here) returns in a globe-trotting romantic venture from the director of Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma and Identity. At least the John Powell score should be fun, but I'm not sure what Paul Dano is doing in a movie like this (besides cashing what I would hope is a generous paycheck).
THE LAST AIRBENDER
COMPOSER: James Newton Howard
WRITER: M. Night Shyamalan
DIRECTOR: M. Night Shyamalan
CAST: Noah Ringer, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel, Cliff Curtis
Fantasy adventure about a young martial artist, based on, of all things, an animated Nickelodeon series. Howard is always at his best scoring M. Night Shyamalan films; Shyamalan is not always at his best writing and directing M. Night Shyamalan films, though I have a weakness for The Happening.
THE LAST SONG
COMPOSER: Aaron Zigman
WRITER: Jeff Van Wie, Nicholas Sparks
DIRECTOR: Julie Ann Robinson
CAST: Miley Cyrus, Greg Kinnear, Kelly Preston
Holy crap, yet another frackin' Nicholas Sparks tearjerker, with Cyrus as the estranged daughter of Kinnear. What gratuitous tragedy will befall them, Sparks-style? Will Kinner drown during an oceanic rescue? Will Preston be smothered in a landslide? Will Cyrus contract Alzheimer's?
LEAP YEAR
COMPOSER: Randy Edelman
WRITERS: Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont
DIRECTOR: Anand Tucker
CAST: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow
Adams travels to Ireland to propose to boyfriend Scott and falls for rough-hewn Goode instead, in the worst romantic comedy of the year (the year is early, alas). Newton Thomas Sigel's photography is lovely, but what is Anand Tucker (Hilary and Jackie, And When Did You Last See Your Father) doing making a film like this? Blink and you may miss Lithgow's role as Adams' dad.
LEAVES OF GRASS
COMPOSER: Jeff Danna
WRITER: Tim Blake Nelson
DIRECTOR: Tim Blake Nelson
CAST: Edward Norton, Keri Russell, Susan Sarandon, Melanie Lynskey, Richard Dreyfuss
Norton plays twin brothers involved in pot growing in this comedy-thriller from actor-filmmaker Nelson, whose directorial efforts usually tend toward the grim side (Eye of God, O, The Grey Zone).
LEGION
COMPOSER: John Frizzell
WRITERS: Peter Schink, Scott Stewart
DIRECTOR: Scott Stewart
CAST: Paul Bettany, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Tyrese Gibson, Dennis Quaid, Charles S. Dutton
Renegade angel Bettany defends the patrons of a desert diner from a God-mandated Apocalypse in this religious thriller which is much more enjoyable than you'd expect, mostly due to its overqualified cast. Frizzell's music gives the film a lot of energy, but I have to wonder if anyone will ever write a religious horror score that matches up to Goldsmith's Final Conflict.
LETTERS TO JULIET
COMPOSER: Andrea Guerra
WRITERS: Jose Rivera, Tim Sullivan
DIRECTOR: Gary Winnick
CAST: Amanda Seyfried, Chris Egan, Gael Garcia Bernal, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero
Seyfriend tries to reunite long-separated lovers Redgrave and Nero, while falling for Egan despite being engaged to Bernal. This looks awful, and the film's subtext is much more interesting -- in real life, Redgrave and Nero starred in Camelot together 43 years ago, Redgrave had a child with Nero and left her husband, Tony Richardson, but Redgrave and Nero didn't actually marry until 2006.
THE LOSERS
WRITERS: James Vanderbilt, Peter Berg
DIRECTOR: Sylvain White
CAST: Zoe Saldana, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Jason Patric
A group of betrayed CIA agents seeks revenge in a thriller produced by Joel Silver, and from the director of Stomp the Yard.
LOVE RANCH
COMPOSERS: James Newton Howard, Chris P. Bacon
WRITER: Mark Jacobson
DIRECTOR: Taylor Hackford
CAST: Helen Mirren, Joe Pesci, Scout Taylor-Compton, Gina Gershon
Mirren and Pesci, perhaps the most unlikely married couple the big screen has ever seen, play the founders of the first legal bordello in Nevada; a strange follow-up to Ray for director Hackford. |