The journey of anticipation continues today with ten more upcoming movies for 2013. Today’s batch includes a franchise starter, race cars, furious cars, online gambling, criminal body builders, sex, spies, a ravaged Earth and more.
Stars include Tom Cruise, Viola Davis, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Gemma Arterton, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, Adepero Oduye, Michael Fassbender, Hugh Jackman, Dwayne Johnson, Chris Hemsworth and Anthony Mackie… twice. And that’s just a sampling of what is offered.
I have included a navigation to browse all five lists directly below as well as at the end of this post for easy navigation.
Most Anticipated 2013 Navigation
As for now, let’s have a look at this ten and see what kind of art-house-meets-popcorn-films these titles have to offer…
#30
Twelve Years a Slave
TBA
Steve McQueen has proven to be an immense talent with his first two films — Hunger and Shame. He’s also a director unafraid to make the audience uncomfortable with a visceral sense of realism. He’s a director whose films have become required viewing any year they’re released and 12 Years a Slave features a cast and a story that continues that trend.
Twelve Years a Slave is based on the 1853 autobiography written by Solomon Northup, a New York citizen who was kidnapped in Washington in 1841 and rescued from a cotton plantation in Louisiana in 1853.
Chiwetel Ejiofor will play Northup, who regained his freedom after Samuel Bass, a Canadian carpenter who opposed slavery, smuggled letters to Northup’s wife, Anne Hampton (Kelsey Scott), ultimately starting the legal process to earn him back his freedom.
Michael Fassbender starred in McQueen’s previous two films and here he’ll play Edwin Epps, the film’s chief villain, a cruel plantation owner with whom Northup spends a significant portion of his 12 years in bondage (source).
The film also stars Ruth Negga, Adepero Oduye (who was fantastic and wrongly overlooked in Pariah), Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scoot McNairy, Garret Dillahunt, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson and Brad Pitt and I haven’t done any additional research to learn all of their roles as I feel I already know enough about this story and want to experience the rest first-hand in the theater. It sounds as if it is going to be a tough watch, but a rewarding one and I really can’t wait to see how McQueen caps off his first trilogy of films.
#29
Pain & Gain
April 26
It feels a little weird to go from something like a Steve McQueen feature to a farcical Michael Bay movie, but such is the world of cinema and my taste as I really can’t wait to see what this film has to offer. No, I don’t watch trailers so I have no idea what exactly the below video tells me about the movie, but the idea of Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson playing a pair of criminal bodybuilders involved in an extortion ring and a kidnapping plot and told through the ADD lens of Michael Bay is something I want to see.
The film is based on a 1999 Miami New Times article and along with Johnson and Wahlberg the cast includes Ed Harris, Tony Shalhoub, Anthony Mackie, Rob Corddry, Tony Plana, Ken Jeong, Bar Paly and the reliably funny Rebel Wilson.
It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea and there is a strong chance it will be awful, but anticipation is about “want,” which doesn’t always lead to the best decisions.
