Winter-Spring 2013-2014 Movie Preview - Part 1

Since I didn't manage to see anything this week that's worth spending a blog entry time, I find myself in sync again with the end of November and with the usual preview list for the next six months. So, let's kick it ...

In the beginning of December we have "Out of the Furnace". A drama that reminds me a bit of "Winter's Bone". We'll see if it also confirms at the same level. The trailer seems relatively promising ...
I had some second thoughts before including "The Hobbit II" in the enumeration. I'm wondering what else can be squeezed out of this franchise, after making three movies out of a short children's book: the 1st consistently filled with dwarf-orcish martial arts to justify its length, and the 2nd apparently teleporting Legolas in the story due to lack of ideas. Just to raise more the box office by dragging in Orlando Bloom's teengirl fans (I actually considered re-reading the book to convince myself he's not there, but a quick look on Wikipedia confirmed it). But well .. I can still hope for a miracle = that the adaptation gets the kids story a bit closer to the much more complex subject of LotR ...
The end of December brings something that some already consider to be the worst movie of the year: "47 Ronin". To be fair, neither the directing, nor the screenwriting credits recommend this. But after past experiences like "Ninja Assassin" or "The Warrior's Way", unjustly buried by some U.S. critics, who knows ? Maybe we'll have another surprise ...
January seems quite scarce in announced releases, so forgive me but I'll switch to some horrors (I'm anyway writing this entry late into St. Andrew's night so the "atmosphere" fits :P). Let's start with "Open Grave", an indie with a sufficiently catchy subject. You're waking up with amnesia in a ground hole filled with corpses. Who are you and how did this happen ? (unfortunately the trailer cuts a bit from the mistery ...)
"Devil's Due" seems more hardcore. Again I thought a bit if to add it or not in the enumeration, not as much due to the bloody disgusting stuff which I can get over with, but more because I'm fed up with lame reused stories ("Rosemary's Baby" meets "The Omen"). Even more, the movie's done in the overused and already annoying mockumentary style. But if 20th Century Fox financed this, maybe there's something I don't see yet ...
I'm closing January with something that I didn't do before in the preview entries. An anti-recommendation. Which is not a horror (although when you hear "I, Frankenstein" probably that's what's coming into your mind). And not being a horror is probably the only part it has in common with "Frankenstein" - the classic novel, which is actually a drama with some SciFi and romance nuances. A drama with so many senses hidden there that a blasphemy as what's shown in the trailer doesn't deserve any single extra comment ...
In February, after some delays, we finally get "RoboCop", the remake. I've heard many doubts about this movie. I still prefer to give it some credit, and I hope at something at least as decent as the "Total Recall" remake. After all, the original story was a good one, and the director is Jose Padilha ("Tropa de Elite"), so he's not exactly a randomly picked no-name ...
Ok, if there is to be a comedy in the today's list, let it be a guilty pleasure :P : "Vampire Academy". Maybe unbelievable, but the movie is actually based on a novel. And to raise a bit more the expectancy the directing belongs to Mark Waters who was responsible for "The Spiderwick Chronicles", one of the few fantasies from the flood following LotR that managed to be less ridiculous and more heart-warming ...
At the end of February Liam Neeson returns in "Non-Stop". Under the same director as in "Unknown" and with the same attitude as in "Taken". Should I say more ? ...
That's it for the winter. Next time, the spring ...