Top Ten Movies I'm Looking Forward to Next Year

I've looked at 2012's most enjoyable movies for me in the last post, now let's look ahead across 2013, for what I'm looking forward to over the coming 12 months; let's dive right in...

10. Silent Night of the Living Dead

Yet to be filmed, this is a British production set to be the ultimate merging of zombie horror with the yuletide season.  Why this one when it sounds like utter direct-to-DVD tosh?  Well first the cast includes The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville's Reese Shearsmith and horror legend Tom Savini (who I ran into at a screening one time!), but the main reason is that it's scripted by James Moran, who's done some great Doctor Who and Torchwood episodes, Severance, Tower Block and my pick for "film I enjoyed a hell of a lot more than I at first thought I would" award of 2012...

Yeah, it's in safe hands!

9. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

An Unexpected Journey turned out pretty well in my everso humble but entirely correct opinion, and with the set up out the way, there's plenty more great stuff to come in part two.  Having read the books, I'll love to see scenes like the spiders, the barrel escape and the meeting with Beorn come to life.  But of course, I'm really keen to see how they've realised Smaug.  It's the thing that's been hyped up about the project since Del Toro was going to direct, and they're promising one of the best dragons in screen history.  It'll take a lot of work to beat Vermithrax Pejorative from Disney's Dragonslayer (seriously, if you haven't seen that one, great movie and fantastic dragon), but with voicework from Sherlock himself, Benedict Cumberbatch, that's a pretty good start.

8. Oz: The Great and Powerful

The world of Oz is long overdue a return to in films, since 1985's really underrated Return of Oz, and it's Sam Raimi who's at the helm this time.  A good choice, and from the trailers, it looks very pretty for sure.  James Franco leads as Professor Marvel aka the Wizard himself (Spoilers!) in this prequel telling the tale of how he originally came to Oz.  The film seems to be drawing a lot on the as yet unfilmed books of L. Frank Baum's series for inspiration, and it's paying homage to the 1939 wizard pretty well, especially in teasing the appearances of the Wicked Witch.  For something that was mostly made to beat a film version of Wicked to cinemas, it doesn't look half bad.  One big question though; who's Bruce Campbell playing?

7. Pacific Rim

A movie that in director Guillermo Del Toro's own words "was made for his own inner twelve year old", it's been a while since the last really good Kaiju (city stomping monsters) flick.  Yeah, Cloverfield was alright, if a bit motion sickness inducing at points, but it didn't have the monster being beaten up with huge mechs with the voice of GLaDOS!  This could easily be one of the best or stupidest films of year, but Del Toro's a more than decent director, the action scenes from the trailer are a hell of a lot more comprehensible than the ones from Transformers say, and it has Idris Elba and Ron Perlman in, so it can't be entirely bad!  Full points for viral marketing too...

Nice touch!

6. Warm Bodies

I was really dubious about this one; I mean, a zombie supernatural romance movie?  Twilight with zombies?  Really?  But then I saw that trailer, and... damn it, that actually looks pretty funny and interesting!  They've also released the first four minutes, and they work out great too.

The really surprising thing is that it actually does seem to take direct notes from George A. Romero, as his Dead movies featured zombies becoming more self aware too in Day and Land of the Dead.  Plus, those more skeletal looking feral zombies are a good touch to the lore, and look, John Malkovitch!  From "terrible idea" to number six on the list in the space of the trailer; such is the power of good marketing!

5. John Dies at the End

If HP Lovecraft and Hunter S. Thompson spent some time drinking, playing Playstation and having a Kevin Smith marathon, had an extremely good time, and one of them forgot to use protection, this would be the resultant monsterbaby!  The original novel is a mindwarping piece of work, and this film version is helmed by one of few directors who can handle such off the beaten path material, Don Coscarelli, responsible for the Phantasm series and Bubba Ho-Tep.  From the trailer it's extremely faithful to the book and it's dialogue, playing to the original's strengths, and there are some real pros in the cast including Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Ron Perlman again and the Tall Man himself Angus Scrim!  The only reason this isn't higher on the list is that it's coming pretty early in the year (it's already On Demand in America), so not long to wait.

4. Elysium

Neil Blompkamp, the director of District 9, is making a new sci-fi movie, and he's got a proper big budget this time.  Look, do I really need to explain this one?  Did you see District 9?  If yes, I rest my case.  If no, go do so now.  YES NOW!!!

3. A Field in England

Ben Wheatley is rapidly becoming a real voice in British films, love him or hate him.  Myself, I really loved Sightseers, I didn't quite "get" Kill List, at least the ending, but I really dig his style.  His latest project is really interesting, a tale set during the English Civil War with a hallucinatory touch, filmed in Black & White and starring, among others, Reece Shearsmith again and The Mighty Boosh's Julian Barrett.  Definitely not multiplex fare, this is the sort of indie project that's my bread and butter, so I can't wait to see if this is turns out like a new Witchfinder General, or at the very least a new Blood on Satan's Claw...

2. Iron Man 3/Thor 2

A tie here for both of these, as the big question geekdom is asking after The Avengers is "where do they go from here?".  Ok, that bit in the credits is what they're aiming at, but the point is what does the crossover mean for the heroes' respective franchises?  Well, we're soon going to find out.  First off, Iron Man 3 faces that most feared of all superhero challenges; the threequel.  There's not exactly a good batting average with them, and the change of creative team might be cause for concern... if said changes didn't include Shane Black directing!  Black is a bit of a legend as a screenwriter (Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Last Boy Scout...), and with the film that relaunched a certain RDJ's career Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, he's a far from shabby director too.  The trailers make promise of a lot of darker material from the comics, including the arrival of a character fans have been waiting for since the first, played by an absolute pro!  Then, later in the year, Thor: The Dark World looks set to explore more of the nine realms the Yggdrasil has to offer.  More Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Idris Elba is always good, and Christopher Eccleston as the main villain, and the fact there was a lot of filming in London for this gets me extra intrigued...

And my number 1. most anticipated film of the next year is.... The World's End!

It's a new Edgar Wright movie; how can this not be top of the list?  Not only that, this is something that's been teased since Hot Fuzz, the final part of Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's Blood and Cornettos trilogy (so called because they all feature blood and people have Cornettos ).  Only vague hints have been released about the plot, only that (apart from it apparently Mint Cornettos this time) it involves a pub crawl, which the title may be in reference to, as there are two major pubs in London called that.   Of course, it could also be in reference to an actual apocalypse that's said to be part of the plot.  The main cast includes Pegg and Frost, of course, and also Sherlock's Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan and Paddy Considine as old friends reuniting, and with a cast like that playing off each other, we can expect plenty of funny dialogue.  Wright is one of the most assured and loved directors working today, and I can't wait to see what he has in store.  As a side note, after this, he's immediately starting work on what's already one of my most anticipated titles of 2015; Marvel's Ant-Man!!

Well, that's my year planned; to wrap up, it's honourable mentions time again.  For the main list, I didn't count a whole bunch of films that are already or have been out in the US but not here yet, so here they are, along with one that I was looking forward to this summer until it was delayed... see you at the cinema!