#17
Side Effects
February 8
Steven Soderbergh delivered something unexpected with Magic Mike last year and I’m hoping he can do it again with Side Effects, a prescription drug thriller centered on a troubled and depressed woman (Rooney Mara) who is taking serious amounts of prescription drugs to deal with the anxiety surrounding the pending release of her husband (Channing Tatum) from prison. Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vinessa Shaw co-star.
Soderbergh churns his movies out fast and as such they can be a little hit and miss, but here’s to hoping he keeps the streak alive in 2013.
#16
The World’s End
October 25
Writer/director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are back together again to finish off what they are calling the “Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy” (aka “Blood and Ice Cream trilogy”). The trilogy began with the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, continued with Hot Fuzz and will now be complete with The World’s End and as you can see from the picture above they have some fantastic talent along for the ride.
The story takes place 20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, and five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King, a 40-year old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their home town and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, The World’s End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s. Reaching The World’s End is the least of their worries.
Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan complete the circle of five friends and Rosamund Pike also co-stars.
#15
Blood Ties
TBA
Blood Ties finds Marion Cotillard teaming with her real-life love interest, writer/director Guillaume Canet who co-wrote Blood Ties with Cotillard’s Nightingale helmer James Gray.
The film itself is an English-language remake of Jacques Maillot‘s 2008 French film Rivals (Les liens du sang) and along with Cotillard stars a fleet of impressive names including Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Mila Kunis, Zoe Saldana, James Caan, Noah Emmerich, Matthias Schoenaerts, Lili Taylor, Charlie Tahan, Griffin Dunne and Yul Vazquez.
Beyond the names, the story is set in New York in 1974 and follows two brothers (Crudup and Owen) on both sides of the law, who must face off over organized crime in Brooklyn during the 1970s. Crudup plays a cop while Owen’s character is an auto repair shop owner and ex-convict who’s asked to go back into the criminal underworld to help out the family
The film is completed and a Cannes premiere wouldn’t surprise me in the least as it is already lining up release dates in foreign markets for later this year.
