trailer park

As always, here is a list of the movies I’m most excited for this year. It was helpful last year to split the year in half and do another list in June, so I’ll follow suit this year. Even so, I’ll still wind up hating some of these movies, and totally miss a few that will be among my favorites.

Side note: I’m also really excited about Möbius, but there is no US release date yet, so perhaps it will come out during this six month span.

And the movies I’m most excited for in the first half of 2013 are:

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1. Gangster Squad – January 11th

As the poster above states, the film was originally set for release last September, but there was a scene that featured open gunfire on people at a movie theater, so they shut it down to reshoot after the events in Colorado.

2. Mama – January 18th

After seeing a two minute short film, Guillermo del Toro decided he needed to produce a feature length film based on it. Del Toro’s sensibilities, Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and a trailer that makes it seem like the movie will be scary as shit in the best possible ways has me thinking it just may be worth my time.

3. Warm Bodies – February 1st

A friend of a friend wrote the book, so for the sake of an author who seems like a genuinely good guy I hope it is enormously successful. For my own sake, I hope that they don’t Twilight it up too much. Since my “To Read” shelf is like 50 books long right now, I need to wait a while until I can buy the novel, but I’ve heard it is really smart, layered, clever, and offers some real heart.

4. A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III – Feb 8th

Like you, I hate Charlie Sheen. Yet there is just so much awesome here with Murray, Schwartzman, Aubrey Plaza, and Roman Coppola involved. I’m as surprised as you that I’m saying this about a Charlie Sheen movie, but I’m in.

5. No – February 15th

This looks great in every way. Just the trailer juices up my mind grapes.

6. Dead Man Down – March 8th

I hope this is as strong as it has the potential to be.

7. Oz the Great and Powerful – March 8th

James Franco playing a serious role has me worried sometimes. I’m holding onto hope though, because if done well, this movie could be really beautiful.

8. The Place Beyond the Pines – March 8th

I love well crafted crime dramas, I love Ryan Gosling, and I really want to see Bradley Cooper in the breakout dramatic role I know he is capable of producing. This one is pretty high on my priority list this year.

9. Upstream Color – April 5th

It’s been so long since Shane Carruth wrote, directed, and starred in Primer, the indie, mind-bending, quietly thrilling time travel movie from 2004. Finally, he is back with Upstream Color, a mysterious film that figures to be just as unnerving and impressive as Primer was.

And what’s happening in this trailer anyway? Why do they keep repeating each other?

10. 42 – April 12th

When my friend Amanda saw this trailer the other day, she wondered aloud how it has taken so long for this story to be told. It defies reason. Often underrated as an athlete, and with a character whose decency and courage it seems impossible to overstate, and neither can it be overstated how important these men were in the ongoing quest for equality. This should make for some inspiring cinema.

11. Oblivion – April 12th

I’m often the only person I know who stands up for Cruise’s abilities as an actor, but films like Magnolia and Collateral shouldn’t be ignored. I know, I know, it appears he’s as crazy as they come, but what does that have to do with the quality of his films? If you think you only see movies made by sane people, I think you might be seriously overestimating the mental health of your favorite stars and directors.

Sure, this could be terrible, because when sci-fi goes bad, it goes really bad. However, percentage wise, Cruise still has a really great career track record. It just gets easy to forget said track record when he is jumping on couches and believing in a religion invented by a mediocre science fiction writer who hated psychology and psychoanalysis.

12. Iron Man 3 – May 3rd

It’s going to be so fascinating to see how the transition from the epic scope and success of The Avengers back to a smaller and more personal single hero story goes. If nothing else, the reunion of RDJ and Shane Black is a great excuse to revisit the wildly underrappreciated Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. 

13. The Great Gatsby – May 10th

At the moment, this has been a popular movie to hate on. I, for one, am completely sold and if possible I’ll see it opening night.

14. Star Trek: Into Darkness – May 17th

Is this title supposed to have a colon? It feels like it should, but no one else seems to be adding one. If not, does that mean that the title is supposed to be a single sentence? A star trek into darkness? If so, that is the worst title… ever.

Either way, as far as why one should be excited about this film, nothing needs to be said… at all. Time to watch #1 again. Yay!!

16. Much Ado About Nothing – June 7th

Joss Whedon goes from the massive Avengers film to a small, contemporary Shakespeare production. And when I say small, I mean small. Whedon secretly invited a bunch of awesome people to his house and shot the entire film there. I really wish I had Whedon’s life. Someday, I hope I can call up Nathon Fillion and say, “Hey, wanna come over and shoot an adaptation of For Whom the Bell Tolls in the woods near my house?” Ah, pipe dreams. Mmmmm.

Whedon’s explanation for why he and his wife made this is awesome:

“I fixated on this notion that our ideas of romantic love are created for us by the society around us, and then escape from that is grown-up love, is marriage, is mature love, to escape the ideals of love that we’re supposed to follow.”

He is a wise man.

Now he just needs to give us a fricking trailer!!

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17. Now You See Me – June 7th

Part of me still worries this will be terrible. I just really, really want it to be awesome.

18. Man of Steel – June 14th

Everyone who knows even a little bit about me probably knows how much I love Batman, and Batman and Superman are often placed at odds for fans, like the Yankees and the Red Sox or Ben Roethlisberger and human decency. For a long time, I actually hated Superman. Yet, I’ve read some really great writing in Superman comics that managed to help me appreciate how great of a character he can be. I hope this film is strong enough that it can help many of my Superman hating friends gain a new understanding of the hero who started it all.

19. This is the End – June 14th

The intro for the trailer is mostly stupid, as are some parts of the trailer. Maybe this will be really bad. I just think that with this massive group of funny people involved, all playing themselves reacting to the end of the world, it will at least have its moments.

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20. Monsters University – June 21st

If they let me down again, Pixar will lose their automatic space on my ‘most excited’ lists (it’s not that I didn’t like Brave, it just wasn’t Pixar good). For now, I’m holding out hope this film is a return to past glories.

Here’s a viral ad for MU.

21. Kick-Ass 2 – June 28th