Part 1 of Winter-Spring 2012-2013 Movie Preview

Somehow I've managed again to sync the lack of watched movies with the end of the Fall = just perfect for the usual entry in this time of year. So, let's get straight to the point with some December releases.

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is the prequel to "The Lord of the Rings". Directed also by Peter Jackson, having the same production team, the same screenwriters .. should sound promising, right ? Well, not for me, simply because "The Hobbit" is a children's book, relatively short, infinitely less complex than "Lord of the Rings" ... but this alone still wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that this was supposed to be the first part of two. I think this was already exaggerated as length, but now it looks even worse, they want another trilogy ! For a book which if I remember well is shorter than any of the three in LotR. "The Fellowship of the Ring" is for me somewhere up high in the top of all movies ever watched (partially subjective) and one of the best adaptations for the screen from a book (yes, even better than "Return of the King" which is excessively lengthened in the end). Unfortunately I can't see how "The Hobbit" in three parts could get at least up the level of "The Two Towers" which is a book a bit harder to adapt considering the action threads, and still the result was decent. Conclusion: I'm afraid that everything is about $ .. and since more movies mean more $ .....

Since we're close to the adapting topic, another title with a box-office potential for the end of the year is "Jack Reacher". Here I can't say much because I have no idea what is in the book which seems to be actually a series of crime novels having the above mentioned as main character. The part that might deserve some attention is the director and screenwriter of the movie: Cristopher McQuarrie who after the success with "The Usual Suspects" from long ago was also involved in "Valkyrie" or "The Tourist" more recently. Well .. none shined, but anyway both were above the usual mindless Hollywoodish action.

For the end of December we have the final production made by Tarantino. Maybe I'm a bit too skeptic today but for some reason Jamie Foxx doesn't look very convincing as lead character in the trailer of "Django Unchained". We'll see ...

Since it's been a while from my last reference to a real horror, I'll stop to "Mama" for the beginning of January 2013. I think the trailer says enough. And for who tastes the genre, it seems that somewhere online there's also a short movie on which this one is based upon ;)

I didn't see yet the second part of "Expendables", but from what I've heard it shows that Schwarzenegger took a long break from acting (not that we're speaking of Oscar material anyway). Despite all these "The Last Stand" for me looks more fun than Tarantino's production from above (maybe I'm subjective, and I still have my childhood marked by "Terminator 2", "Total Recall", "Predator" and others :) ). To top this the direction belongs to a Korean - Jee-woon Kim - from whose movies I didn't see any, but I have four or five on my "to watch list" (all having a rating bigger than 7 on IMDb).

Sometime long long ago we had a Lee Marvin pissed off by being betrayed and left in a pool of blood by his partners in crime. More recently, but still more than 10 years ago, Mel Gibson was getting the same treatment in the remake. Both of their names were Porter (as a side note somewhere meanwhile Chow-Yun Fat was getting into the same troubles in a Hong Kong made production). Well, it seems that the character's name is actually "Parker" and I found out that he's also the lead in a book, or again more exactly a series of crime novels - more or less good. Even if the story somehow is able to catch your attention (like a sort of condensed and energized Monte Cristo) I still think I'll prefer the Gibson's Porter version to a "yet another Jason Statham movie" coming out at the end of January.

In February we have a sort of mix between a light horror, comedy and romance - "Warm Bodies". As a reference, the movie has the same director as "50/50". And even given that I'm not really into the last two of the above, I don't know why but from all the premieres in this entry it seems this one is the most promising :)

After Schwarzenegger, we have an entry with Stallone (and the third "action hero" comes immediately below). Actually the reason why I'm bringing into discussion "Bullet to the Head" is that it's the first movie directed by Walter Hill since 2002 (in case it sounds a bit cryptic make a name check on IMDb). Unfortunately, what's below doesn't seem that promising ...

To complete the list, I'm closing February with the fifth episode of Bruce Willis' life as John McClane in "A Good Day to Die Hard". Somehow the impression given by the trailer is the opposite to the previous title. On the other hand the directing is also on the other side of the balance ... ("Max Payne" should be enough as reference)

Next week : March - May ;)