Very Early 2015 Movie Preview

Sigh, another year over and another one just beginning, with no time in between. After trying to tear through as many 2014 movies as I could in the last month or so of the year, getting excited for 2015 is kind of like going to the grocery store after you’ve just eaten; there are a whole lot of options, but it’s much harder to choose anything.

With any luck, I’ll use the first couple of months of 2015 to get caught up on a handful of missed Oscar contenders for this year, watch some classics from Herzog that are collecting dust on my bookshelf and maybe watch a few shows that some friends have been endlessly pestering me about.

Just like last year and the year before when I made my list, I inevitably don’t watch all of the movies I end up saying I’m excited for, and several more are just plain bad. My 2014 prediction track record this time around was even worse than before, in which I stumped for “Annie”, “Jersey Boys”, “Transcendence”, “Unbroken”, “Exodus”, “The Hunger Games”, “Noah”, “The Monuments Men”, “Labor Day”, “Into the Woods”, and the still unreleased “Jane Got a Gun.” but hey, I had a feeling “Gone Girl” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” would be good.

These 20 films just barely scratch the surface of all that could be good or great in 2015. In fact, I’m deliberately avoiding many of the blockbusters that will be on EVERY list this January. Hopefully these say a little about me and what I’m hoping for moving into the new year.

While We’re Young

Noah Baumbach killed it with “Frances Ha”. I likely underrated it the first time I saw it and still thought it was great. “While We’re Young” looks a little more familiar and conventional and not as black and white (i.e. not at all), but this director and this cast that includes the rising Adam Driver (step aside Chris Pratt, I have a new favorite oddball) should be able to elevate any material, even stuff that resembles the failed Apatow production “This is 40”.

99 Homes

Thanks to Roger Ebert, Ramin Bahrani was one of my favorite up-and-coming directors with “Man Push Cart,” “Chop Shop” and “Goodbye Solo,” all knockouts. Then he went bigger with his story and made “At Any Price”, which I didn’t see for lack of good notices. “99 Homes” falls somewhere in the middle of Bahrani’s indie roots and elevated presence, pairing Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon in a drama about a man foreclosing on homes. Word was good out of Toronto and drops in March.

Maps to the Stars

Yeah, I guess a few people saw this out of Cannes, and yeah, it kind of got an Oscar qualifying run for Julianne Moore, but David Cronenberg’s latest is a 2015 movie in my mind. A polarizing film just the way Cronenberg likes it, “Maps to the Stars” features Moore, Mia Wasikowska and John Cusack in a twisted Hollywood drama about fame psychology.

Silence

Martin Scorsese’s latest, if it’s finished this year, stars Liam Neeson in the height of his badass phase as a mentor to two 17^th Century Jesuit priests (the aforementioned Garfield and Driver) who travel to Japan and witness the persecution of Christians forsaken by God.

Green Room

Did you see “Blue Ruin” this year? Not many have, but you should. It’s an intense and realistic indie drama about a man out for revenge but doesn’t have a clue. That’s beside the point. What is the point is that Jeremy Saulnier’s sophomore follow-up “Green Room” stars none other than Patrick Stewart as a white supremacist terrorizing a young punk rock band after they witness Stewart’s gang committing a murder.

Spectre

“Skyfall” was awesome. In my mind the best of Daniel Craig’s three James Bond movies and possibly one of the best Bond movies ever, it was sharply directed by Sam Mendes, it looked fantastic as shot by Roger Deakins and had a great villain in Javier Bardem. Now Mendes is back, and the new villain is a guy who has played another iconic 2000s baddie, Christoph Waltz. Given the title, it’s likely they’re rebooting the franchise somewhat and that he’ll be playing Blofeld, so there’s definitely a lot to be curious about.

Midnight Special

I’m not alone in thinking that Jeff Nichols is seriously the real deal and maybe the best rising filmmaker today. “Midnight Special”, starring Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard and Adam Driver again, is his biggest production yet. It’s a sci-fi about a father and son on the run after it’s discovered the son has special powers. How he’ll manage to squeeze in ideas of Americana I’m not sure.

Queen of the Desert

New Herzog? Yes please. Herzog is going the biopic route in a story about Gertrude Bell, an English writer, archeologist and spy who worked alongside none other than T.E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia. Nicole Kidman plays Bell with Robert Pattinson taking up Peter O’Toole’s old iconic role, and “Queen of the Desert” also stars James Franco and Damian Lewis.

The Revenant

“Birdman” left me cold, but another Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu film, with more cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki, and yet another fiery cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, should be enough to get my blood boiling again. In “The Revenant”, DiCaprio plays a hunter mauled by a bear who then seeks revenge on those in his company who left him for dead.

Knight of Cups

Who would’ve thought Terrence Malick could be so prolific? “Knight of Cups”, starring Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Ben Kingsley and even Nick Offerman, among many more likely to be erased in the editing room or made into background noise, is in fact coming out in 2015. The synopsis on IMDb makes no sense whatsoever, but the trailer reveals a film about wealth, excess and love all done Malick style. Like “To the Wonder,” the film can’t help but resemble “The Tree of Life,” which is never a bad thing.

The Hateful Eight

To be perfectly honest, I’m not a fan of “Django Unchained,” so to see Quentin Tarantino return to the Spaghetti Western is a hair disconcerting. But then I remember that any script that generated this much controversy and attention after its leaking and subsequent dismissal by Tarantino, it must be good. Channing Tatum stars alongside Samuel L. Jackson, Demian Bichir, Bruce Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth and Walton Goggins.

That’s What I’m Talking About

No plot details are yet known about “That’s What I’m Talking About”, but this year Richard Linklater was elevated in my mind to genius stature. His latest is a comedy about baseball players on and off the field, and he’s described it as a spiritual successor to one of his finest, “Dazed and Confused”.

Red Army

Hey! I’ve seen this! It’s a documentary about the Soviet hockey team during the ‘70s and ‘80s, in which Chicago-Director Gabe Polsky attains unprecedented access to former hockey legend and current Russian diplomat Slava Fetisov. The film is hardly just a sports doc for hockey fans, going deep inside the nuances of Russian politics and providing a perspective American audiences didn’t see on this side of the Iron Curtain. Read my thoughts in my Best Movies of 2014.

The Look of Silence

Another movie I’ve seen! In fact, this one would’ve been my number two film of this year had it actually come out. Joshua Oppenheimer’s follow-up to “The Act of Killing” is less surreal, but innately more human. Oppenheimer now follows a man who lost his family in the genocide while confronting the killers responsible, powerfully holding their feet to the fire. Read more about it from me here.

Clouds of Sils Maria

Going to plug one more I’ve already seen, although this time not one I loved. “Clouds of Sils Maria” is Olivier Assayas’s latest and stars Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart and Chloe Moretz, the latter two whom are as good here as they’ve ever been. Binoche plays an aging actress joining a restaging of a play opposite the role that made her famous, and it’s a smart, well written and acted character drama about fame and legacy.

Inside Out

While there are actually two original Pixar movies coming out in 2015, the other being “The Good Dinosaur”, “Inside Out” is the first to actually get a trailer. It takes you inside the mind of a little girl and personifies her emotions. Hopefully this pair of films puts Pixar back on top of the world as storytellers.

The Walk

After surprising with “Flight” from a few years back and wrangling a great performance out of Denzel Washington and John Goodman, Robert Zemeckis is back with another live-action, true story project that seems perfect for 3-D. It’s the story of how Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) tight rope walked across the World Trade Center towers, a story that already got told via the Oscar winning documentary “Man on Wire”.

Joy

We’ll pretend that David O. Russell doesn’t have another film coming out this Valentine’s Day not called “Nailed” and just focus on his latest string of knock-out projects starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. O. Russell has tapped Lawrence to play above her age yet again as Joy Mangano, a housewife who became a business mogul selling the Miracle Mop.

The Duke of Burgundy

The Dissolve has been raving about this one since it came out of Toronto. A kinky, stylish, hypnotic drama about human sexuality from the director of Berberian Sound Studio, this period piece is already been called one of the best films of the decade and looks absolutely ravishing.

Untitled Steven Spielberg Cold War Spy Thriller (also known as “St. James Place”)

Tom Hanks repairs with Steven Spielberg for the first time in over 10 years in this spy thriller about an American lawyer recruited by the CIA to help rescue a pilot from the Soviet Union. Any Spielberg is a must-see, but it also comes from a Coen Brothers script, so who are we kidding? It’ll be awesome.

A few more that could be good:

“Good Kill”, by the war politics minded Andrew Niccol, Ethan Hawke plays a drone pilot torn with his actions during combat.

“Regression”, by Alejandro Amenabar (“The Sea Inside”), a thriller starring Ethan Hawke, Emma Watson and David Thewlis

“Sicario,” by Denis Villeneuve (“Prisoners”, “Enemy”) and starring Emily Blunt and Josh Brolin

“The Martian,” a new sci-fi directed by Ridley Scott

“Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter,” a strange, intense looking psychological drama about a woman who believes a VHS of “Fargo” will lead her to a treasure.

“It Follows”, indie horror that’s also being called strangely “endearing”

“The Tribe”, an experimental, foreign, “pure cinema” film containing no dialogue and no subtitles, only sign language.

“Crimson Peak”, Guillermo Del Toro’s first real foray back into the horror genre in quite some time.

“Trainwreck”, directed by Judd Apatow and written by and starring Amy Schumer, could be a recipe for success or another disappointment.

Oh yeah, and “Star Wars.”