Films to Watch Out for in 2009
One of the things that I do to kill time is a IMDB search on what my favorite actors and directors next movies are. I just made a small list of my anticipated movies to watch out for in 2009( 2008 has been boring according to me so far). This list was made keeping in mind the abstractness and complexity of the plots. I have excluded the indie movies here.
Rendezvous with Rama
Director: David Fincher
*ing: Morgan Freeman
Rendezvous with Rama is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke published in 1972. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a thirty-mile-long cylindrical alien starship that passes through Earth’s solar system.The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its
mysteries. Because all extant names for Roman and Greek gods have been used on other newly-discovered celestial objects at this point, the Hindu god Rama is invoked in naming the object.
Freeman says “It’s a very intellectual science fiction film, a very difficult book to translate cinematically. [At least] we have found it very difficult to translate, to get ready for film”.
About the problems he was having with studios, he says “These things, they always want to make it into an action film, You can’t do it with this. And we’ve been having trouble getting someone to see the science
aspect of this, the exploratory aspects of it, rather than the blood and guts and stuff”.
This should be an absolute treat to the fincher fans.
Shantaram
Dir: Mira Nair
*ing: Jhonny Depp
Fact file of Gregory David Roberts after he escapes from Australia and enters India.
FROM 1982 to 1991
* Six months in remote Maharashtrian village, learn to speak Marathi language
* Live in Bombay slum, establish and operate free clinic for slum dwellers
* Imprisoned in India for 4 months
* Recruited by Bombay mafia, training in currency crime, gold smuggling, passports
* Gunrunning operation to unit of mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan
* Wounded in action, evacuated to Pakistan, recover and return to Bombay
* Appointed controller mafia forgery unit, write short stories, published in popular series
* Passport smuggler to Nigeria, Zaire, Iraq, Iran, Mauritius, SriLanka
* Establish casting agency for foreign extras in Bollywood movies, act in movies
* Arrive in Germany, work as singer, establish rock band, receive recording contract
* Manhunt by European police, escape custody in Italy & Switzerland,escape to India
* Act in Bollywood movies & TV dramas, establish travel agency in Bombay
* Passport smuggling to Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Nigeria, Zaire,Mauritius, etc.
* Break with Bombay mafia council, freelance drug smuggling missions to Europe
*Captured Frankfurt, 1990, imprisoned in Preungesheim prison with terrorists, 1990-91
* Extradited to Australia, end 1991
If you wont make a movie on him, then who else?
Inglorious Bastards
Dir: Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino has supposedly worked on this script for almost a decade , a decade …ok,this must be something special.
And the reviews for the script that are coming out are encouraging:
“If you took the bad guy swagger of RESOVOIR DOGS, the uber coolness and structure of PULP FICTION, throw in the revenge angle of KILL BILL, set it in World War II – you get INGLORIOUS BASTERDS.”
The plot goes as something like this:
A band of US soldiers facing death by firing squad for their misdeeds are given a chance to save themselves – by heading into the perilous no-man’s lands of Nazi-occupied France on a suicide mission for the Allies.
The lead character is named Lieutenant Aldo Raine .Raine leads a blood thirsty squadron of soldiers called the “Bastards” for a final mission that involves ruining Nazi party plans to premiere a propaganda film in Paris.
InterStellar
Dir: Steven Spielberg
Inter stellar is a science fiction movie directed by Steven Spielberg (and screenplay by Jonathan Nolan) based on Kip Thorne’s theories of gravity fields, wormholes and several hypotheses. This movie is basically about “a group of explorers who travel through a worm hole and into another dimension”.
Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist, known for his prolific contributions in gravitation physics and astrophysics. Kip Thorne is one most of the top most theoretical physicist of the second
half of the 20th century along with Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking.
Wiki explains worm hole as a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that is basically a ’shortcut’ through space and time. A wormhole has at least two mouths which are connected to a single throat or tube. If the wormhole is traversable, matter can ‘travel’ from one mouth to the other by passing through the throat. While there is no observational evidence for wormholes, spacetimes-containing wormholes are known to be valid solutions in general relativity.
Che
Dir: Steven Sodenberg
*ing: Benicio del Toro
Steven Sodenberg has been one of my fav. Directors. Always loved his movies be it Sex,Lies and videotape, Erin Brockovich, Traffic or Oceans Eleven.
His next release is a movie about Ernesto Che Guevara. Che is a two-part(Guerilla and the Argentine), four-and-a-half-hour bio-pic on one of the 20th century’s greatest revolutionary figures.
Steven Sodenberg has himself said that this can be considered as a part of the trilogy , the first being The Motorcycle Diaries directed by Walter Salles.
Benicio del Toro( a superb actor) won the best actor award at cannes this year for the portrayal as Che .
Any movie on such a controversial figure is something to look forward to.
Tree Of Life
Dir: Terrence Mallick
*ing: Sean Penn, Brad Pitt
He made only 4 movies in his life – Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The New World.
All of them except the last are a classic, especially The Thin Red Line.
I was blown away by The Thin Red Line and it is easily one of the best war movies I have seen.
His last movie the new world might not have lived up to the expectations but the cinematography and music was outstanding.
He is back with his latest offering called Tree of Life . Imdb says explains the plot as : In a mystical world of folklore, several individuals embrace in a race to find the Tree of Life, said to give immortality, fertility, and other supernatural powers.
Other movies that are interesting are The fighter by Darren Aronofsky, Burn after reading by the Coen brothers , The curious case of Benjamin Button by Fincher again and The human factor – a biopic on Nelson
Mandela by Clint Eastwood.
I am also sure that i missed much more.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I think you need to get your facts right mate Speilber is directing a bipic on Abraham Lincoln next year NOT Interstellar-go back and do some proper research before posting anything!!!
yup, Liam Neeson’s playing Lincoln….and Inglorious Bastards hasnt even been cast yet QT has stated that if the right actors arent available he’ll push it till they’re available(Leo Dicaprio’s in talks)
And i;m suprised you didnt mention Ashecliff , Martin Scorsese’s next movie or The Lovely Bones(Peter Jackson) or Amelia (Mira Nair)….whats was this, a copy, paste peice?
Don’t forget the Coen Brothers next flick ‘Burn After Reading’ starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt
sorry guys is getting released in 2008 .
sorry guys ‘Burn After Reading’ is getting released in 2008 .
You forgot to add Scorsese’s Shutter Island.
KILLING PABLO by joe carnahan starring christian bale & javier bardem should be interesting…
Terry Gilliam’s next “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”…with Johnny Depp and Heath Ledger….Ledger’s last movie…
@Maharsh…Shutter Island is know called Ashecliffe
To add:
Up for dec ‘08 or jan ‘09 release are:
David Fincher’s ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’
and Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Synecdoche, New York’.
Actually both of them do release in certain regions in ‘08… But i guess it would be ‘09 before they come here (India)
you forget watchmen…
the first time i saw that blood splattered smiley in the trailer i was blown away… they have actually used the panels of the novel as storyboards for the shots
since no one is taking about hindi films here to watch out for…..
here is my list……
Chandni Chowk to China
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone
Director : Nikhil Advani
The Last Lear
Cast: Amitabh Bachcan , Preity Zinta
Director: Rituparno Ghosh
Tera kya hoga Johnny
Cast: Karan Nath, Neil Nitin Mukesh
Director: Sudhir Mishra
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
Cast: SHarukh Khan , Anoushka Sharma
Director: Aditya Chopra
Dev D
Cast : Abhay Deol
Director : Anurag Kashyap
RAjkumar Hirani’s next with Aamir
Dilli 6
Cast : Abhishek Bachchan , Sonam Kapoor
Director: Rakesh Mehra
I’d shoot myself beore calling Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi a film to ‘watch out’ for
@Abhay
i can presume u didnt like DDLJ….
yeah…thats an extreame reaction for rab ne bana di jodi…i know it seems like a typical yashraj flick with all those punjabi songs but you really have to give credit to the director of DDLJ…atleast wait for the promo and then decide.
but chandini chowk to china should not be on that list and rajkumar hirani’s movie is called 3 idiots
a few more id like to add
Warcraft-based on the game
dragonball-based on the anime
and has anyone noticed the quality films brad pitt gets to work in …lucky bastard
ya vivek…
he’s working with david fincher..the coen brothers…and i suppose he’s working in tarantimo’s next “Inglorius Bastards”…….Can anyone ask for more than that…
@ kunal
CHandni Chowk to China is there on the list simply because i loved the trailer…..
i would wait for Marmayogi, “produced” by Kamal Hasan, budget of 150 crores ! http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/aug/08kamal.htm
DDLJ….what the sugary sweet cliched rom com home movie with more ham than a burger?….of course i loved it ( whoa there’s some off the charts sarcasm right there!)
inspite of the sugar and ham DDLJ worked bigtime and im not only talking about the box office…
cliche..im not sure……infact what followed ddlj was cliche…i mean the movies which tried to be ddlj….
look its just my opinion…..i’m not against nonsense entertainment or romantic comedies….in fact im quite a big fan but i still dont think ddlj was a ‘great’ movie …..it was ok….and btw Aditya Chopra also directed Mohabbatein….or did anyone forget that…..i prefer Kjo movies at least Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna had some semblance of maturity to it…( K3g and kkhh didnt)…..all im saying is dont fall for the hype machine look forward to movies that deserve an audience …like mumbai meri jaan or dilli 6
but then…to each his own i guess..
Abhay
Kank Was one of the worst movies i ever saw….
ofcourse im looking forward to mumbai meri jaan which is releasing in september….i only mentioned movies which are going to release later this year or next year…..
and how do u decide which movies deserve an audience or which dont ?
i guess its a personal choice
as u said to each his own………
Hmm, I think Welcome, Dhoom 2 and Tashan were definitely worse than KANK.
KANK is a confused film and that does not make it the worst film.
But yeah, what works for one, may not work for another. So its cool :-)
Sorry for the off-topic, brief post: What’s the word on “Maan Gaye Mughal E Azam”? It looks off-the-wall crazy, but it’s not available in any format in NJ, even though it supposedly released somewhere on the planet today.
One might also watch out for another hindi film called “A Wednesday” releasing 5th Sep 2008.*ing Naseerudin Shah. For those interested, here is the link to the theatrical trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI3E1jneWvg
Do chk it out!!!
Abhay….if you seriously think KANK was better than mohabbatein or DDLJ (which i know are not a great movies) then i dont know what to say…Ashwin is right that KANK is easliy one of the worst movies all time
personally i am looking forward to Dilli 6 more than any other movie, but you cant ignore Rab ne bana di jodi even though in all likelihood it might end up being a typical yashraj type cliched movie …but there is still that chance that you maybe totally surprised…so dont dismiss it yet !!