Volume 34:
Iron Man Sad
Iron Man 3
Dir: Shane Black – Planned release date:
May 3, 2013
It’s hard for me
to get excited about a new Marvel film anymore, since The Avengers seemed like a pretty natural endpoint. Now that we’ve
seen the all-star team, it’s hard for me to get excited about going on a new
solo adventure. Also, the Iron Man
franchise seems more out of gas than most of the other Marvel heroes. As Iron Man 2 proved, Tony Stark’s story
stopped being interesting once the original film ended. For a third film to
work, Marvel would need to find a way to knock him back down again. The good
news is the trailer for Iron Man 3
seems to suggest that this third film does not exist simply to tread water.
The real reason
I’m excited for Iron Man 3 is that it
is the second directorial effort for Shane Black, who previously worked with
Robert Downey, Jr. on the brilliant Kiss
Kiss Bang Bang. He also gets a writing credit, which is promising
considering his sensibilities would seem to mesh perfectly with Downey, Jr. and
the Tony Stark character. This matchup promises brilliantly snarky patter,
though based on this trailer Stark isn’t going to be doing a lot of joking
around at all. In fact, things seem downright bleak for our hero, and after the
thoroughly uneventful second installment this is a welcome development. This
may be selling us a far darker film then we’re actually going to get, but that
Marvel is even teasing some ambition suggests that they may be willing to push
all their characters to the next level. When Avengers 2 eventually happens, it would be far more interesting if
all the heroes are completely different people by the time they team up again.
A Haunted House
Dir: Michael Tiddes – Planned release
date: January 11, 2013
Here’s one
promising trend I’ve noticed in the past two and a half years or so: these
so-called “parody” movies are quickly going out of style. Friedberg and Seltzer
haven’t released a movie since Vampires
Suck in 2010, and hopefully they will continue to fade away in the coming
months. (They do have a movie called The
Starving Games set to release in 2013. Like The Hunger Games. Get it?) Don’t get too comfortable, however! Scary Movie and Dance Flick scribe Marlon Wayans is still around to bestow this
gift upon is in the creatively fruitful month of January. In case you don’t get
it, it’s a spoof of the Paranormal
Activity movies, and by “spoof” I mean “pop culture reference machine with
additional fart and testicle jokes.” It was written in an afternoon.
Carrie
Dir: Kimberly Peirce – Planned release
date: March 15, 2013
Well, if we’re
going to remake beloved movies like Carrie
anyway, we might as well get talented people to make them, right? That’s
certainly what we have here, with Boys
Don’t Cry and Stop-Loss auteur
Kimberley Peirce manning the controls and Chloe Grace Moretz in the starring
role. The rest of the cast includes such names as Julianne Moore and Judy
Greer, and there’s certainly a lot of potential here for the film to
successfully adapt Stephen King’s horror tale for the modern age. This trailer
doesn’t tell us much of anything, but it does send the message that Moretz is
still as creepy as ever, and this isn’t just going to be a stenography job.
Does a new version of Carrie need to
exist? No, sir. But if it is going to exist, this is probably the best possible
version we’re going to get.
Holy Motors
Dir: Leos Carax – Planned release date:
November 9
In critical
circles, Leos Carax’s Holy Motors is
easily the most universally beloved movies of the year among those that have
seen it. From what I understand, it is about a million things; chief among them
the evolution (and possible devolution) of cinema as we enter the digital age.
You will get almost none of that here, but this trailer does communicate the
wackiness of the whole affair. I have not seen Holy Motors yet, and I was already excited to before I watched this
preview. After seeing it, it looks so appealingly bonkers that I feel like I
have to see it right now. This seems like my cup of crazy.
Mama
Dir: Andres Muschietti – Planned release
date: January 18, 2013
If you ever
wanted to see Jaime Lannister terrorized by a couple of creepy children, then Mama is precisely the horror film for
you. He and Jessica Chastain decide to take in a couple of their nieces after
they’re found lost in the woods. From there, things appear to get creepy. Or,
who knows? Maybe everything goes swimmingly and this is all just false
advertising. It is worth noting that this is yet another mediocre-looking
horror film that Guillermo del Toro has attached his name to, and the more he
does that the less “Presented by Guillermo del Toro” is going to mean on a
trailer. He directs a darn good movie, but his batting average as producer is
starting to get alarmingly small. Then again, if Pacific Rim turns out awesome what do I care?
By the way, not
long ago he was supposed to direct The
Hobbit. Remember those days? When it was just going to be one movie? Two
max? Ah, nostalgia.
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