Guest Post: Coming soon to a silver-screen near you

Check out this guest post from Niall (@sarxos). He glances back over the last eight months of movies and takes a look at what we can look forward to for the rest of 2009.

- Darren

2009 is two-thirds of the way through and so far we’ve had some pretty amazing movies hit our screens, not least of which was last weeks epic, outlandish and affront to spelling, Inglourious Basterds from director, auteur and all-round cinephile Quentin Tarantino. But I’m not concerned with what went before, rather I’m intrigued by what the next 4 months have to offer. With that in mind a give you five movies to watch out for in the latter half of this year. I’m looking at one per month and a special fifth.

First up is a definite must see for me, 9 from director Shane Acker and producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov. So that’d be the guy responsible for A Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride teaming up with the guy behind Night Watch and Wanted to produce a CGI movie based on an award winning short written and directed by the guy they have directing this. Oh and the CGI stylises the stop-motion look of the 2 Burton efforts. Tell me what’s not to like there? On the story front the plot revolves around a bunch of rag-dolls, stranded in a post-apocalyptic world after the destruction of mankind by the machines, attempting to fulfil the mission given to them by their scientist creator. So it’s a sort of Muppets meets Terminator (although if they did make that with Miss Piggy as Sarah Connor that’d be awesome). The initial trailer makes it look very promising for a fast paced action adventure. The film opens 9/9/09 (very clever marketing indeed).

A raft of films are out in October. The Fantastic Mr. Fox looks…well fantastic. The graphics are a homage to Czech animation from the 60s which gives the film a distinctive character. Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island looks eerily haunting with his main leading man these days Leonardo DiCaprio safely ensconced in the title role. However the main film of interest in October, for me anyway, is Disney/Pixar’s Up. The movie has been out in US since May and is quickly approaching $300 million. The plot centres around a grumpy old fart who decides one day that he’s sick of his neighbours and sets off on a trip into the unknown. The banter between him and his stowaway boy-scout companion in the trailer is very witty and laugh-out-loud funny, while the visuals pop off the screen with a vibrancy of colour and style. All word from the States indicates another exceptionally well made family friendly film that lingers long in the memory. It’s Pixar’s first foray into 3D animation and as the company is apparently unable to do anything wrong it should look exceptional in theatres equipped for the added dimension. The movie lands October 9th.

November usually sees the start of Oscar season in the US with weighty, cerebral and usually long and possibly dull movies making their way to the silver screen. This year is a little different as Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster film 2012 crashes into cinemas. This is the guy who blow up the White House in Independence Day and destroyed the entire northern hemisphere in The Day After Tomorrow. Not content with merely wiping out half the planet he turns his focus on unleashing a wave of destruction across the entire globe. The Mayan civilisation prophecised that the end of the world would come in late 2012 and this serves as the background action to John Cusack’s lone man trying to save his family plot. Judging by the trailer this looks to be a spectacular effects-laden feature. Let’s just hope that the plot can keep our brain interested while our eyes and ears absorb a pounding. The release date is November 13th which should give us ample time to prepare for the real 2012.

The last month of the year sees two mega budget productions vie for your attention and pocket with the release of James Cameron’s Avatar and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. Personally, after seeing both trailers, Sherlock Holmes is the one that interests me more. Avatar looks intriguing and should deliver everything we’ve come to expect in a big budget movie from the guy that gave us Terminator and Titanic. Sherlock Holmes on the other hand is a tighter, much more English affair, although American Robert Downey Jr. dons the cap as the titular sleuth. The plot details are being kept under wraps but will see Holmes and Watson tackle a powerful new nemesis who poses a threat to all of England. RDJ has magnificent comic timing and a screen presence that demands your attention and as such is perfect for the role of the self-involved, self-assured Holmes. Jude Law provides the comic foil and because it’s Guy Ritchie the action sequences should be top-notch (I hope). Sherlock Holmes hits screens on December 26th, just in time for some post-Christmas relaxation.

The special fifth movie on my list is a very personal choice and it’s the movie adaption of a children’s book that I absolutely adore. Where the Wild Things Are sees Spike Jonze (who’s the absolute nut-case behind Being John Malkovich) direct his own script based on Maurice Sendak’s classic. The story sees Max, a disobedient little boy, sent to bed without his supper where he creates his own world which is a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures. The creatures themselves will be part CGI, part actors in suits playing against a human cast which includes The 40 Year Old Virgin‘s Catherine Keener as the mom. Despite a very troubled development (including a switch of studio) the trailer makes the visuals look superb and with Spike Jonze’s imagination as the driving force this should be a singularly intriguing and engrossing movie. The movie is out December 11th.

So what are you most looking forward to in the 4 months ahead?