Tag: upcoming films

Upcoming 2018 Movies (You May Have Missed)

Greetings. It’s a fresh year and an assortment of movies await us in 2018. That means it’s time for my yearly ‘upcoming movies you may have missed’ rundown. In this post (which I have done previously in 2015 and 2017) I attempt to list five films due for release in the coming months, which perhaps aren’t so well known or have yet to receive much marketing. I hope you’ll find my choices interesting and befitting of your watchlist.

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How to Talk to Girls at Parties (Dir. John Cameron Mitchel)

Based on the short story of the same name by Neil Gaiman, How to Talk to Girls at Parties follows a group of teenage boys who go to a party to meet girls, only to find the girls are far beyond their wildest expectations. It’s a science fiction story set in the 1970s, with elements of romance and comedy — the trailer provides a good idea of what to expect. It seems to be a rather quirky and offbeat film, which has divided audiences thus far. Nonetheless, it has me intrigued and Elle Fanning has been sublime in her recent roles. The film premiered at Cannes last year, and is expected to release in May this year.

More Info: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd.

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Wildlife (Dir. Paul Dano)

Wildlife marks Paul Dano’s debut as a director, and stars Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Ed Oxenbould in the principal roles. It’s set in 1960, and is based on the novel of the same name by Richard Ford, which follows a boy who watches his parents’ marriage fall apart after they move to Montana, and his mother falls in love with another man. The screenplay was written by Dano and long-time collaborator and fellow actor Zoe Kazan. I feel as though there’s substantial talent surrounding this film, and am interested to see Dano’s voice as a director. The film is having its world premiere this month at the Sundance Film Festival, with a wide release (hopefully) later this year.

More Info: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd.

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1987: When the Day Comes (Dir. Jang Joon-hwan)

I always like to include at least one Asian film on this list, and the movie on my radar this year is 1987: When the Day Comes, which is a historical drama based on true events surrounding South Korea’s democracy movement in 1987. This is the year that authorities attempted to cover up the murder of a student named Park Jong-chul, who was tortured to death by the military regime. South Korea have had a very successful string of historical films recently, with the likes of The Age of Shadows and A Taxi Driver, and I’m hoping 1987 shapes up to be as rousing and engaging. It released in South Korea two weeks ago, and has a limited release in the U.S. starting today. Here’s the trailer.

More Info: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd.

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I Think We’re Alone Now (Dir. Reed Morano)

The second film on this list to feature Elle Fanning is set after an apocalypse, where two people find themselves to be unlikely companions. Peter Dinklage plays a recluse seemingly against Fanning’s quirky youthful character. Dinklage is, of course, most well known for Game of Thrones these days, but has been an actor for a very long time, and had a brilliant role as a withdrawn character in the 2003 film The Station Agent, which I recommend so much. I’m really excited to see him in another such role. Like Wildlife, I Think We’re Alone Now is having its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this month, with a wider released hopefully forming sometime in the not too distant future.

More Info: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd.

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Vox Lux (Dir. Brady Corbet)

The last film on my list is a bit of a wild card — not too much has been revealed about Vox Lux, but it’s a drama which follows a character named Celeste, who rises from the ashes of a major national tragedy to become a pop super star. It’s set across fifteen years, and will include original music by Sia, with Rooney Mara and Jude Law in central roles. I am a big fan of both Mara and Law, and am always eager to see their new work. However, news surrounding Vox Lux has been very limited since it reportedly began shooting early last year. I’m hoping the film will materialise at some point in the coming months.

More Info: IMDb, Variety, Letterboxd.

Thank you very much for reading. Since you’re here, why not check out my picks for the top ten movies of 2017. At the end, I list even more films I’m looking forward to this year. As always, check in again for more thoughts and information on film, and swing by my letterboxd profile to see what I’m watching.

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Upcoming 2017 Movies (You May Have Missed)

Hello, tomodachi. A belated welcome to two-thousand-and-seventeen. I’ve been devouring movies to escape reality, so my first Watched This Month of the year is probably going to look like a hot mess. Let’s worry about that later, though. For now, I want to share with you five upcoming films that I am eagerly awaiting. I’ve gone with some more obscure and less talked about features to hopefully add a little variety to the babble. Last time I wrote a post like this, only three of the five mentioned actually found a release date. Let’s hope I’m more accurate this time!

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First and foremost, we have Bong Joon-ho’s Okja, which is due for release on Netflix in the Summer. It tells the story of a young girl named Mija, who risks all to prevent a powerful, multi-national corporation from kidnapping her best friend, who happens to be a giant animal.

From what I’ve read thus far, the film will provide a commentary on capitalism, which brings it in line with Mr. Bong’s 2013 feature Snowpiercer, which was somewhat of an action-packed political allegory.

Okja is said to be set 60% in South Korea and 40% in New York, with a Korean lead and an English-speaking supporting cast, which includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Lily Collins and Giancarlo Esposito — certainly a cast to get excited for.

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Next up we have the French coming-of-age, cannibalistic drama Raw, which is currently making the rounds at Sundance. The film is directed by Julia Ducournau and stars Garance Marillier in the lead role. It follows a vegetarian veterinarian who is forced to undergo a carnivorous hazing ritual at school, after which she develops a lust for meat.

I’m not a fan of body horror, but I hear that Raw is more a ‘gross concept’ than an out-right gore fest. After hearing about it last year, it had my hesitant attention, but the trailer — which released last week — has me keenly interested. It’s due for release in the US in March and in the UK in April.

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I’m cheating slightly with Over the Fence, which released in Japan last September, but there’s a good chance it will materialise outside its home nation at some point in the coming months. For now, we have to make do with the trailer.

The film is directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita, who had a massive hit in 2005 with the endearing high-school drama Linda Linda Linda. The much loved Joe Odagiri and Yu Aoi star as broken individuals who meet by chance and begin a seemingly tumultuous relationship.

This film has my attention mostly due to the talent involved, but Japanese movies often portray dejection and the more lonesome, subdued aspects of relationships and everyday life with keen precision. They let the camera do the talking, which is something I hope to see in Over the Fence.

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Moving on to Breathe, which is Andy Serkis’ directorial debut. This is a film I expected to have a lot more buzz, but then again, not a lot of information has been revealed. It tells the true story of Robin Cavendish, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.

Man of the moment Andrew Garfield plays Robin, with Claire Foy playing his long-time wife Diana. The only ‘footage’ thus far is this sole set picture, which is unusual given the film is rumoured to appear in Switzerland next month. Hopefully a trailer will emerge soon.

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Finally, we have The Discovery, which had its world premiere at Sundance two days ago and is due for release on March 31st via Netflix. It’s a love story set in a reality where the existence of the afterlife has been scientifically verified. Inevitably, people begin killing themselves to reach to supposed paradise.

It stars Rooney Mara and Jesse Plemons in the leading roles and is the second feature from American director Charlie McDowell. The plot sounds very enticing and the trailer is intriguingly haphazard and very fascinating in tone, though anything with Rooney Mara is generally worth watching. I also loved Jesse Plemons in Fargo, so I’m excited to view more of his work.

That’s but a snapshot of what looks to be an interesting year for film. Initially, I was also going to write about Colossal, which is a movie I heard about so long ago that I thought it had come and gone already, but the teaser made its way online two days ago and has generated a lot of attention.

Anyway, thank you for visiting. For a sort of too long, didn’t read rundown…

The Discovery is due on 31st March via Netflix, which will also release Okja in the Summer. Raw is due on 10th March in the USA and on 7th April in the UK, the latter of which is the same date as Colossal‘s US release. Over the Fence has already been released in Japan and will hopefully make its way overseas at some point this year and currently Breathe doesn’t have a solid release date, but I expect a trailer will appear in the coming months, which will likely bring it more widespread attention.

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Upcoming 2015 Movies (You May Have Missed)

2015 looks set to be a stunning year for film, but with many talking about Star Wars and the various other upcoming blockbusters, some features have begun to slip under the radar. Here are some upcoming films (released in the UK and US this year) you may have missed (and should definitely look out for). For all the movies I haven’t included, please swing by Hypersonic55, who has compiled a lovely, lengthy list of the features to look out for this year.

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Silence ~ “Two Jesuit priests, Sebastiao Rodrigues and Francis Garrpe, travel to seventeenth century Japan which has, under the Tokugawa shogunate, banned Catholicism and almost all foreign contact. There they witness the persecution of Japanese Christians at the hands of their own government which wishes to purge Japan of all western influence. Eventually, the priests separate and Rodrigues travels the countryside, wondering why God remains silent while His children suffer.”

Originally planned to be Martin Scorsese‘s next project following Shutter Island, production for Silence was delayed numerous times, with many believing the director would turn tail and direct The Irishman instead. Silence is clearly close to Scorsese’s heart, however, with filming set to begin in Taiwan in February, with The Guardian reporting a late 2015 release and Movie Insider listing November 2015. Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver are among the main cast, with Tadanobu Asano also rumoured to appear. The screenplay is based on Shusaku Endo’s acclaimed novel of the same name, which was adapted to film (beautifully so) by Masahiro Shinoda in 1971.

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Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter ~ “A lonely Japanese woman becomes convinced that a satchel of money buried and lost in a fictional film, is in fact, real. With a crudely drawn treasure map and limited preparation, she escapes her structured life in Tokyo and embarks on a foolhardy quest across the frozen tundra of Minnesota in search of her mythical fortune.”

Based on an urban legend about a Japanese woman who purportedly died searching in vain for the money buried in the Coen brothers’ 1996 film Fargo, Kumiko looks absolutely stunning. The trailer displays some gorgeous cinematography and communicates an incredibly eerie tone. The film is directed by David Zellner and stars Academy Award nominee Rinko Kikuchi (whom you may have seen more recently in Pacific Rim); who I believe will excel as the lonesome Kumiko. Her talent is a cut above the rest and if the trailer is anything to go by, we’re in for a treat. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter is out in the UK on February 20th and the US on March 18th.

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Ex Machina ~ “Caleb, a 24 year old coder at the world’s largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world’s first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.”

This debut feature from Alex Garland—the writer of 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Never Let Me Go—stars Domhnall Gleeson (of Harry Potter and About Time fame) and Oscar Isaac (who is set to appear as Apocalypse in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse), with Swedish actress Alicia Vikander as the android Ava. Released in the UK on January 21st and the US on April 10th, the film looks set to stun as the years first sci-fi thriller. Check out the trailer here.

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Southpaw ~ “As tragedy strikes him in his prime, famed boxer Billy Hope begins to fall into a great depression. Once the decision regarding the custody of his daughter is under question, Billy decides to get his life back on track by getting back into the ring. “

Jake Gyllenhaal has undergone a complete transformation for the lead in Southpaw, utterly different in build to his Lou Bloom character in 2014’s Nightcrawler. There’s little information on the film, but it’s directed by Antoine Fuqua and stars Rachel McAdams, Naomie Harris and Forest Whitaker, alongside Gyllenhaal. The film’s title is a term used to describe a left-handed boxer and, interestingly, it was to feature Eminem in the lead role before the script went through numerous changes and Gyllenhaal was eventually cast. Unfortunately, there’s no release information yet, but with post-production underway, we’re likely to see the film sometime this year.

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Life in a Fishbowl ~ “Three tales of three people who have a lasting effect on one another. A young writer whose career is skyrocketing finds himself in a stormy marriage. He divorces his wife after the death of their daughter, shuts himself from the outside world and drinks himself to death over a twenty-year period. At the same time, a young single mom moonlights as a prostitute to make ends meet and a former soccer star is recruited into the snake pit of international banking and loses touch with his family.“

Life in a Fishbowl was a huge hit in its native Iceland last year, even out performing Hollywood blockbusters. It was the country’s entrant to the Academy Awards’ Best Foreign Language Film category, and while it didn’t make the cut, it’s definitely one to look out for this year. Described as “strongly acted and sensitively directed” by Variety and with a score by the ever wonderful Olafur Arnalds, Life in a Fishbowl is directed by Baldvin Zophoníasson and stars Thor Kristjansson, Thorsteinn Bachman and Hera Hilmar in the principle roles, the latter of whom Western audiences may have seen in Da Vinci’s Demons. Here’s the trailer and here’s hoping the distributors don’t take too long sharing this hidden gem with the rest of the world.

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