It’s a new year, and with that comes the annual month of studios dumping their movies in January, hoping something manages to make money in the weak month but not counting on them to do much. This month however has at least a few movies I’m looking forward to seeing.
JANUARY 4
- Texas Chainsaw 3D – Another sequel to a remake of the a popular horror franchise. Not much excitement here. It would help if certain scenes from the movie didn’t look directly ripped from the 2003 remake, like Leatherface attacking the girls through the back off the car as Lindsay pointed out to me when we watched the trailer. They really didn’t try hard for this one, huh?
- The Impossible (wide)- From what I’ve heard this is exploitational crap, using a huge natural disaster in Thailand to focus on a vacationing family. The performances have been praised to death, but I’m not interested.
- Promised Land (wide) – On one hand the cast of this is great so I want to see it for that certainly, but the trailer seems a little too on the nose, trying to make a political message without too much subtlety. I’m hoping for a complexer movie than what I’m seeing in the trailer though. At least, I want to know how the script Krasinski and Damon wrote together delivers.
JANUARY 11- Gangster Squad – This film certainly stands out from the rest of this month’s offerings. Pushed back because of a movie theater scene being a bit too similar to the Aurora shooting, it went from a fairly prime fall spot to January. Hopefully it will do well for itself amongst the 2012 wide releases and crap movies out. I am definitely excited to see this finally. I wish they hadn’t changed the film even if it may have seemed insensitive to some, but I think it will still be awesome.
- A Haunted House – I… just… can’t… I’ve seen this trailer in theaters at least three times at this point and every time people laugh. I can’t wrap my head around it. People try to claim Django Unchained is offensive to black people yet this is okay? I never want to see this movie ever.
- Zero Dark Thirty (wide) – I’m very interested in seeing this and it’s gotten great reviews obviously. I still need to check out The Hurt Locker though. Not that they necessarily go together, but I’d like to see Bigelow’s other war film from the same vein. I know I’m behind on that, but I’m hoping to like both of them.
JANUARY 18
- Broken City – This could be a decent little crime thriller. The trailer doesn’t pop out as anything too fresh or unique so I’d be more likely to wait to watch this on cable though.
- The Last Stand – I couldn’t give less of a shit about Arnold and how old he is but that seems like the main focus of this movie. At least The Expendables has a shit ton of old people so it’s sort of a joke, this is just all about one old man struggling to catch his breath. Weirdly enough though this is directed by Jee-woon Kim who directed I Saw The Devil, a film I loved. It just does not compute that the same director made both of these movies.
- Mama – I can always go for a creepy horror movie. This one looks pretty good and Jessica Chastain and her black bob intrigue me. I’m hoping for minimal cheesy effect and some decent scare sequences and I’ll be thrilled.
JANUARY 25
- Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters – When I heard about this I thought it sounded like great campy fun and Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton in the lead roles gave me hope. Now that I’ve seen the trailer a few times I’m a little bewildered. It looks just a little too serious and the tone is throwing me off. I just wish it was more fun because right now I’m not interested.
- Movie 43 – Now this movie is just fun. Silly and wacky and funny. The trailer made me laugh out loud and of course the cast is just a who’s who of hilarious people. Can’t wait for this one.
- Parker – Another standard looking Jason Statham action movie. Except this time you get Jennifer Lopez thrown in the mix! Honestly, this past year I saw two performances that J Lo had from the late 90’s and they were impressive. I’d like to see her do more of that but she seems so far removed from the actress she was back then.
What are you looking forward to watching this month?