- Killshot (January 23)Â – This movie started shooting when Methuselah was a baby. Okay, that’s a little exaggerated, but it was shot between October 2005 and January 2006. John Madden’s adaptation of this Elmore Leonard crime novel has been sitting on the shelf for years. Presented by Quentin Tarantino, it stars Thomas Jane and Diane Lane as a couple who get tangled in a scam with a bumbling, small-time con artist (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and his over-the-hill hitman partner, the Blackbird (Mickey Rourke). Rosario Dawson and Johnny Knoxville costar. The novel was great, and this one has been on my most anticipated list for the past two years now. Hopefully it actually gets released this year. Â Maybe we’ll have to wait anther 30 or 40 years.
- Outlander (January 23) – So, technically this is not a 2009 movie, as it’s played in virtually every country EXCEPT the US, from Latvia to France, from Spain to Kuwait, and so on. That’s about to change. Howard McCain’s sci-fi/action/adventure film will be hitting US theaters, just not in as many as we’d like. The story follows Kainan, a man from another planet, who crash lands on Earth during the time of the Vikings. He also happens to bring with him a giant predatory alien, both of whom are out for each other’s blood. Kainan forms an alliance with the Vikings to defeat the alien. The cast alone has me eager for this already fairly well-excepted genre flick, featuring Jim Caviezel as Kainan, Sophia Myles, Ron Perlman and John Hurt. It may sound cheesy, but I wouldn’t judge this book by it’s cover.
- Fanboys (February 6) – Five different release dates, a whole bunch of re-shoots, and two different versions. Those are just a few figures to mull over when thinking about ‘Fanboys’. The premise about a group of friends who, in 1998, try to break into Skywalker Ranch to steal an early print of ‘The Phantom Menace’ for their dying friend is original and ripe for a whole heap of comedy. One version of the film includes the dying friend angle and is more heartfelt. The other version has the dying friend plot point excised and is replaced by raunchy, vulgar humor. Which version we’ll get on February 6 is anyone’s guess, but the mere fact that the film is finally coming out is a miracle in of itself.
- Tokyo! (March 6) -Â While comic book geeks and movie geeks alike pour into theaters to see ‘Watchmen’, this intriguing, independent film will be getting released in art house theaters across the country. ‘Tokyo!’ is a film by three daring filmmakers: Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Bong Joon-ho. It explores the Japanese capital city through three stories. The young girlfriend of a filmmaker wakes up one morning to find she has gone through a bizarre, physical transformation. A monster-man rises from the sewers of the city to cause havoc. An apartment shut-in must venture outside his front door when a beautiful pizza delivery-woman collapses in his hallway. These three tales are going to make for one captivating film.
- The Horsemen (March 13) – There are a number of reasons this film has me excited. One of them is the original slant on the serial killer story. More importantly, it’s the first feature film from Swedish director Jonas Akerlund, who last entertained us in 2002 with ‘Spun’. In the six years that fell in between, Akerlund was busy doing music videos and concert tours for the likes of Metallica, Madonna, Blink 182, The Prodigy and U2. As if this wasn’t reason enough, the film stars the highly under-rated Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang, Patrick Fugit, Eric Balfour (Hell Ride) and the great character actor Peter Stormare (Constantine). The story follows a widowed detective who can’t get over his wife’s death and discovers a connection exists between himself and the suspects of a string of murders related to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Continue reading “Smaller” Films to Watch for in 2009
