The Forgotten Oz Masterpiece

"Return to Oz" was released in 1985 by the struggling Walt Disney Company, and was a notorious flop. Based on the second and third of L. Frank Baum's "Oz" books, it bore little resemblance to MGM's famous "Wizard of Oz" musical, and was so dark in tone that it alienated many potential viewers. Critics were mostly hostile, and "Return to Oz" won an ignominious place on Siskel and Ebert's list of the worst films of 1985. However, I grew up with the film through regular television broadcasts in the 90s, which for a time were at least as frequent as the ones for "Wizard of Oz," and it's one of my childhood favorites. And after nearly thirty years it still holds up remarkably well as a fantasy feature.

We meet Dorothy, who is about ten years old and played by Fairuza Balk. She suffers from insomnia after returning to Kansas from her adventures in Oz, and her Aunt Em (Piper Laurie) and Uncle Henry (Matt Clark) are worried by her tales of tin men and talking lions. She's sent to the sinister Doctor Worley (Nicol Williamson) to try a new cure for melancholia - electroshock therapy. However, before the treatments can take place, a mysterious girl (Emma Ridley) helps Dorothy to escape during a storm. They're separated and Dorothy is washed away in a river. She wakes up back in Oz, but not the peaceful, happy world she remembers, that was ruled by the Scarecrow. Instead, she finds that Oz has been conquered by the Nome King (Nicol Williamson), and its inhabitants turned to stone or otherwise enchanted. However, Dorothy finds new friends, including a talking hen, Billina (Denise Bryer), a mechanical soldier, Tik-Tok (Sean Barrett), and Jack Pumpkinhead (Brian Henson), who of course has a pumpkin for a head.

I can imagine fans of "Wizard of Oz" being dismayed by the scenes at the mental hospital, and becoming downright upset once Dorothy finally got to Oz, and it was not the Technicolor wonderland that they were expecting, but a ruined, crumbling place where creepy villains like the wheel-limbed Wheelers held sway. First time director Walter Murch, best known as the sound designer and sound editor of a slew of classics including "Apocalypse Now" and "The Godfather," struggled through an arduous production that coincided with changing leadership at Disney. He was committed to bringing a very personal, darker vision of Oz to the screen, an idea that was met with considerable skepticism when it became clear what the film was shaping up to be. He was even fired briefly, before George Lucas and other major directors interceded. Murch's approach was daring not only for departing almost entirely from the mainstream public's understanding of Oz, but for introducing a psychological complexity to the story in the way that he treated Dorothy's depression, and how he mirrored the characters from each world, including Dorothy and Ozma (Emma Ridley), one of the book series' most beloved characters.

You can see this particularly in Murch's approach to the villains, who are really effective, frightening nightmare creatures, but their power comes from the fact that they are grounded in potent real-world fears. We first meet the crooked Doctor Worley and his nurse, who are truly a threat to Dorothy's well-being in the Kansas scenes. In Oz, Worley becomes the Nome King, a creature of cold stone who gains life as others lose theirs. His cohort Mombi (Jean Marsh) is a vain, malevolent witch with interchangeable heads, and there is a particularly traumatic sequence where she chases Dorothy through her chambers while headless. However, I don't think either of them are so scary that they're inappropriate for children. I saw "Return to Oz" as a kid and enjoyed the frights immensely. And of course, generations of tots were similarly frightened by Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys. In my own experience, grown-ups seem to have more trouble with "Return to Oz" than kids.

And though it may lack in whimsy and delight, I always found the movie to be utterly gorgeous. The production design takes its cues directly from the delicate John R. Neill illustrations of the Oz books, and this version of Oz feels far more immersive and immediate. It's an older, richer, stranger Oz that yields its best wonders slowly. Visually, it reminds me of "Pan's Labyrinth," full of hidden perils and symbols of the unconscious. The courtyard of statues, Mombi's mirrored throne room, and the Nome King's underground domain stayed with me for years. The effects work is even better. Teams from Jim Henson operated Dorothy's companions, and Will Vinton Studios did Claymation sequences for the Nome King and his minions. And playing a significant role in establishing the mood is the haunting score by David Shire, that has themes for each major character, and features a series of magnificent violin solos.

Sadly, the negative initial reaction resulted in Walter Murch never directing another film. Producer Gary Kurtz all but quit Hollywood in its wake. The new Disney leadership tried to disown the movie, and "Return to Oz" didn't have any kind of home media release until the late 90s. These days it's very much a cult film, still polarizing in certain circles. I don't agree with those who claim it's so much more faithful to Baum's Oz books, because it wasn't. Baum's work was darker than MGM's "Wizard of Oz," but was a far gentler, more pastoral kind of fantasy than "Return to Oz." No, "Return to Oz" had its own vision and its own take on the land of Oz, one that deserves to be recognized on its own merits.
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Movie Trendspotting 2013

The invasion of alien invasion movies has just about puttered out. Fairy tale movies have become passé overnight, since "Jack the Giant Slayer" underperformed at the box office. Zombies are still good performers, but the inundation of them is starting to get a little embarrassing. So what else has Hollywood got for us? Looking at the lists of upcoming releases, I've come up with some possible common themes that could turn into trends depending on the success of the movies they feature in.

Mecha - That's human-piloted, often humanoid, combat machines and giant robots, for those of you who don't spend much time in the anime world. Mecha have been a staple of science fiction stories for a long time, and the best remembered one in film is probably Ripley's badass exosuit from "Aliens." They were also recently used by the baddies for the climactic finale of "Avatar." However, in the animated world the mecha are far more massive and elaborate, and can effectively turn a single operator into an army, and an army into a much bigger army. We'll be seeing lots of this brand of mecha in action in Guillermo del Toro's "Pacific Rim" this summer, where the human race will use them to fight giant monsters. And on that note, giant monsters may also be staging a comeback. A new "Godzilla" is on the schedule for next year.

Westerns - We had a good run of modernized westerns like "Maverick," "The Legend of Zorro," and the ill-fated "Wild Wild West" in the 90s, then abruptly nothing. Recent flops like "Cowboys and Aliens" and "Jonah Hex" haven't been very encouraging for those who want to see a comeback of the genre, but then we had "True Grit" and "Django Unchained," which are a good reminder of how much fun westerns can be if they're handled with the right attitude. Traditionally this had been a very versatile and hardy genre, going all the way back to the earliest days of film. And even though they've been declared dead more times than I can count, the western has always popped back up again. Disney's going to make another attempt at launching the next big action franchise with "The Lone Ranger" this summer, and if they can pull this off, maybe cowboys and Indians will be the next pirates.

Silicon Valley - This spring we're getting "Jobs," a Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher. And then a few months later comes "The Internship," a comedy featuring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn getting internships at Google, which is notable for having been allowed to use actual Google facilities for the production. There have been plenty of films about tech start-ups and the internet revolution, notably "The Social Network," but it looks like Hollywood is starting to mine the real-world tech companies and their culture for material in a big way. No surprise, since Google and Apple and Microsoft and all the rest have become more and more influential in recent years and have had a huge impact on the popular culture. This can also be seen as the logical next phase for another trend we've been seeing in recent years - the rise of the geek hero.

Buddy Chick Flicks - We have established that a single actress no longer has enough marquee value to sell a major comedic film, so our rom-com queens have been increasingly lumped into big ensemble pictures, or double billed with a male co-stars of equal stature. One alternative I'm hoping gets more play is the buddy chick flick, which uses multiple headlining actresses, puts female friendship front and center instead of a romance, and emphasizes comedy. These can be way more guy-friendly than your standard rom-com, and tend to have better material too. So far it worked for "Bridesmaids," it worked for "Pitch Perfect," and if all goes well it'll work for "The Heat," which stars Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy as a mismatched set of female cops who have to learn to work together to solve a big case.

90s Reboots - This is pretty much inevitable now that we're hitting the bottom of the barrel for 80s properties to remake. We're down to the likes of "Robocop" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," which both look like major disasters in the making. Meanwhile, the 90s kids are starting to reach that age where they're old enough to be nostalgic for the media of their youths. Television has already been there and done that. The CW's reboot of 90s staple "Beverly Hills, 90210" is already ending after a successful five season run. In the film world, I think the most likely property to start with is "Jurassic Park." The 3D conversion of the original 1993 film will be opening in a few weeks, and has been hotly anticipated by fans. A third "Jurassic Park" sequel has apparently garnered enough momentum to snag a 2014 release date, but I suspect it's really going to be a stealth reboot.
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Jon Stewart, Director?

It was announced yesterday that Jon Stewart, current host of "The Daily Show," is planning to direct his first feature film, "Rosewater." It will dramatize the arrest and detention of reporter Maziar Bahari by Iranian authorities in 2009 after Bahari participated in a "Daily Show" sketch. This means that Stewart will be taking some time off from the "Daily Show," about twelve weeks over the summer. British correspondent John Oliver will be filling in for him as host.

First gut reaction is, good for Stewart. An actor making the jump to directing is nothing new, but Jon Stewart is part of the late night comedy crowd, where these kind of extracurricular projects are much rarer. Having chosen subject matter that is clearly near and dear to his heart, I hope his directorial debut turns out well. "Rosewater" sounds like it has a lot of potential as a feature, and Stewart has been such an insightful and valuable voice in the political sphere, I'd love to see if that can translate to this kind of straight dramatic project. And it's always exciting to see any artist breaking out of whatever little box they've been pigeonholed in. Sure, Jon Stewart has worn many hats during his career and reinvented himself a few times already, but after over a decade at "The Daily Show," maybe it's time for him to remind us that late night satire isn't all he can do.

Of course the second gut reaction is the panic. Oh god, oh god, what if this movie is successful and he wants to do more of them? What if he's really successful and decides to quit "The Daily Show" entirely to become the next Terrence Malick? Can "The Daily Show" survive without him? I concluded in a previous post that the media landscape would be much poorer if Jon Stewart even decided to become a real political pundit or politician, because we would lose his vital outsider perspective. No one else has ever come close to replicating what he does, though former "Daily Show" correspondent Stephen Colbert found his own absurdist angle on political commentary with "The Colbert Report." "The Daily Show" without Jon Stewart is difficult to get my head around, and getting through future election brouhaha and political scandals without the "The Daily Show" is not an appealing thought.

Then again, "The Daily Show" should be able to go on without Stewart, and maybe it's time they started looking into a succession plan, and get the audience used to another guy behind the fake news anchor's desk. I mean, "The Daily Show" existed prior to John Stewart, originally hosted by Craig Kilborn, who set up a lot of the show's format that we often take for granted. I like John Oliver a lot, and even though I wouldn't choose him as a permanent replacement, the prospect of three months of a John Oliver hosted "Daily Show" during the off season sounds okay. I'd still watch, the same way I did when Colbert occasionally filled in for Stewart, before he left for his own show. In fact there have been several correspondents and contributors over the years who could have fit the bill, like Steve Carrell, Ed Helms, John Hodgman, Lewis Black, and Larry Wilmore. Samantha Bee and Jason Jones together would make a fantastic hosting team.

You know, I think a summer break is going to be a good thing for everybody. Stewart can go expand his horizons and stretch some creative muscles, and we'll see how Oliver handles himself as a host. And if he doesn't work out, then they can give someone else a shot the next time Stewart wants to make a movie or write a book or just take a long vacation. Stewart has indicated many times in interviews over the years that he's deeply invested in his work at "The Daily Show," so the chances of him running off to make prestige pics without his house in order is very unlikely. So, I can stop panicking and start wondering about Jon Stewart's filmmaking chops. Was Paul Thomas Anderson's recent appearance on the show so Stewart could grill him for advice?

And finally, of course, there's the Hollywood angle. How is everyone going to react to Jon Stewart, director? Well, considering the kind of small budget, small-scale, and at least partially foreign-language drama that he's making, he's probably not going to make too big of a splash unless his film is exceptionally good (or exceptionally bad, but let's try to stay optimistic). I'm not so sure marketing "Rosewood" based on his name would be all that helpful either, since Stewart's reputation is as a funnyman first. Oh, it'll certainly attract attention, but I highly doubt that most of Stewart's regular "Daily Show" audience would turn out to see it. "Rosewood" will most likely end up being another little specialty release, or picked up by one of the premium cable channels.

And that's perfectly fine for someone just testing the waters and is not giving up his day job. Not yet, anyway.
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My Top Ten Favorite "Seinfeld" Episodes

This list comes with the caveat that I first saw most of the episodes long ago, at an age when various concepts and social mores related to sexuality were totally lost on me. I prefer the later seasons to the earlier ones, the more conceptually creative episodes to the more character based ones. And my favorite character for all time is George Costanza, who ties with Homer Simpson as the best encapsulation of all the inadequacies of the 90s man. Episodes are listed chronologically. And here we go.

"The Chinese Restaurant" - Try as I might, I can't remember any episodes that aired before this one, which came near the end of the show's second season. It's surely one of the most iconic, with Jerry, Elaine, and George spending the entire length of the episode waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant, a perfect representation of the "Seinfeld" mantra to be "a show about nothing." They would use this existential template again in future episodes, including a few others on this list. Finally, note that the infuriating maître d' is played by James Hong (of course).

"The Parking Garage" - Has many similarities to "The Chinese Restaurant," but differs in some important respects. First, it takes pace over a much longer stretch of time, and secondly there's no exit. The gang spends the episode stuck in a parking garage, searching for their elusive car. They have several pressing reasons to leave quickly, which seem fairly trivial in retrospect, but are all-important in the moment. And of course there's the ending, which subsequent interviews have revealed only happened by accident. It's such a wonderful little slice of surrealist purgatory.

"The Contest" - Yes, it's the masturbation episode. I'm pretty sure I didn't understand what was going on the first time I saw this, except that it involved sex somehow, but the character interactions and how the story plays out completely sold it for me. "The Contest" is remembered now as a boundary pusher, even though its indelicate subject matter was never mentioned explicitly and it's probably funnier for only using euphemisms, including the priceless "master of my domain." Oh, and this was the first episode to feature Estelle Harris as Geroge's mother, one of the show's best creations.

"The Outing" - I may have been behind the curve on some matters, but I did know what being gay was, and that it was a very touchy subject back in the early 90s. So "Seinfeld" wading into the fray, being politically correct to the point of absurdity with every repetition of "not that there's anything wrong with that," came across loud and clear. It's a great reflection of the attitudes of the day, and such a typically absurd "Seinfeld" situation. If Jerry could have just let things go or if George hadn't tried to spin the situation to his advantage, things never would have escalated to the level that they it did.

"The Dinner Party" - George's coat. The cinnamon babka. The double parker. The vomit streak. I don't know why this episode is the one I remember the best, but I can't look at a black and white cookie and not think about race relations. This is yet another offspring of "The Chinese Restaurant" that finds the cast trapped by social customs and crummy customer service when they stop by a bakery and liquor store to pick up something to bring to a dinner party. Unfortunately they don't take a number before getting in the bakery line, and nobody wants to break a $100 bill. And it just gets worse from there.

"The Marine Biologist" - I vividly remember a girl at school describing this episode to me in great detail, and I'm a little surprised it wasn't from an earlier season. The episode has three separate stories. George passes himself off as a marine biologist to a potential love interest, Kramer tries to take up golfing, and Jerry and Elaine get mixed up in a drive-by battery. What follows is a series of unlikely coincidences, culminating in George regaling the others with the tale of how he saved a beached whale in one of the show's best monologues. "The sea was angry that day my friends!"

"The Pledge Drive" - The one I always seem to miss in reruns. This has my favorite silly subplot, based on one simple idea taken to extremes. Elaine sees her boss eating a candy bar with a knife and fork, and she unwittingly helps to spread the practice all over the city. This is also the one with a man who is a "high talker," who is mistaken multiple times throughout the episode for a woman. I always forget about the pledge drive of the title, which Jerry is working, but it's the odd little tangents that make this one so memorable – like George's paranoia that he's subtly being flipped off by strangers.

"The Pothole" - Poor Elaine. She just wanted Chinese takeout, and thought she'd come up with an ingenious idea – pretend to be living in an empty janitor's closet in a part of town that the restaurant would deliver to. She ends up having to pretend she's a janitor. Meanwhile George loses a keychain down a pothole, Kramer's working on a road crew, and Jerry's girlfriend puts him in a potentially unhygienic situation. It's four variations on the same theme: sometimes you have to get down and dirty in order to get what you want. Or in Jerry's case, give up what you want to stay clean.

"The Package" – Here's a story that you couldn't do in the post-digital age. George thinks a clerk at the photo store is flirting with him, by putting a revealing photo in with his order, so he decides to return the favor. This results in a hysterical set of escalating visual gags with a great punchline. Meanwhile, Elaine discovers she has been labeled a problem patient and can't get her rash treated. And I think I'll leave you to discover how a mystery package with no return address, a mail fraud scheme, and Uncle Leo getting his eyebrows burned off fit into all this. And this is the best use of Newman ever.

"The Strike" – Some claim that "Seinfeld" lost steam in its final seasons. However, there is at least one undisputed classic to have emerged from its final run of episodes. "The Strike" reveals Kramer is the striking employee of a bagel shop, introduces the concept of the "two-faced" woman who looks beautiful or horrible depending on the circumstances, and a little holiday invented by Frank Costanza known as Festivus. For the rest of us. Of all the concepts that the show introduced to us, Festivus is my favorite, a holiday for airing of grievances, feats of strength, and above all, family.

Honorable Mentions: "The Junior Mint," "The Airport," "The Visa," "The Implant," "The Mango," "The Hamptons," "The Opposite," "The Race," "The Fusili Jerry," "The Hot Tub," "The Soup Nazi," "The Checks," and "The Muffin Tops."
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Regarding "Psychopaths"

"Seven Psychopaths" looks so good on paper. A struggling screenwriter named Marty (Colin Farrell), is trying to write a screenplay based only on a title, "Seven Psychopaths." However, he's distracted by the schemes of his pal Billy (Sam Rockwell), who kidnaps dogs to return them for the reward money. Billy's partner in dognapping is Hans (Christopher Walken), whose wife Myra (Linda Bright Clay) is in the hospital for cancer treatments. One day Billy and Hans grab the wrong dog, a little Shih Tzu named Bonny who belongs to the gangster Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson). Other characters in the mix include a mysterious "Jack of Diamonds" killer who targets members of organized crime, Costello's lovely girlfriend Angela (Olga Kurylenko), a gentleman named Zachariah (Tom Waits), who used to be one half of a Bonnie-and-Clyde serial killer team, and a Vietnamese soldier (Long Nguyen) out for revenge.

"Psychopaths" is the brain child of Irish writer and director Martin McDonagh, who was also responsible for "In Bruges." I’ve been a fan of his for a long time, and I can see what he was going for here. This is a dark, dark satire of the action movie genre with a lot of self-referential, self-critical meta humor, that also takes a genuine stab at addressing several different forms and expressions and treatments of violence. McDonagh's script is frequently clever, has a wonderful puzzle-box structure, and is occasionally very touching. However, it's also wildly inconsistent, has too much going on, and it's hard to feel any sympathy for a pair of lead characters who spend so much time psychoanalyzing themselves through their screenplay, but feel like hastily thrown-together constructs, made of convenient tropes. I had a lot of trouble with Sam Rockwell's Billy, whose arc goes through a bunch of twisted convolutions that just didn't hold together. I could buy a lot of the wild coincidences and moments of action movie logic that the story depends on, but the twists involving Billy weren't properly set up and come off as pretty contrived.

Then again, you could argue that this is the point. "Seven Psychopath" presents itself as a deliberate critique on all the common fallacies of action movies, from the over-the-top badass combatants to the awful female characters (Abbie Cornish briefly appears as Marty's girlfriend) to increasingly outlandish confrontations. McDonagh doesn't push too far, saving the most ridiculous final standoff scenario for a proposed ending to the screenplay that Billy breathlessly describes to Marty with lots of kablooey sound effects. Then again, maybe the movie would have worked a bit better if he had. "Seven Psychopath" never gets as deliriously dark and biting as it could, because McDonagh does want you to care about the characters to some extent, and to consider his take on screen violence with some seriousness. He takes great pains to make sure that some of the deaths have real emotional impact, and shows that the act of killing can have unforeseen consequences. He also presents some thoughtful examples of positive violence to contrast with the usual senseless, negative variety. Some of this works to great effect. Some of it doesn't.

The film is at its best when taken scene by scene, piece by piece. There are some great performances here, particularly from Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken, who gets one of the few really multilayered, memorable parts. Here is an oddball elderly man who has had a rough past, but dearly loves his ailing wife and has had time to reflect on the nature of his misdeeds. His attitude toward violence is the most informed one, and Walken is wonderful in the role, walking that thin line between kookiness and enlightenment. Harrelson's emotional mobster is broader, but he summons such wonderful humor and menace. Some of the film's best scenes involve his tense face-offs with other characters. Then there's Tom Waits, who shows up with a rabbit in his arms and a story to tell. He doesn't seem to be operating quite in the same universe as anyone else, but he makes such an impression that I wished we could have been watching a movie set in whatever universe his character was inhabiting.

There is a lot to get out of "Seven Psychopaths." Too much, maybe. Ultimately, I think McDonagh bit off a little more than he could chew. The ideas all have a lot of potential, but the execution needs work. There were tonal shifts and big reveals and stories within stories that I could see being very effective if they were handled right. McDonagh's not quite at the level to make something this complicated work the way he wants it to. There were a couple of big moments that fell completely flat for me, and a couple of obvious bits of symbolism and character parallels that didn't add up to much of anything. I really enjoy McDonagh as a writer, but his screenplays have been very hit-or-miss so far. And as a director, I think he needs to work a little harder.
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My Most Anticipated Films of 2013, Part II

A quick note before we start that many of these films don't have release dates yet and are included here because they are expected to debut before the end of the year. There's a good possibility that some of them won't be completed or land distribution deals in time, particularly the foreign ones. "Gravity," for instance, was on last year's list too.

"Upstream Color" - Premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival and is getting a limited release in a few weeks. Director Shane Carruth has finally delivered a new film after the success of "Primer" nearly ten years ago, after a different planned follow-up project fell through. The early reactions I've read suggest this is going to be a very polarizing one, an ambitious genre film full of wild concepts with an unconventional narrative, that will leave many audience members confused and frustrated. However, I love movies like this, so I can't wait.

"Gravity" - Here we go again. Alfonso Cuaron's long delayed, much anticipated science fiction film about a female astronaut, played by Sandra Bullock, stranded in outer space, is slated for an October release date. After test screenings were held for an unfinished print last year, the word is that this is going to be challenging and visually gorgeous and well worth the wait. Frankly at this point I'll be more than satisfied if Warners can refrain from moving the release date back again. Can you believe it's been seven years since Cuaron's last film?

"Captain Phillips" - Formerly known as "Maersk Alabama," the film will dramatize the 2009 hijacking of a cargo ship by Somali pirates. Tom Hanks will be playing the title role and Paul Greengrass, best known for "United 93" and the "Bourne" movies is directing. Along with screenwriter Billy Ray, that's an interesting combination of talent that could elevate the film above the level of your usual bio-pic, and makes it a considerably more attractive prospect than Hanks' other big film this year, "Saving Mr. Banks," where he'll be playing Walt Disney.

"Snowpiercer" - Bong Joon-Ho's multicultural post-apocalyptic adventure story about a new society that has formed aboard an ever-running train, will be his English-language debut. It's got quite a cast attached, including Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, and Ed Harris. "Snowpiercer" is currently in post-production and expected to premiere in South Korea sometime later this year, but the Weinsteins are handling distribution domestic, so who knows when American audiences will be able to get a look at it.

"Mood Indigo" - Michel Gondry's last film, "The We and the I," is finally getting a limited release in the U.S. next week, but the buzz is already going strong for his next one. The French language "Mood Indigo," based on the Boris Vian's surrealist fantasy novel "Froth on the Daydream," will star Audrey Tatou and Romain Duris as young lovers. The trailer features the whimsical fantasy visuals that Gondry is best known for, including a cartoony cloud car, and multiple scenes where the characters are floating or flying. Even if it's a mess, it'll be gorgeous.

"Fruitvale" - The big winner at Sundance this year follows the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, an Oakland resident whose shooting death in 2009 by transit police sparked massive public outcry. The buzz is that "Fruitvale," named after the BART station where Grant was killed, could follow a similar trajectory of critical acclaim and financial success as "Beasts of the Southern Wild." However, my interest is mainly as a Bay Area resident, who used to ride the BART trains every day, and happened to be living in Oakland at the time these events took place.

"Labor Day" - Jason Reitman has directed four films so far, which can all be categorized as dark comedies or satires to some degree. His next one is going to be "Labor Day," starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. From the descriptions online I initially thought that this was going to be a crime thriller, and maybe it will be to some degree. However, further digging revealed that this is gong to be a small scale interpersonal drama, a little darker than the usual material Reitman works with, but not entirely a departure from his usual style and genre.

"Foxcatcher" - Steve Carrell has done dramatic roles before, but nothing quite like what he's going to attempt in Bennett Miller's "Foxcatcher." The film will be a dramatization of a bizarre crime, where multimillionaire John duPont, played by Carrell, shot and killed a longtime friend in his driveway in full view of witnesses. There aren't many more details yet, but Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum will also star. I also want to note that "Foxcatcher," along with the next entry on the list, were both financed by the increasingly vital Annapurna Pictures.

"Her" - Here's one that's been flying very far under the radar so far, but Spike Jonze's new film has an irresistible premise to a science-fiction geek. A romance between a lonely man and a sophisticated new operating system? Where Joaquin Phoenix is playing the lead? And Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, and Samantha Morton are also in the cast? I'm in. Spike Jonze will be scripting this one solo as well as directing, which is going to be a first for him. He co-wrote "Where the Wild Things Are," though, which I adored, so I have plenty of faith in him.

"12 Years A Slave" - Last, but not least, we have Steve McQueen's upcoming film based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, who was born a free black man in New York, but kidnapped during a business trip and sold into slavery in the South in 1841. Chiwetel Ejiofor, who we haven't been seeing nearly enough of, has the lead role. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this ends up overshadowing more typical Oscar bait like Lee Daniels' "The Butler" next awards season. And it should provide an interesting contrast to "Django Unchained."
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My Most Anticipated Films of 2013, Part I

I went back and forth about whether or not to write these posts this year, but I figured that they do have some value, the same way that my "Least Anticipated" lists do. I like going back at the end of the year and seeing what met expectations and what didn't. And it's always good to take a good, hard look at where my movie-watching priorities are, and what's going into the decision making process when picking and choosing among new titles. The big question I suppose you're asking right now is, why wait until the beginning of March? Why didn't you write these lists two months ago when everyone else did? Well, because January and February are crap for new releases. Sure, I'll probably rent "Warm Bodies" and "Side Effects," but these aren't priorities. Also, the full year's release schedule still isn't close to being finalized - there was another round of date swapping just yesterday, but now everything through the summer is pretty much set, and it's after Sundance, so at least we've got a better picture of what's coming down the pipe.

I'm going to split these up into two posts, one for the big mainstream blockbusters, and one for the more highbrow pictures. Ten entries apiece. Here we go!

"Iron Man 3" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" - So much of my anticipation for these two sequels is pure hype and I know it. "Iron Man 2" was a disappointment, and there's no guarantee that "Iron Man 3" won't be more of the same. However, Shane Black is directing this time and he's got an awfully good track record, going all the way back to "Lethal Weapon." As for the new "Star Trek," there is the distinct possibility that the baddie that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing is actually Khan. Do I really need any other reason to be excited?

"Man of Steel" - I'm rooting for DC to finally get a Superman reboot right. They've got a lot of factors on their side, but a lot of others against them too. Their biggest liability is director Zack Snyder, whose films have been on a definite downward trajectory as of late. However, the cast looks solid, Christopher Nolan is heavily involved, and the trailers suggest that the filmmakers have a good angle on the origin story. The performance of "Man of Steel" is going to decide the fate of "Justice League," so this is a big one, one way or another.

"This is the End" and "The World's End" - The idea of spoofing the apocalypse appeals to me a lot after so many years of self-serious doom and gloom disaster epics. This year we're getting them in two different flavors. First, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, James Franco, and their cohorts will be playing themselves getting into celebrity-cameo-studded hijinks during the end times in Los Angeles. Then in the fall, Edgar Wright will reteam with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for "The World's End," described as a pub crawl that coincides with a global apocalypse.

"Pacific Rim" - Guillermo Del Toro's back! And he's brought what looks an awful lot like a Japanese kaiju monster movie with him, involving giant mecha suits. Visions of "Godzilla" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion" are dancing through my head after that teaser trailer. There are a lot of potentially interesting science fiction coming out this year, and I'm hoping that this one in particular will do well enough to raise some interest in other thematically related projects. And that it'll give Del Toro enough clout to finally make the projects he actually wants to make.

"Elysium" - Neill Blomkamp's follow-up to "District 9" will star Matt Damon and Jodie Foster in a science-fiction story we don't know very many details about, and hopefully it will stay that way. The preview images that have been released so far suggest another gritty, dystopian world and more pointed social commentary, but beyond that it's hard to say. I've also skimmed a plot synopsis that makes it sound a bit like "Battle Angel Alita," and if that turns out to be true then James Cameron has only himself to blame for dragging his feet on that project.

"Ender's Game" - Another possible disaster in the making. The novel is one of those science-fiction holy cows that was on every nerd's wish list to be turned into a feature film for several decades, and the potential for dashed hopes and major disappointment is considerable. There's already been some griping about how the child soldiers, lead by Asa Butterfield and Hailee Steinfeld, have been aged up significantly to lessen the shock of the combat. However, "Ender's Game" tells one hell of a story, and maybe - just maybe - they'll actually get it right.

"Frozen" - It's not shaping up to be a very good year for animated films, and the current slate is mostly dominated by spinoffs and sequels (I'm looking at you, PIXAR). The one feature I'm interested in is "Frozen," Disney's "Snow Queen" project that has been in development for decades. They're going to be following the template of "Tangled" and from what I've seen of the marketing materials so far, "Frozen" is going to be a major departure from the original fairy tale. That doesn't mean it can't still be a lot of fun, though, if all those changes work out.

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" - Oh yes. I may not have been thrilled with how "An Unexpected Journey" turned out, but I have been waiting to see the dragon Smaug on the big screen for as long as I can remember, as least as far back as when the original "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was in production and Peter Jackson first teased the possibility of doing a "Hobbit" movie. Also, most of the big action set pieces of "The Hobbit" will take place in "Desolation," which hopefully means less of the padding and the call-backs that made "Journey" such a slog.
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