Look out for these films in the coming months.
Whether you’re spending your summer toiling away at a dead end job or anxiously searching for a summer job, a career path, or a graduate program, the movies will always be there for you. Here are a few impending releases to look out for in those harrowing months when The Argosy isn’t available to guide your tastes (and when you’re probably closer to a functioning movie theatre):
Transcendence
Dir. Wally Pfister – April 18
Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception, The Dark Knight) makes his directorial debut by starring Johnny Depp as a scientist whose ambitious project leads extremists to make an attempt on his life. Nearing death, his ‘consciousness’ is uploaded to a computer, but is it really him? Transcendence could (and would do well to) lend itself to explorations of thought-provoking philosophical and existential concepts.
The Two Faces of January
Dir. Hossein Amini – TBA (May)
Patricia Highsmith, the author of Ripley’s Game and Strangers on a Train, also wrote the sixties psychological thriller novel this film is based on. It will star Oscar Isaac (in his next major role after the brilliant Inside Llewyn Davis) and Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen as an American couple who become entrapped in a web of conning, murder, and betrayal.
The Rover
Dir. David Michôd – June 13
With Animal Kingdom (2010), David Michôd helmed one of the most astonishing and exciting debut films by an Australian filmmaker this century. The Rover, his next movie, is another venture into the crime drama genre, but this one takes place in the near future. Michôd knows where and how to place his camera, and the teaser trailer echoes the Coens’ No Country for Old Men with hints of moral quandaries for star Guy Pearce and co-star Robert Pattinson. And before you ask, Pattinson auditioned for his role and won over many other actors.
Maps to the Stars
Dir. David Cronenberg – TBA (Summer release possible)
Canadian auteur David Cronenberg (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises) continues challenging himself by adapting a satirical drama involving a Hollywood family and their two damaged children, both of whom are former child stars. Cronenberg called it a “hard sell” as both a commercial and independent venture, but expect a one-of-a-kind film that blends humour and insight in unexpected ways.
22 Jump Street
Dir. Phil Lord and Chris Miller – June 13
Phil Lord and Chris Miller have recently encountered enormous success with The Lego Movie, and they’re set to follow that up with another comedy, this one a live-action sequel to 2012’s 21 Jump Street. Building off of Channing Tatum’s and Jonah Hill’s onscreen chemistry in the first Jump Street should be second-nature, with this sequel taking place in a college setting and providing a fertile foundation for plenty of sight-gags and referential humour.
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Dir. Dean DeBlois – June 13
While the multiplexes will be receiving an influx of teens and young adults for 22 Jump Street, the same theatres will be drawing perhaps even larger numbers of children and their parents for the release of yet another sequel: DreamWorks’s next entry, How to Train Your Dragon 2. The first film was the best movie DreamWorks had produced since the original Shrek in 2001, and expectations will be high as ever for its follow-up.
Jersey Boys
Dir. Clint Eastwood – June 20
It’s hard to believe that Million Dollar Baby, the film that proved Clint Eastwood was in fact better as a director than as an actor, was released nearly a decade ago. Since then, he’s made several fine films, but none of those were musicals. Eastwood breaks into the unfamiliar genre by adapting Broadway hit Jersey Boys. Despite the film’s impending release date, very few details about it have been unveiled. Usually this is a sign of a lack of confidence in one’s work, but Eastwood has earned the trust of millions of moviegoers with most of his directorial ventures of the past decade.
