DECEMBER 21
With the mid-week releases of Amour, Monsters, Inc. 3D and Zero Dark Thirty you’d think only a couple movies would arrive on that Friday. WRONG! Instead we get five new releases set to appeal to virtually every audience member you can think of. Let’s have a look…
First there’s Jack Reacher starring Tom Cruise. Based on the Lee Child franchise of novels, the film features Cruise as the titular character, a former military policeman-turned-drifter. Child’s “One Shot” novel was the inspiration for this story as Reacher investigates a case in which a lone sniper murders five victims before being captured. Reacher discovers it’s more than a simple open-and-shut case.
Aside from the fact I’m a big Tom Cruise fan, one interesting piece to this story is Werner Herzog plays the film’s villain, but it’s been rumored we may only hear his voice. Either way, I’m in.
Next, Judd Apatow returns with a sequel/spin-off to Knocked Up. The film is This is 40 and it centers on the lives of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann), seeing how they are dealing with their current state of life following the events of the first film in which they more-or-less played second fiddle to Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen, neither of which have been confirmed for this film. Instead the supporting cast includes Megan Fox, Melissa McCarthy, Albert Brooks, Ryan Lee, John Lithgow and Charlyne Yi.
Here we’ll also get what will probably be a limited release of Walter Salles‘ On the Road starring Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley and Kristen Stewart in the adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s novel of the same name. I saw the film at Cannes (read that review here), but it has since been edited down with Salles removing 15 minutes based on the Cannes response.
David Chase (“The Sopranos”) throws his hat in the feature film ring with Not Fade Away, a film set in suburban New Jersey the 1960s, centered on a group of friends form a rock band and try to make it big. It will have its world premiere at the New York Film Festival and will certainly be looked at closely to see if the creator of “The Sopranos” has a life in feature filmmaking.
Hoping to share 3D screens with The Hobbit and Monsters, Inc., Paramount will release Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D from director Andrew Adamson (Shrek, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and producer James Cameron. The 3D film will feature artistic and acrobatic performances from some of the most elaborate Cirque du Soleil productions.
Then we come to my most anticipated of the bunch, The Impossible from The Orphanage director Juan Antonio Bayona. Starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, the story focuses on one family’s survival of the 2004 tsunami that ravaged Thailand on the morning of December 26th. Check out the trailer below, this just could become the Oscar surprise of the season.
