‘The Tale of Princess Kaguya’
October 17 (limited)
There’s often at least one foreign film among the Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature, and there’s a decent chance it could be The Tale of Princess Kaguya.
Co-writer and director Isao Takahata has made a number of highly acclaimed films like Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies), Omohide poro poro (Only Yesterday), Pom Poko (Heisei tanuki gassen pompoko) (The Raccoon War), and My Neighbors the Yamadas, so it’s a safe assumption that this could be a good film too. He co-wrote it with Riko Sakaguchi and Mike Jones has translated it into English.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a Studio Ghibli film and will be distributed by GKIDS in the U.S. Chloë Grace Moretz will voice the titular character in the English dub and James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Darren Criss, Lucy Liu, Beau Bridges, James Marsden, Oliver Platt and Dean Cain will all have supporting voice roles.
‘Laggies’
October 24
Laggies is another movie that premiered at Sundance to less than stellar reviews, but when a cast includes Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz, and the always great Sam Rockwell, we’re instantly interested. This looks to be a coming of age film of sorts, but instead of focusing on a teen coming into adulthood it’ll focus on an adult coming into adulthood.
Knightley stars as a woman who in the decade since graduating high school has seen very little change in her life, so when her high school boyfriend proposes she freaks out and runs away for a week, meeting high school teen played by Moretz and her single dad played by Rockwell.
The arrested development subgenre of comedy is often male driven, so it’ll be nice to see a female in this role. If the film has as many problems as early reviews have suggested, it’ll be interesting to see if Rockwell can save the movie as he so often does.
‘St. Vincent’
October 24
As strange as it sounds, Bill Murray has only been nominated for one Oscar. He didn’t win for his terrifically nuanced Lost in Translation performance, and it looks like he might want another shot. That’s the way the St. Vincent trailer feels anyway, and it’ll likely all come down to how good the film is. The competition this year is high (as it always is) so even getting a nomination is a long shot, but it’s great to see Murray trying with this kind of role.
It’s also great to see Melissa McCarthy in a more serious role as she can actually act rather than a role where she’s just playing a female Chris Farley. The cast also includes Naomi Watts, Chris O’Dowd, and Terrence Howard, and it was written and directed by Theodore Melfi who is making his theatrical feature debut.
‘White Bird in a Blizzard’
October 24 (limited)
White Bird in a Blizzard is based on the novel of the same name from Laura Kasischke. The adaptation was written and directed by Gregg Araki, and if anything that means it’s certain to feature lots of teens having sex and more nudity than you can shake a stick at. The movie stars Shailene Woodley and Eva Green, two fantastic actresses.
In the movie, Woodley plays a teen who experiences the sensation of her hormones going wild and Green plays her mother who completely disappears one day. It’ll be great to see Woodley and Green play off each other as well as the rest of the cast that includes Christopher Meloni, Angela Bassett, Gabourey Sidibe, among others.
‘Nightcrawler’
October 31
Nightcrawler is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, and it looks great. If the trailer is any indication, star Jake Gyllenhaal is giving a transformative performance as it looks like he’s lost a lot of weight for the role. No critics have seen the movie so it’s hard to gauge how strong his performance is, but if the performance is fringe nomination worthy, the weight loss could push it over the top as the Oscars usually like that.
If the trailer is any indication, this looks like a great movie. This is Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut, and he also wrote the script. Previously GIlroy wrote the scripts for Real Steel and The Bourne Legacy so there’s definitely some cause for concern, but word out of TIFF will come soon enough.
‘Horns’
October 31 (limited)
Will Daniel Radcliffe’s Horns be any good? That’s a big question, and after watching the trailer it’s hard to say. Based on Joe Hill’s novel of the same name, Horns tells the story of how a young man (Radcliffe) is accused of murdering his girlfriend (Juno Temple) and then starts sprouting horns which in the court of the public opinion confirms that he murdered her.
The movie looks to be treading the line between horror and comedy, and it’ll be interesting to see if it gets it right. Director Alexandre Aja’s only moderately acclaimed movie is Piranha 3D, so we’re not completely confident that it will. The script was written by Keith Bunin.
‘Interstellar’
November 7
It’s not very often that a film is both a major Oscar contender and also a contender to be the highest grossing movie of the year, but most movies aren’t directed by Christopher Nolan. There is no other director whose films are as big of events as Nolan’s. Titanic aside, no non-franchise movie has made more money at the box office than Nolan’s last original movie Inception, so it’s very likely that Interstellar will make stupid money.
Last year’s Best Actor winner Matthew McConaughey stars in the film with Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Ellen Burstyn, Wes Bentley, Mackenzie Foy, Bill Irwin, Topher Grace, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, and even Matt Damon will have a small role in the film. It’s a star studded, ambitious movie, and there’s very few movies that we’re this anticipatory of.
‘Big Hero 6’
November 7
Walt Disney Animation Studios has been on a roll recently with Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph, and they’ve really only had one dud (Meet the Robinsons) since the conglomeration between Disney and Pixar. Like all of Disney’s animation now, Big Hero 6 is a 3D computer-animated film.
It’s based on the little known Marvel comic of the same name, and it’s the first Marvel Disney animated movie. Centering around a young kid named Hiro Hamada and his robot Baymax, this is a story of a young team of heroes. Hopefully it can capture the same tone as Guardians of the Galaxy, another movie centering around a new team of heroes. It was directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams, and Hall wrote the script with Jordan Roberts.
‘The Theory of Everything’
November 7 (limited)
The Theory of Everything will make its premiere this month at TIFF. Anthony McCarten’s script was inspired by Jane Hawking’s memoir Travelling to Infinity: My life with Stephen, and the sorta-adaptation was directed by James Marsh.
Eddie Redmayne stars in the film as physicist Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones stars as Jane Wilde, the arts student that Hawking fell in love with while studying at Cambridge University. Man on Wire director James Marsh helmed the movie which also stars Emily Watson and David Thewlis, among others.
‘Rosewater’
November 7 (limited)
Can The Daily Show host Jon Stewart direct a good movie? As Stewart has shown for years hosting his Comedy Central satirical news show, he is great at getting to the heart of issues, and it’s extremely likely that that ability will transfer over into Rosewater. But there are other elements that make a film a film, and in those areas Stewart has never been proven.
Rosewater Stewart wrote and directed himself based The New York Times best-selling memoir Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival, written by Maziar Bahari. Rosewater premiered late last month at the Telluride Film Festival, and the few reviews so far have been solid.
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