#37
The Giver
August 15
[amz asin=”B008EEZ64Y” size=”small”]The fact this is a Weinstein release and it stars Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges along with Brenton Thwaites who is more likely to find stardom after his upcoming roles in Michael Bay‘s Transformers: Age of Extinction and Maleficent opposite Angelina Jolie, is enough to me to look forward to this adaptation of Lois Lowry‘s novel.
The project has been around for a long time with David Yates (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) attached to direct back in 2008, but with Philip Noyce aboard now I think we’re getting something of an upgrade.
At the age of twelve, Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), a young boy from a seemingly utopian, futuristic world, is singled out to receive special training from The Giver (Jeff Bridges), who alone holds the memories of the true joys and pain of life.
#36
The Quiet Ones
April 25
The idea The Quiet Ones is inspired by true events is a little silly, because, let’s face it, it’s inspired by people who may have tried this and thought something happened, but until you show me physical evidence a group of scientists actually conjured a ghost out of negative human energy I’ll show you the shit show that was The Apparition, which this film sounds very similar to. I guess my hope is Hammer Films, the rebooted horror house responsible for The Woman in Black, have learned from The Apparition and now know what not to do. We’ll see.
The Quiet Ones is inspired by true events and tells the story of an unorthodox, but charismatic professor who uses controversial methods and leads his best students off the grid to take part in a dangerous experiment: to create a poltergeist from negative human energy.
#35
Jupiter Ascending
July 18
More sci-fi wackiness from the Wachowski’s is on the way and Jupiter Ascending could be awful or wonderful, I find it hard to believe it could fall anywhere in-between. I give some credit to Warner Bros. for continuing to give Andy and Lana money to bring these weird visions to life, but it’s been quite a long time since The Matrix and I’m still waiting to see if they can stir our interests once again. Because, even though it hasn’t been a series of crash-and-burn efforts, it’s been a slow roll downhill ever since.
Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) was born under a night sky, with signs predicting that she was destined for great things. Now grown, Jupiter dreams of the stars but wakes up to the cold reality of a job cleaning toilets and an endless run of bad breaks. Only when Caine (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered ex-military hunter, arrives on Earth to track her down does Jupiter begin to glimpse the fate that has been waiting for her all along — her genetic signature marks her as next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos.
Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) and Mila Kunis (Oz The Great and Powerful) lead an international cast that also includes Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy), Eddie Redmayne (Les Misérables), Douglas Booth (LOL), Tuppence Middleton (TV’s “The Lady Vanishes”), Doona Bae (Cloud Atlas), James D’Arcy (Hitchcock) and Tim Pigott-Smith (Alice in Wonderland).
#34
Guardians of the Galaxy
August 1
My interest in Guardians of the Galaxy involves four things: 1.) director James Gunn; 2.) the fact this is a Marvel movie not centered on the Avengers; 3.) it features a talking raccoon; and 4.) it features a talking tree voiced by Vin Diesel. Those last two really do seem to make this a must see.
An action-packed, epic space adventure, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits — Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon, Groot, a tree-like humanoid, the deadly and enigmatic Gamora and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when Peter discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand — with the galaxy’s fate in the balance.
