We have lots of interesting releases this December, but as usual I'll just mention a couple. We start with one "made in China", which actually premiered at some festival earlier this year. "Old Stone" ("Lao shi") it's a debut thriller of Johnny Ma, a Chinese director with a Canadian education. IMDb gives a slightly higher than average rating for now, but we'll see. Based on previous experiences I tend to trust more the Far East productions ...
We'll stay on the Asian continent with "The Great Wall". This time we have an established director - Zhang Yimou ("Hero", "House of Flying Daggers", etc.) and a cast lead by ... Matt Damon, for something that looks like a sort of fantasy ... The first trailer (which didn't give so much info) seemed more promising. The second, however, made me doubt. Still, again, we talk about the guy who was behind "Hero", which I think it's the best wuxia (Chinese fantasy) ever made (and no, I didn't forget about Ang Lee).
Although I typically tend to get over the box office targets that already have enough publicity, I'll stop a bit on "Star Wars: Rogue One". The reason is simply that last year's "The Force Awakens" was so disappointing that I'm expecting something much better now, even though it's a spin-off, secondary story thread, SW branded money maker, tell it how you want... I still have higher hopes than I have for the "main story".
The fifth "Underworld: Blood Wars" enters cinemas tomorrow. The first two movies in this series made the difference from what else we have starring vampires & werevolves ("Blade" series, "Twilight" shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence, and others). The last two "Underworld"(s) unfortunately dropped to a much lower level. Maybe we'll have a comeback now ...
In January we have "Sleepless", a remake of "Nuit Blanche", a very good French action from 2011. Remains to be seen if the US version can top that.
"Split" is a horror by M. Night Shyamalan who, after a very long series of failures, incredibly enough (really, I don't know how he still got a budget) seems to get back in the shape he was in the beginnings of his career ("6th Sense", "Unbreakable"). At least that's what the critics say after several screenings in festivals...
"The Lego Movie" was a very pleasant surprise. High expectations for "Lego Batman" next February.
"John Wick" was a very unpleasant surprise. Low expectations for "John Wick 2" (so theoretically I should be pleasantly surprised now, right?).
We're closing February with "A Cure for Wellness", the title that seem to me the most interesting and #1 on my waiting list from this series. Gore Verbinski is a good director. Justin Haythe is a good writer. The only problem is that the trailer says a bit too much...
Soon, the Spring season ...
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