Fun Friday: Coming Attractions
Happy Friday, everyone!
In keeping with the goal-setting theme I’ve been trying to get going this week, my goal for next week is to (1) blog every day and (2) get my 2009 goals posted. So stay tuned for that.
One of the 2008 goal lists I never did update was the movies to see list. So for 2009, I’ll include the movies from last year that I still want to see, and have added to my Netflix queue, followed by the list of movies slated to release in 2009 that I want to see.
2008 Movies in My Netflix Queue
Leatherheads
Iron Man
City of Ember
Twilight
Marley & Me
Bedtime Stories
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Tale of Despereaux
2009 Movies to See
Defiance — Based on the true story of three brothers (Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell), instead of glorifying the Nazis, the way the recent Tom Cruise vehicle Valkyrie does, this movie shows the courage and determination of the Jews who chose to fight back, who chose to defy those seeking to annihilate them. January 16, 2009.
Inkheart — The release of this film was pushed back to January from last summer. I wonder if it’s because of the writers’ strike last year, because of the other few Brendan Fraser movies that were released last summer/fall, or if they fell behind on the production schedule. January 23, 2009.
The International — Even though I think Daniel Craig is a great James Bond, this film is the vehicle that shows why Clive Owen could have done just as well in the role. Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) pool their resources in an attempt to break up an international arms dealing ring financed by a high-profile bank. February 13, 2009
Race to Witch Mountain — I may be showing my age here, but I loved the Witch Mountain films of the late 1970s, in fact, I think my first crush ever was on Ike Eisenmann, who played Tony in the original films (as well as starring in several after-school specials around that time). And he has a cameo appearance as the Sheriff in the new film, as does Kim Richards, the original Tia, as a waitress. Oh, and did I mention that it has Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Ciaran Hinds in it? March 13, 2009.
The Accidental Husband — This was on my 2008 to-see list, but the release was pushed back from May to August and now to March. Not sure exactly what that says about how good of a movie it’ll be. Looks like a pretty straight-forward rom-com plot, but if it’s well done, this should be a very fun movie. Especially if Colin Firth gets thwarted! 🙂 I may wait for it to come out on DVD, just depends on what’s going on when it comes out. March 27, 2009.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine — Woohoo! After a not-so-great ending to the X-Men trilogy, we’re getting exactly what we want in this film: more of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine! And Liev Schreiber is in it (love him!) as Sabretooth, the bad guy, as well as Dominic Monaghan (LOST/Lord of the Rings) as “Beak.” May 1, 2009
Star Trek — It seems like I’m filling this list with movies that were on my 2008 list that got pushed back to 2009 release dates. Maybe that’s why the second half of the year last year seemed so devoid of good movies! This is J.J. Abrams’s take on the Star Trek universe. All I have to say for those of you who don’t recognize his name is that he’s the executive producer behind LOST, Alias, Six Degrees, Felicity, and Cloverfield. Oh, and Karl Urban is in this movie (as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy)! May 8, 2009.
My Life in Ruins — After squeezing anything that was possibly remaining of the success of her film My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos is back in what looks like a wonderful romantic comedy. May 8, 2009.
Land of the Lost — Now, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like Will Farrell. But Anna Friel is in this movie, and I do like her. But more importantly, I’m interested in seeing their take on this staple of my childhood Saturday mornings. June 5, 2009.
Public Enemies — I don’t usually go in for the gangster films, but the buzz around this one makes it sound like it’ll be great. Plus with Christian Bale as an FBI Agent and Johnny Depp playing John Dillinger, it’s bound to be full of superb acting. July 1, 2009.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — This film was supposed to be out around Thanksgiving, but apparently Warner Bros. decided Harry Potter couldn’t take on James Bond, and that they could make more money with a summer release. July 17, 2009.
Julie & Julia — Based on the bestselling blog-turned-book Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, this film stars Amy Adams as the eponymous Julie, who tries to liven up her dreary life by cooking all of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. August 7, 2009.
G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra — I know, you’re all now thinking, “Huh?” But really, this looks like a pretty decent action film. And it is one of my favorite types of movies. August 7, 2009.
Dorian Gray — Based on the classic novel by Oscar Wilde and starring Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian). A September release date has been announced for the U.K., so hopefully it’ll open here around the same time. Autumn 2009.
Sherlock Holmes — Robert Downey Jr. as the master sleuth? Well, that wouldn’t really be the reason why I want to see it. But it does look interesting. November 20, 2009.
2009 Movies to (possibly) Watch on DVD
Mall Cop
New in Town
Watchmen
Monsters vs. Aliens
The Soloist
Angels and Demons
Up
My Sister’s Keeper
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Surrogates
I’m sure tons more will pop up as the year goes on, but those are the ones that seem of interest to me now.
Comments are closed.
KayeDacus.com 
Iron Man is awesome. Leatherheads was disappointing. (Saw both of those on DVD.) I want to see The Tale of Despereaux & The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but will probably wait for DVD releases at this point.
I AM SO FLIPPIN’ EXCITED ABOUT DEFIANCE!!!!! 🙂 I also want to see Inkheart. Lori saw Brendan Fraser on the Graham Norton show and he totally freaked her out – I told her to think about Andy Serkis and try to ignore Fraser, so I think she’ll come see this with us now. 😛
The International sounds intriguing, as does Public Enemies. I also want to see Dorian Gray, and I’m pretty excited about Sherlock Holmes – though Holmes is and forever will be the fantabulous Jeremy Brett, period.
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I want to see Defiance, and The Boy In The Striped Pajamas. Doubt too. And Benjamin Button.
Dorian Gray sounds interesting. Plus that actor is just drop-dead gorgeous.
If Abrams doesn’t dedicate the new ST movie to Majel Roddenberry there will be a lot of very unhappy Trekkies, my family included.
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The second half of the year seemed devoid of good movies? What I’ve seen, starting in August…
Comedy:
Tropic Thunder (R)
Zack and Miri Make a Porno (R)
Burn After Reading (R)
Role Models (R)
Bolt (PG)
Yes Man (PG-13)
Mostly hyper-crude stuff, but for the people that like that (myself included), all those R rated ones were golden. Bolt was a great family movie, and Yes Man was pretty funny for PG-13.
Action:
Eagle Eye (PG-13)
Death Race (R)
Quantum of Solace (PG-13)
The first two were preposterous, but still entertaining if you can look past their attempts at plots. Quantum wasn’t really a James Bond movie, but it was still good.
Drama:
Australia (PG-13)
Slow for the first 45 minutes, but quite excellent after that.
And that’s not counting all the movies I haven’t seen that came out over Christmas break that I’ve heard nothing short of amazing things about (Benjamin Button, Gran Torino, Slumdog Millionaire) and a few other blockbuster types I really want to see (Valkyrie, Seven Pounds, Marley and Me). I’d say the latter half of the year was just as strong as ever.
But still, thank you for not listing Bride Wars for 2009. That movie looks like complete garbage. Watching the trailer, I’d swear it was written by whoever does that Zack and Cody or Hannah Montana show on Disney. If those are the clips they’re using to try to sell the movie, I can’t imagine want kind of rubbish is attempting to hold it together as a feature.
I’m probably interested in about 70% of the movies you named, but I’d trade out several of the theater picks for the rental picks (particularly Up, Watchmen, and Transformers). Defiance looks awesome. I really, really like the Edward Zwick movies that I’ve seen, so I’ll definitely be checking that out.
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I’m tired of seeing the previews for Bride Wars–there’s no way I’d go see it.
I think the only two movies I saw this fall were Quantum and Australia, and I enjoyed both of them. Everything else you listed was included in my “devoid of good movies” comment.
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“Devoid of movies I was interested in” would be a better statement then. Aside from Eagle Eye, Death Race, and Yes Man, all of those were GREAT movies. I’d actually place nearly all of those comedies above Quantum and Australia in the overall spectrum of things.
I’m surprised Death Race didn’t pass your filter. I mean, it has Jason Statham, and it’s certainly better than Pathfinder and Doom. By like a thousand. And it still isn’t that good, just stupidly entertaining.
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Oooh, thanks Caleb…I forgot I do want to see Valkyrie…might have to wait till it is on DVD, though.
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I can’t believe either of you are going to pay money to go see a Tom Cruise movie!
And Caleb—that’s the difference in our tastes in movies. Silly, crude comedies are the lowest rank on my list of genres.
Death Race may have had Jason Statham in it, whom I’ve only seen in one movie (and the whole premise of Death Race looked pretty stupid to me), but you know the ONLY reason I watched Pathfinder and Doom. And Pathfinder was pretty terrible despite Karl’s presence in it. Doom, however, is my guilty pleasure, watch-it-when-I-need-to-feel-dumb movie. And you’ll never take that one away from me, no matter how much you trash talk it!
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And, hello, don’t I at least get props for Wolverine and G.I. Joe being on the list of movies I’ll most likely go see at the theater? 😉
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I said I was LIKELY going to wait to see Valkyrie on DVD. 😛 It’s my time period, what can I say? RESEARCH!!! 😉
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Kaye, how can you bash Tom Cruise like that? Mission: Impossible. Jerry Maguire. Top Gun. Minority Report. The Last Samurai. Rain Man. Collateral. A Few Good Men. He may very well be completely out of his mind, but he’s given me more than enough good reasons to pay to see his movies if they look interesting. Valkyrie has him teaming up with the director of the first two X-Men movies? I will totally pay money for that.
But yeah, I’ll give you some points for Wolverine and G.I. Joe.
Also, the main reason I made the Statham comment is because I remember In the Name of the King, supposedly one of the worst movies of all time, previously making one of your “to watch” lists and I assumed it was solely because of him. Death Race is every bit as stupid as it looks, but I enjoyed the fast cars and explosions well enough.
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I did give you points for Defiance as well, you might note.
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Uh . . . Tom Cruise has played TOM CRUISE in every movie he’s ever been in! What’s the point of torturing myself like that? He lost me at Cocktail and never won me back.
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Never did watch In the Name of the King, since the reviews (and recommendations) were soundly against it.
And I take it back—I’ve never seen a Jason Statham movie. The movie I was thinking about was Hitman which starred Timothy Olyphant—and was pretty much stupid, too. Really, the only reason I even ventured to watch that one was because Henry Ian Cusick (from LOST) was in it.
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Yeah, well he had me at “Hello… My name is Tom Cruise and I can pretend to fly planes, spy, and sleep with any woman I want all while getting paid millions of dollars.”
It was like love at first jealousy. I can watch any of those movies I named pretty much any time. I don’t even have to be in a particular mood. They’re just good movies.
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Rented Ironman recently – much, much, much better than I thought it would be.
Saw Twilight this weekend with my best friend. It was also a lot better than I thought it would be, but partly because we both had just read the book. I don’t know if I would have liked it so much if I hadn’t devoured the first three books recently.
I’m looking forward to Inkheart, Star Trek, Wolverine and a few others that look pretty good. I’m hoping that in Wolverine we find out that the third movie was just a very bad dream.
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Oh and Witch Mountain! I wanted to be Tia when I was a little girl. It makes me happy that they will have cameos in the movie. I hope its better than the made for tv remake that was out about 8-10 years ago that was just plain awful.
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