Friday, September 6, 2013

Top Five Friday #5
Best Movies To Look Forward To
(Now That Summer Is Over)

In obvious news, it's been a long time since I've posted.   Perhaps most telling is that this only the fifth installment of "Top Five Friday" and the blog has been around in one form or another since 2009.    That's a rate of approximately one per year and clearly that needs to improve.   Will it?    Time will tell, but history suggests it's not likely.    It'll be an adventure finding out.     So, now that summer of 2013 is over, which brought an embarrassment of riches in the movie field such as Man of Steel (the best Superman movie yet in my opinion), Pacific Rim (surprisingly awesome), Star Trek: Into Darkness (J.J. Abrams is one of my favorite directors alive or dead) or Iron Man 3, which is perhaps the best of the series as a few examples.  

But, what movies are left?    Note that this list only covers through the rest of 2013 and does not extend into the following year, but wanted to give any readers, if I'm being optimistic, a list of movies to look forward to throughout the rest of the year and that I'm looking forward to personally.   (This list is organized by release date and not in any other particular order)   None of the ones I'm looking forward to are until November, so sorry September and October - you're out of luck.  

Ender's Game
(November 1)
This is one of my hands down favorite novels when I was growing up and getting to see it translated to the big screen is something I can't wait for at all.     If it's anywhere as good as the book and the trailers indicate it very well could be, then this will be a pretty great movie.    It's a very interesting science fiction novel, which is really an awesome read in my opinion and a pretty thought-provoking one as well.  I doubt we'll see the rest of the Ender's Game trilogy get filmed as they would be really difficult to put to film, but I've said that about a lot of things and Hollywood keeps managing to pull it off, with varying degrees of success.    Will this end up a fantastic adaptation of a classic novel such as Harry Potter, the Silver Linings Playbook, The Help or Princess Bride?   Or is it destined to be along the lines of Eragon, the Twilight Novels or The Cat In the Hat?     I'll be finding out in November and hopefully you will too.

Thor: The Dark World 
(November 8) 
I have to say that my expectations for Thor when it came out were practically non-existent and I didn't have a lot of hope for the movie, even though the trailers made it look pretty good.     But, I've been fooled by good trailers before (Spiderman 3, I'm looking at you) and I didn't think it would go on to be one of my favorite graphic novel adaptations ever.    I didn't think it would ever be one of the best of that summer and predicted it might be one of the worst, but that honor goes to Green Lantern.   (Sorry, Brandon, but it's true).   Here we are, years later, and I can't wait to visit Asgard again with Chris Hemsworth as the title character, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Eccleston, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgard and the rest of the fantastic cast .   My only concern is that it's not directed by the excellent Kenneth Branagh, who is directing instead one of the other movies on the list, but everything I've seen so far has me resting pretty easy and looking forward to this movie more than ever.     This time, I have extremely high expectations and we'll see whether they can reach such lofty heights again! 

Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug
(December 13) 
 I have to confess I was a little wary of returning to Middle Earth after such a lengthy journey the first time around, but I really enjoyed the Hobbit.    It's definitely a different look at the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien than the first trilogy as the stakes definitely lower, through the first book at least and I have to confess I've never read the Hobbit, so it's been a enjoyable journey so far to find out what's going to happen next in this prequel to one of my favorite trilogies of all time.   I can't wait to return to journey with Gandalf, Bilbo, their company of dwarves and the rest of the traveling party later this year.    

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
(December 20)
I have to confess, I'd given up hope on seeing a sequel to Anchorman, which has its inherent charm despite any flaws and is one of my favorite comedies, given its highly quotable nature.     Year after year brought talk of a sequel, but things looked pretty dire for the Channel 4 News team, but then, out of the darkness, came an official announcement that Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Christina Applegate and the whole gang would be back to bring us the news once again!    "Don't act like you're not impressed."   Like the phoenix, the Channel 4 News Team shall rise again!   

Jack Ryan 
(December 25)
I have to say I'm pretty thrilled to be getting a reboot of the hero Tom Clancy universe, Jack Ryan, who has been played by Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin and Ben Affleck, who I will discuss in an (hopefully) upcoming blog post for what I hope are obvious reasons.   However, that'll be for another time as Chris Pine steps into the shoes of Jack Ryan with Kiera Knightley, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Brannagh (also directing) also in the film.    Thus far, there is not a trailer for it that I've found (any trailers you find for it on YouTube have seemed to be trailers for the Wolf of Wall Street, featuring Leonardo Dicaprio for no apparent reason) and I've discovered that Paramount might be calling it Jack Ryan: Shadow One, which I'm going to just flat out ignore and never refer to it as that.    Ever.     But, my enthusiasm remains undiminished and I am looking forward to seeing this one this year, with any luck.  

Just a few films to look forward to throughout the rest of the year, with films like Hunger Games: Catching Fire or Monuments Men not making the cut.    But, of course, never a shortage of fantastic films throughout the rest of 2013, so enjoy and discuss.   What were your favorite movies from the summer? (No spoilers please).   What movies are you looking forward to this year?   What are the best and worst adaptations you've seen committed to film?   Until next time, stay classy!

This post was brought to you through Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend, which I have been listening to non-stop all week and will certainly end up on my year-end favorites list.    Check it out if you haven't yet!

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