Last week, we got out our calendars and red sharpies and made plans for the first half of 2012. We were gonna do the whole year, but then we got hungry, were shocked to discover there were no more Rolos in the house, went out to get Rolos, then bumped into that guy we met at a thing a while back.
Guess we lost track of time.
But here we are, we still have our calendars -- and with a clear head we can talk about the Fanboy movies happening in mid-June on through the Holidays! Refresh yourself on Part 1, then continue to Part 2 of the 2012 preview below:
June 22 – "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"
This really feels more like a last-week-in-August movie, right? Maybe they'll be smart and move it. It has midnight movie potential, though. I'm hoping for a real good Salmon P. Chase joke.
June 29 – "G.I. Joe: Retaliation"
I quite enjoyed the first "G.I. Joe." If there's as much Rachel Nichols on a treadmill then we should be....oh, wait...she's not in this one? Huh. But The Rock is? Okay, that's a decent swap.
June 3 – "The Amazing Spider-Man"
I have an allegiance to Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire that just won't die and I must admit I'm still neutral about the new gang. (Although... a dude named Webb was born to direct this film.) But everything we've seen so far, from the web shooters to the first-person glee of Spidey in action leads me to believe that this is gonna be good. It's kinda hard to screw up Spider-Man.
July 13 – San Diego Comic-Con
You won't be at the local theater this weekend. You'll either be at the San Diego Convention Center having a myocardial nerdfarction, or you'll be chained to your computer, hitting refresh on NextMovie.com every thirty seconds like the scoop-addicted fanboy you are.
July 20 – "The Dark Knight Rises"
All right, everybody calm down. We need to manage our expectations a little bit. Just because "The Dark Knight" and "Inception" have basically rearranged our relationship with cinema does not mean that this is automatically going to be the greatest thing in the history of all spacetime.
That's what you'll say to yourself moments before the lights go down.
And when you hear the first pulse of Hans Zimmer's score and see the swoop over Gotham you will begin quivering like the endorphin-basted sop that you are.
July 27 – "The Dark Knight Rises" redux
Go see it again this week and maybe you'll understand Bane a little better.
August 3 – Len Wiseman's "Total Recall That Isn't Set On Mars And Doesn't Have Arnold."
Oh, good Lord. Uh...y'know, it's already August. Maybe you should go to the beach at least ONE weekend. This seems like a good time to try.
August 10 – Nothin' For Fanboys, Really.
Okay, if people you trust tell you that "Total Recall" is actually good, then you are permitted to go see it. But have backup plans, because this is unlikely.
Aug 17 – "Paranorman"
Oh, crap, you went the whole summer and didn't see your nephew or that platonic dorky girl friend who's really into Neil Gaiman. Thank God for "Paranorman," the stop-motion animation that will no doubt be extremely winning and adorable and crafty and fun.
Sept 14 – "Resident Evil: Retribution"
After two weeks off, there's an Indian Summer rush of fanboy movies. Like another "Resident Evil!"
Not a single one of these movies has ever been good, and yet I've enjoyed watching every one of them. And I never turn it off when I flip to one on cable. Milla Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson are truly blessed mystical alchemists of cinematic crap!
I hope she jumps down an elevator shaft with three other copies of herself and shoots machine guns at the camera in slow-motion in 3-D again.
Sept 21 – "Dredd"
The title is the appropriate adjective I'd have toward this film, if it wasn't Karl Urban in the role. He's so freakin' awesome. In "LOTR," in "Star Trek," even in "Priest," he knows just how much of his teeth to sink into the furniture before going too far. I can't wait to see him in a ridiculous helmet-issuing justice.
Sept 28 – "Looper"
Smart sci-fi! Rian "The Brothers Bloom" Johnson's first foray into fanboy cinema stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and time travel. I've spoken to people that have already seen it and it supposedly scratches the itch left by an absence of movies like "Moon" this year.
October – Nuthin'
There's nothing yet planned for our kind in November, so here's a spot for a shout-out to three movies that are supposed to come out in 2012, but the precise time is a little sketchy:
"Cloud Atlas" - The Wachowskis and Tom ("Run Lola Run") Tykwer team up for a series of interlocking vignettes spanning the mid-1800s, the '30s, the '70s, today-ish, the future and the whacked-out crazy future. It's got a gi-normous cast including Hugo Weaving (!) and Keith David (!!)
"Sound of My Voice" - More smart sci-fi! This one wowed me at South by Southwest and is about a religious cult from the future. . . kinda. It's really sharp and has that rarest of things, a perfect ending.
"Beyond the Black Rainbow" - One the trippiest movies I've seen ever, this is set in an alternate 1983 when everything looks like the cover of OMNI Magazine and Rush albums. Mind-altering drugs, psychokinesis and lots of synthesizer on the soundtrack. I love this movie to pieces and it is definitely coming out in 2012 and I am forcing every one of you to see it.
Nov 23 – After weeks of nothing – a double shot!
"47 Ronin" - Keanu Reeves will make you go hari-krazy in this seppu- cool adaptation of the famous Japanese legend. It isn't a straight period piece, there's fantasy elements and giant monsters. Directed by Ridley Scott's daughter's boyfriend, and no matter how good he is he'll be that for the next few films.
"Gravity" - Alfonso Cuaron of "Children of Men" and the only "Harry Potter" film I truly, truly like (sue me) is back with Sandra Bullock (huh?) trapped in the inky blackness of space. It supposedly opens with a 20-minute one-take sequence that will keep film students scratching their heads for years. I have faith.
December 14 – "The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey"
It's like when you move something in your freezer and discover a huge vat of your favorite flavor of ice cream that you forgot was back there. That's what these two new Peter Jackson "Hobbit" films are to me: two giant drums of unexpected Cherry Garcia.
December 21 - "World War Z"
I'm not really into horror, but I am into speculative concepts, particularly when they involve the end of the world. So I'll give this one a try. And not just because Brad Pitt is dreamy.
December 25 - "Django Unchained"
And. . .this one doesn't necessarily fit into a "fanboy" film either. . .but the idea of Quentin Tarantino doing a Western is very much fulfilling a fantasy.
Come back every Thursday for more intergalactic musings on Planet Fanboy and follow its fearless leader Jordan Hoffman on Twitter!
