I Am DB

I haven’t gotten around to posting about my favorite movies from 2014, but since that might take until sometime in late summer, why not go ahead and consider what the current year has to offer? Yes, we’re two and a half months into 2015, but the best is yet to come. How many of these movies will be on my Favorites of 2015 list? Find out when that post gets published in October 2016! Until then…

25.
SICARIO
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Cast: Emily Blunt, Jon Bernthal, Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro, Jeffrey Donovan
Release Date: September 18

Denis Villeneuve landed on my directors-to-watch list thanks to his impressive work on the 2013 kidnapping drama Prisoners, which was among my favorite films of that year. I wasn’t quite as high on his next film Enemy (actually made before Prisoners but released after), although there were things about it I enjoyed. His first true follow-up centers on a female FBI agent who is recruited into a CIA operation targeting the head of a Mexican drug cartel. In addition to my curiosity over Villeneuve’s upcoming projects, Blunt is a big part of the reason I’m anticipating this. She’s been killing it lately, and if she carries this film as well as I expect she will, the strength of her work — combined with excellent performances as anti-damsels-in-distress in Edge of Tomorrow and Looper — could send her already strong stock through the roof.

24.
ADAM JONES
Director: John Wells
Writer: Steven Knight
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Daniel Brühl, Jamie Dornan, Lily James, Sienna Miller, Matthew Rhys, Omar Sy, Emma Thompson, Uma Thurman, Alicia Vikander
Release Date: TBA

Cooper plays a celebrated but wild chef in Europe whose bad habits derail his career and force him to rebuild his reputation. Buzz on the script, which has been kicking around for quite a while now, has been extremely strong, with word that the lead character is a meaty role for any actor lucky enough to play it. David Fincher was attached to direct Keanu Reeves at one point, and some other directors were involved before it went to John Wells. It will be interesting to see how the director of The Company Men and August: Osage County handles the material. Those movies showed he has a way with actors, but both were fairly talky. This film is rumored to have a different energy that will test his range. Still, all the ingredients seem to be in place for something tasty.

23.
IN THE HEART OF THE SEA
Director: Ron Howard
Writer: Charles Leavitt
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Frank Dillane, Michelle Fairley, Brendan Gleeson, Tom Holland, Cillian Murphy, Charlotte Riley, Donald Sumpter, Benjamin Walker, Ben Whishaw
Release Date: December 13

This maritime epic tells the true story of the Essex — a whaling ship out of Nantucket — and its encounter with a massive sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean, an episode which would become the inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The movie was originally set for release this month, so trailers have been around for a while to tease what looks like a thrilling adventure with great cinematography from Slumdog Millionaire‘s Oscar winning Anthony Dod Mantle, who also collaborated with Howard and Hemsworth on the race car drama Rush. Until someone makes a film based on “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” by The Decemberists (seriously, that could totally be a movie), this might do nicely.

22.
TRIPLE NINE
Director: John Hillcoat
Writer: Matt Cook
Cast: Casey Affleck, Clifton Collins, Jr., Chiwetel Ejiofor, Gal Gadot, Woody Harrelson, Michael B. Jordan, Anthony Mackie, Teresa Palmer, Aaron Paul, Michael Peña, Norman Reedus, Kate Winslet
Release Date: September 11

There’s not a lot to say yet on this one. We know it’s about a group of criminals and corrupt cops working together to plan a large-scale heist that, in order to pull off, will involve killing a rookie officer. It’s mainly here because of that cast. Cate Blanchett and Christoph Waltz were attached at one point, but scheduling conflicts prevented their involvement. Not that a good cast is ever a guarantee of a good movie, but I’d like to think that with so much talent involved, or trying to be involved, there must be something great on the page to attract them.

21.
SEA OF TREES
Director: Gus Van Sant
Writer: Chris Sparling
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Ken Watanabe, Naomi Watts
Release Date: TBA

In what promises to be the feel-good comedy of the year, McConaughey plays a man who travels to Japan to take his own life in the woods at the base of Mount Fuji, an area known as “Suicide Forest” because it has attracted so many others with the same intention. An encounter with Watanabe’s character, who is lost in the woods, leads both men on a physical and emotional journey to find their way. We’ll see if this ends up being plot-driven, or if it’s more of a meandering meditation in the vein of Van Sant’s Elephant and Gerry. I always enjoy Watanabe’s performances, and this is also another nice move for McConaughey, who keeps picking interesting projects and quality directors.

20.
ANT-MAN
Director: Peyton Reed
Writers: Adam McKay, Paul Rudd
Cast: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Hayley Atwell, Bobby Cannavale, David Dastmalchian, Martin Donovan, Judy Greer, Wood Harris, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, John Slattery, Corey Stoll, John Slattery, T.I.
Release Date: July 31

The Marvel machine rolls on this year, with two of the summer’s most anticipated movies coming from the comic giant’s stable. While you won’t find it on this list, I’m definitely looking forward to Avengers: Age of Ultron, but I give a spot to Ant-Man, just as I did last year to Guardians of the Galaxy, because it’s an unknown quantity that seems full of fun promise. Marvel’s movies continue to strike the right tone between action, comedy and just enough legitimate pathos to add some depth. Guardians, especially, was as much comedy as fantasy action, and the choices of Paul Rudd to play the lead role in Ant-Man, and Will Ferrell’s creative partner Adam McKay (director of Anchorman) to co-write it, indicates that another supremely entertaining movie is in store. The project was marred a bit by the departure of original director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), whose vision apparently clashed with Marvel’s even after a long period of fruitful development. He brought most of the cast onboard before parting ways, and hopefully something of his spirit will survive to the finished film. He and his co-writer Joe Cornish retain story credit, while the actual script was rewritten by McKay and Rudd. McKay came close to directing it himself — a time commitment he was ultimately unable to make, but a near-miss that further suggests the tone we can expect from the movie.

Side-note: Those of you immersed in the Marvel film series will note that Hayley Atwell, from Captain America: The First Avenger and the Agent Carter TV series is set to appear in Ant-Man, as is John Slattery, who played Tony Stark’s father Howard in vintage footage during a brief scene from Iron Man 2, only to be replaced in Captain America and Agent Carter by Dominic Cooper. Perhaps Slattery is supposed to be an older version of Stark, but I don’t recall his scene in Iron Man 2 taking place so many years after the character’s time with Captain America and Peggy Carter that a markedly older actor would be required to play him. In fact, the switch from Slattery to Cooper has stood out to me as one of the few inconsistencies in the carefully constructed universe of Marvel’s movies. Maybe Ant-Man will clear things up for me.

Geek digression over.

19.
SISTERS
Director: Jason Moore
Writer: Paula Pell
Cast: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Ike Barinholtz, Samantha Bee, James Brolin, John Cena, Rachel Dratch, John Leguizamo, Heather Matarazzo, Kate McKinnon, Bobby Moynihan, Maya Rudolph, Dianne Wiest
Release Date: December 18

Fey and Poehler play sisters who decide to throw a party at their childhood home before their parents sell it. But honestly, does it matter what the movie is about? Haven’t we gotten to a point where anything that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler do together is something we all just watch, no questions asked? If somehow your answer is “no”, consider that writer Paula Pell is a damn funny lady in her own right. She’s been with Saturday Night Live for years, including the Fey-Poehler era, and presumably knows exactly how to write to their strengths. Then there’s director Jason Moore, whose credits include Avenue Q on Broadway and 2012’s comedy gem Pitch Perfect. Satisfied?

18.
BLACK MASS
Director: Scott Cooper
Writers: Scott Cooper, Mark Mallouk
Cast: Johnny Depp, Kevin Bacon, W. Earl Brown, Rory Cochrane, Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Edgerton, David Harbour, Dakota Johnson, Sienna Miller, Julianne Nicholson, Jesse Plemons, James Russo, Peter Sarsgaard, Adam Scott, Corey Stoll, Jeremy Strong, Juno Temple
Release Date: September 18

Those of us who have been eager to see Johnny Depp wipe off the makeup, shed the silly voices and reconnect with his gifts as a dramatic actor may finally have found the movie we’ve been waiting for. Well…okay, he’ll still be in makeup. And…alright, he’ll probably be doing an accent. But the transformation will be in the service of something more serious than Jack Sparrow (great at first, getting old now), the Mad Hatter or Tonto. Depp will play “Whitey” Bulger, the infamous Boston crime figure who eluded capture for 16 years and was, for most of that period, number two on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, second only to Osama Bin Laden. (Bulger was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s crime boss Frank Costello in The Departed). Further proof that Depp won’t be fooling around: Black Mass is directed by Scott Cooper, who previously helmed Crazy Heart, for which Jeff Bridges won an Academy Award, and Out of the Furnace, a brooding drama with superb performances from Christian Bale, Casey Affleck and Woody Harrelson. Cooper is a thoughtful filmmaker who always looks for a personal angle to keep him invested. Hopefully he’s found one here, as the project didn’t originate with him. He came on after Barry Levinson left. Even if this is more a director-for-hire job than his last two films, he’s a pretty good director to hire. Bulger’s story should provide him, his excellent cast, and the man who was once Donnie Brasco with a lot of material to dig into.

17.
KNIGHT OF CUPS
Director/Writer: Terrence Malick
Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Antonio Banderas, Wes Bentley, Jason Clarke, Brian Dennehy, Ben Kingsley, Joel Kinnaman, Thomas Lennon, Isabel Lucas, Nick Offerman, Ryan O’Neal, Teresa Palmer, Frieda Pinto, Imogen Poots, Shea Whigham, Michael Wincott
Release Date: December 11

Terrence Malick’s latest metaphysical drama debuted in February at the Berlin Film Festival, and secured U.S. distribution with a small indie company, although I can’t locate an actual story or article confirming the release date listed above, which started showing up around the web out of the blue. The movie centers on Bale’s character, an actor struggling with the same existential quandaries that most of Malick’s characters grapple with these days. The director shows no signs of moving back toward a more straightforward narrative. In fact, Cups is said to go even further toward the fragmented style of his recent films The Tree of Life and To the Wonder. I figure that by the time Malick’s next movie comes around, it won’t actually be a movie, but rather some kind of performance art piece where after buying your ticket, you’re taken to a beach or a field of tall grass and asked to stand around contemplatively while a voiceover talks cryptically of love, loss and God. Hey, I’ll still show up. Even in their sometimes frustrating abstraction, I find Malick’s work transfixing. To the Wonder was kind of a slog, but I’m hopeful that the urban, Hollywood setting of Cups on display in the trailer will inject a little more life into the proceedings.

Incidentally, Joel Kinnaman, while promoting another movie, was asked about working with Malick, and offered this classic response:

I had a one-day shoot, and I had a 17-page monologue. It was a crazy day. It was great to get to be part of the Malick world for a day. I have no idea what the movie’s about. I barely know who my character was. We’ll see if I’m in it or not. I remember, we’d be shooting, and I’d be on page 12 of my 17-page monologue, and I’d turn around and see that he was 100 yards away, shooting a pink dog.

That sounds about right.

16.
DEMOLITION
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Writer: Bryan Sipe
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper
Release Date: TBA

I don’t really know anything about this movie. Brief descriptions I’ve found say it’s the story an investment banker who re-examines his life after enduring a tragedy. That’s a pretty damn vague synopsis. But here’s what I do know: Jean-Marc Vallée, director of Dallas Buyers Club and Wild, is emerging as an excellent filmmaker who knows how to tell dramatic human stories that skillfully walk the line between naturalistic and cinematic; Jake Gyllenhaal is making great choices and inhabiting his characters with intense commitment; Naomi Watts, likewise, is also picking really good projects lately; and Chris Cooper can do no wrong. With that line-up of talent, this is a no-brainer for me, whatever it’s about.

15.
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL
Director/Writer: Jeff Nichols
Cast: Michael Shannon, Adam Driver, Kirsten Dunst, Joel Edgerton, Jaeden Lieberher, Sam Shepard, Paul Sparks
Release Date: November 25

Nichols, whose most recent effort was the terrific Mud — another of my favorites from 2013 — has his biggest film to date, both in scope and budget, with this sci-fi thriller about a father (Shannon, who has appeared in all of the director’s films) trying to protect his young son who has unique abilities that have caught the attention of both the government and a religious cult. Nichols has said that he’s going for something in the tone of John Carpenter’s Starman, the 1985 drama starring Jeff Bridges as a stranded alien who takes the form of a woman’s dead husband. Seeing the filmmaker apply his grounded style to this type of story has my curiosity piqued.

14.
THE GOOD DINOSAUR
Directors: Peter Sohn, Bob Peterson
Writers: Bob Peterson, Enrico Casarosa
Cast: Judy Greer, Bill Hader, Neil Patrick Harris, John Lithgow, Frances McDormand, Lucas Neff
Release Date: November 25

What if the dinosaurs had not been wiped out by an extinction event? That’s the question that sets up the first of Pixar’s two — count ‘em, TWO — new movies this year. Beyond, that, I’m not really sure what the movie is about, other than that it focuses on a teenage dino from a family of Apatosauruses and a human boy. Based on the kid’s garb in the teaser posters, it looks like we’re still dealing with prehistoric society, as opposed to a contemporary world where dinosaurs still exist; more The Flintstones than The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The movie may have changed considerably from inception to completion, having undergone an overhaul that saw original director Peterson replaced during production (not an uncommon or necessarily negative occurence at Pixar given the way they’re structured; Toy Story 2, Ratatouille, and Brave all hit similar roadblocks and turned out just fine). Toy Story‘s beloved Rex is not going to have his inferiority complex helped by the fact that Pixar is making an entire movie about dinosaurs and not including him, but for the rest of us, two new movies from Pixar — originals, at that — is cause for celebration.

13.
TRAINWRECK
Director: Judd Apatow
Writer: Amy Schumer
Cast: Amy Schumer, Barkhad Abdi, Dave Attell, Vanessa Bayer, Mike Birbiglia, John Cena, Jon Glaser, Bill Hader, LeBron James, Brie Larson, Norman Lloyd, Tim Meadows, Method Man, Ezra Miller, Randall Park, Colin Quinn, Tilda Swinton
Release Date: July 24

I’m not too familiar with Schumer. I don’t watch her Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer, but I’ve seen bits and pieces of her work, and I always like what I’ve seen. Here she plays a successful magazine writer whose anti-monogamy views are challenged when she meets a nice-guy doctor (Hader). Being largely in the dark about her, Apatow is the main the attraction for me. I’m a big fan to begin with, but I really like that he so supportive of other comedic voices. This is the first film he’s directing that he didn’t write, and it was simply because he wanted to be in business with Schumer, who he encouraged to write the film in the first place. He’s often perceived as a guy who makes dude movies, so I like seeing him show once again (he also works closely with Lena Dunham on HBO’s Girls) that he’s an equal opportunity comedian whose aim is to nurture funny people with unique voices.

12.
ALOHA
Director/Writer: Cameron Crowe
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams, Emma Stone, Alec Baldwin, Jay Baruchel, Michael Chernus, John Krasinski, Danny McBride, Ivana Milicevic, Bill Murray
Release Date: May 29

This one was on last year’s list, but Sony bumped it from an intended holiday season release. The project has been bouncing around for a while, and it’s nice to see it finally coming in for a landing, especially since the trailer provides the impression that it will be vintage Cameron Crowe: charming, romantic, funny, earnest, and boasting a sublime cast. From what I’ve gathered, Cooper plays a defense contractor at a low point in his career who returns to a military base in Hawaii for a new operation. There, he confronts his past in the form of a now-engaged old flame and considers his future with a pilot involved in his project. Crowe has been a bit off his game with recent movies, and I would love to see him hit a home run with the kind of old-fashioned romantic comedy that has all but disappeared from the landscape.

Oh, a note to Sony and whoever made that trailer: while it’s true that Cameron Crowe is an Academy Award nominated writer, he’s also an Academy Award winning writer. That might have been the way to go.

11.
THE MARTIAN
Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Drew Goddard
Cast: Matt Damon, Sean Bean, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, Kate Mara, Michael Peña, Sebastian Stan, Kristen Wiig
Release Date: November 25

Ridley Scott is amazing. At 77 years old, the guy is pretty much putting out a movie a year. So is Woody Allen, at age 79. But unlike Allen’s modest, dialogue-driven movies, Scott’s are large in scope, usually requiring massive production efforts, both pre and post. And the list of projects he has in development is lengthy. All that said, the films themselves can be hit or miss, and at this point he’s overdue for a hit. Whether or not The Martian will deliver I can’t say, but the potential is certainly there. In fact, the story behind the film might be worthy of a film itself. It’s based on novel by Andy Weir, who self-published it and then saw it explode on Amazon, earning praise for its detailed and carefully researched science as well as its wry humor and appealing central character. That would be an astronaut (Damon) who is accidentally stranded on Mars when his crew, believing him dead, departs without him. Scott has corralled a terrific supporting cast, and if the script and story are strong, his skill for creating arresting visuals while also coaxing good work from actors should serve this material splendidly.

10.
BRIDGE OF SPIES
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Matt Charman, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Cast: Tom Hanks, Alan Alda, Eve Hewson, Domenick Lombardozzi, Billy Magnussen, Peter McRobbie, Amy Ryan, Mark Rylance
Release Date: October 16

The fourth collaboration between Spielberg and Hanks has been flying quietly under the radar. Hanks will play real-life attorney James B. Donovan, who was tasked with negotiating the release of an American pilot shot down over the Soviet Union while doing reconnaissance. The historical drama sounds like good material for Hanks, and another chance after Lincoln for Spielberg to put story front and center.

9.
SPOTLIGHT
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Writers: Thomas McCarthy, Josh Singer
Cast: Billy Crudup, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schrieber, Jamey Sheridan, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci
Release Date: TBA

Sometimes you hear the plot of a movie, you see the cast, the director, and you just have a feeling it’s gonna be good. Well…I do, anyway. I have that feeling about this journalism drama, the true story of The Boston Globe’s investigative reports into sexual abuse of children within the city’s Catholic Archdiocese. The series exposed a scandal which had been known but ignored for years, and earned the Globe‘s Spotlight team a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Tom McCarthy directed The Station Agent, The Visitor and Win Win, all warm relationship dramadies, but here moves into more straightforward dramatic territory. I’ve compared his films to those of Alexander Payne in the past, and griped that he doesn’t get the level of acclaim that he’s deserved. Maybe this movie will change that. I certainly hope so. This has tremendous potential. (For what it’s worth, I like the irony of the guy who played a journalist fabricating a story on The Wire now co-writing and directing a movie about journalism at its finest.)

8.
TOMORROWLAND
Director: Brad Bird
Writers: Brad Bird, Damon Lindelof, Jeff Jensen
Cast: George Clooney, Pierce Gagnon, Judy Greer, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key, Hugh Laurie, Tim McGraw, Britt Robertson
Release Date: May 22

A decade or so ago, Walt Disney Pictures started looking inward, developing movies based on their theme park rides. Happily, that yielded Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Less happily, it yielded Haunted Mansion and The Country Bears. The studio is still looking to its own vaults for inspiration, resulting in two newer trends: turning its animated films into live action ones (Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, Cinderella, the upcoming The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast and Dumbo) and perhaps more oddly, making movies out of its business decisions. That trend kicked off with Saving Mr. Banks, and now we have the more mysterious Tomorrowland. There’s been a lot of secrecy around this project, originally titled 1952, but it does appear to involve the futuristic park that exists within the Magic Kingdom at Disneyland and Disney World — though to be fair, I think the idea was brought to Disney, as opposed to being generated within the studio. Damon Lindelof, who initially conceived of the story and eventually collaborated with Jeff Jensen — who covered Lindelof’s Lost for Entertainment Weekly and came up with theories as thrilling and creative as much of the show itself — and The Incredibles writer/director Brad Bird, has said the movie doesn’t actually take place in the park, but there is definitely a connection. What does seem clear is that the parties involved are aiming for a family-friendly sci-fi adventure that seeks to capture a tone of hope and optimism that’s become increasingly rare in our views of the future — real and imagined.

7.
THE REVENANT
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Writers: Alejandro G. Iñárritu , Mark L. Smith
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lukas Haas, Tom Hardy, Domnhall Gleeson, Will Poulter
Release Date: December 25

While Birdman was soaring across the movie awards circuit in the last several months, its now Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu was keeping busy shooting his next project, a long-in-development story about a fur trapper in the 1800’s who is robbed and abandoned by his fellow travelers after being mauled by a bear. (Stephen Colbert’s gonna love this movie!) He survives, and goes after those who left him for dead. Just as Birdman was a sharp turn from the heavy dramas for which Iñárritu was known (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel, Biutiful), The Revenant’s revenge drama roots are unexplored territory for him. And just as with Birdman, I imagine that this exercise in genre will have much more on its mind than simple brutality or emotional satisfaction.

6.
SPECTRE
Director: Sam Mendes
Writers: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan
Cast: Daniel Craig, Dave Bautista, Monica Bellucci, Jesper Christensen, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear, Léa Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Ben Whishaw
Release Date: November 6

I didn’t grow up immersed in the James Bond series, but while longtime fans understandably consider Sean Connery to be the quintessential Bond, can we all agree that the last installment, Skyfall, was among the four or five best — if not the single best — movie in the series? I’ll assume we can. As such, the weight of expectation here is considerable, as it often is with sequels. Director Mendes and writers Purvis, Wade and Logan are all returning, and while the chance of capturing lightning in a bottle twice in a row is unlikely, we can hope. Skyfall is special for many reasons, occupying a unique position in the Bond canon as both pivotal and transitional. Most Bond films are primarily just “the next adventure,” but this one, whatever it is, will be very much the result of Skyfall‘s events, to a degree that none of the previous 23 films — even Casino Royale‘s follow-up Quantum of Solace — have been so directly impacted by their predecessor. As for where the story might be headed, fans recognize SPECTRE as the criminal organization that Bond has contended with in several of the earlier films and in Ian Fleming’s books, and it will be fun to see how Mendes brings the group into the more gritty, contemporary milieu that the Daniel Craig era has ushered in.

5.
INSIDE OUT
Director: Pete Docter
Writers: Michael Arndt, Pete Docter
Cast: Lewis Black, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith
Release Date: June 19

Pixar’s second release this year — though it will be the first to hit theaters — is a pretty ingenious idea. As an adolescent girl facing the major life change of moving to a new city finds herself on an emotional rollercoaster, we go inside her head to see those emotions personified in the form of Joy (Poehler), Anger (Black), Disgust (Kaling), Fear (Hader) and Sadness (Smith, from The Office). That’s some inspired casting right there. This sounds like the perfect Pixar movie to me, something that will see the studio do what it does best: tell a universal story in a world related to but separate from our own, with plenty of fodder for humor but also a genuinely touching throughline. My expectations are high.

4.
JOY
Director: David O. Russell
Writers: David O. Russell, Annie Mumolo
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Édgar Ramiriez, Elisabeth Röhm, Isabella Rossellini
Release Date: December 25

It’s not so much that this particular story excites me as it is that anything David O. Russell does these days excites me. With Joy, he re-teams with Lawrence, Cooper and De Niro for his third time in a row to tell the story of Joy Mangano, a Long Island housewife, single mother and aspiring inventor who struck gold with the creation of the Miracle Mop. Russell co-wrote the script with Annie Mumolo, who penned Bridesmaids with Kristen Wiig, and her comedic voice should nicely complement Russell’s, yielding a quirky biopic in the vein of Ed Wood and The People vs. Larry Flynt.

3.
STEVE JOBS
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Aaron Sorkin
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Jeff Daniels, John Ortiz, Seth Rogen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston, Kate Winslet
Release Date: October 9

Another biopic, but another one that promises to be unconventional. Based on Walter Isaacson’s best-selling book about the Silicon Valley titan, Aaron Sorkin’s script is structured as just three lengthy scenes, each one taking place backstage at a seminal Apple product launch before Jobs steps in front of the curtain. Sorkin’s script is said to be a massive 181 pages (though earlier descriptions from the writer have described it as more along the lines of 90, so who knows) and as the set-up suggests, it will be extremely dialogue-heavy. No problem there. Sorkin’s dialogue, although self-plagiarized from time to time, can always be counted on to delight the ear.

I surprise myself that the movie places so high on my list, but when I crunched the numbers, did some computer models and ran it all by the boys in the lab, this is where it landed. Prime placement considering my disappointment that the original incarnation of the project fell apart. It was initially shaping up to reunite Sorkin with his Social Network director David Fincher, who wanted Christian Bale to play Jobs. I was over the moon at the thought of that line-up. Unfortunately, Fincher left the project, apparently because the studio (Sony, at the time; it’s since moved to Universal) wouldn’t meet his demands for salary and creative control. Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle came aboard, and courted Leonardo DiCaprio (great actor, but totally the wrong look), who opted to make The Revenant instead. Then Bale officially boarded, only to depart a short time later, stating that he didn’t feel he had a handle on the character. Sorkin championed Tom Cruise (could have been great), while the studio considered the usual A-list suspects regardless of whether they seemed right for the part (Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper). In the end, the part went to the versatile Fassbender.

I can’t help but be let down that it didn’t pan out with Fincher and Bale. Not for nothing though, the combination of Sorkin and Boyle is intriguing in its own right. Boyle’s movies are high-energy, lots of editing…there’s a thumping beat to his work that seems contrary to a project that will feature only three extended sequences and limited locations, so seeing how he approaches such unlikely material will be fun. And while Bale seemed like the perfect guy to take on Jobs, Fassbender is no slouch. I have every confidence he will give a performance worthy of such a fascinating figure. Apple’s slogan in the late 90’s was “Think Different.” Looks like with this unusual approach, that’s just what these filmmakers are going for. If they don’t end up doing a big thing badly, it could really be quite something. And you know it.

2.
THE HATEFUL EIGHT
Director/Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Zoe Bell, Demián Bichir, Bruce Dern, Walton Goggins, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Madsen, James Parks, James Remar, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, Channing Tatum
Release Date: TBA

Tarantino’s latest almost died on the vine. After completing the first draft of his script, he handed copies to six people, including actors Dern, Roth and Madsen, and one of his Django Unchained producers. Apparently one of them showed the script to their agent, and soon enough it had leaked online. The director was none too pleased about this, and decided to abandon the film, saying he might revisit it a few years down the road, and would perhaps publish it as a novel instead of filming it. He even sued Gawker for enabling wider dissemination of the script, though the lawsuit was dismissed by the court. Tarantino then staged a live read of the script at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with an all-star cast of actors, (most of whom will reprise their roles in the film). Sometime between the leak and the live read however, Tarantino revised the script (the leaked version had only been his first pass) and decided to make the movie after all. The live read featured the initial draft, which is not the same version that will ultimately be filmed.

So that’s the behind the scenes drama. What can we expect for on-screen drama? The Western takes place in Wyoming a few years after the Civil War, and focuses on two bounty hunters escorting a female prisoner to her trial when a blizzard descends, forcing them to take shelter in a haberdashery. During their stop, they encounter a number of unsavory characters, some of whom may pose a threat to their assignment. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to assume that tensions will mount, blood will be spilled, and a lot of tough-guy dialogue will be chewed with gusto. With the exception of Bichir, Leigh and Tatum, all the players here have worked with QT before…and since Roth, Madsen and Dern are still involved, there must be no hard feelings about that script leak.

1.
STAR WARS EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS
Director: J.J. Abrams
Writers: Michael Arndt, Lawrence Kasden, J.J. Abrams
Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley, Kenny Baker, Gwendoline Christie, Anthony Daniels, Warwick Davis, Adam Driver, Domnhall Gleeson, Peter Mayhew, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Max von Sydow
Release Date: December 18

I mean…come on. Was there even a question?