It’s 2019. While absorbing that staggering fact bomb, it’s even more surprising that we’re still having firsts. After all, CAPTAIN MARVEL is the first solo female hero to headline a chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s also the first time a woman has taken the director’s chair in the MCU, as the Mississippi Grind team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck bring the most powerful woman in the galaxy to contemporary cinemas.
Or at least 1995, where Boden, Fleck, and co-writer Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider) lays our scene. “Vers” (Brie Larson) is a member of Starforce, an elite Kree military team led by Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). She has no memory of anything prior to her discovery 6 years earlier, save for the face of one woman (Annette Bening). After being captured by the shapeshifting Skrull Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), she finds herself in a madcap adventure on Earth alongside Agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to discover who she is.
CAPTAIN MARVEL is an ambitious film, wrapping up a story that has the scope of three Guardians of the Galaxymovies into a single outing. After a tonally ambiguous start, a marine assault set primarily in space, the film has a slightly awkward transition to Earth via a train chase that combines the fish-out-of-water antics of Thor with the Korean sequence in Black Panther. Yet by the time Larson steps off the train, the film has truly arrived.
Here Boden and Fleck really find their feet and, inspired by the Blockbuster Video that the titular hero crashes into, they have a ball mixing up the high-concept highlights of action films from the 1980s and 1990s. It’s a spy caper where the enemy could look like anyone. It’s a buddy comedy. It has aerial dogfights over canyons. There’s even a feline friend named Goose who may just go down as the most purrfect kitty in cinema history.
Larson is flawless in her MCU debut. From her first moments on screen, she brings a light-hearted authority to her character, a tone that sustains much of the story. We might turn up for the Marvel Studios logo (which has been lovingly filled with shots from the late, great Stan Lee), but we stay for the uncovering of Carol Danvers the hero. Meanwhile, Jackson gets to play his typically enigmatic Fury for hapless laughs, a cool break after 9 outings as the character. Mendelsohn is bloody brilliant as an unexpectedly laid-back Skrull.
Yet CAPTAIN MARVEL also takes a few narrative shortcuts along the way. Most backstory is given a perfunctory set of flashbacks. Some sequences feel like they are stock action moments strung together without any accompanying development. Case in point is Captain Marvel’s eventual costume choice, which feels more like a throwaway gag than a hero moment.
In every other way this is a tentpole film that paves the way for Avengers: Endgame while standing on its own two feet. Except for the unnervingly plastic-faced de-ageing on Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), this is a special-effects space epic that makes good use of its Terran and orbital settings. Visually inspired by Roy Thomas and Gene Colan’s “Kree-Skrull War” storyline, and more recent entries like Kelly-Sue Deconnick and Dexter Soy’s amazing run, the last act of the film is a feast for the eyes teeming with Easter eggs from past and future films.
While this is the twenty-first film in the MCU, CAPTAIN MARVEL returns to the roots of hero-building that began with Iron Man in 2008. Like every fledgling hero, she has a few missteps along the way, but emerges out the other side as a fully-fledged Avenger ready to defend the planet. So, for everyone that tried to review bomb this film prior to its release, Carol answers them unblinkingly: “I have nothing to prove to you.”
2019 | US | DIR: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck | WRITERS: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet | CAST: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Annette Bening, Clark Gregg, Jude Law | RUNNING TIME: 124 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 7 March 2019 (AUS)
While the title references an occasionally misattributed Jack Kirby quote, his allegedly oft-repeated advice for people trying to break into the industry, COMICS WILL BREAK YOUR HEART is not strictly about comics. Writer Faith Erin Hicks, who has been in the industry for a few years now, uses it as background to write a romance around two families divided by a comic book history.
The setup draws from a classic bit of comic book history. Protagonist Miriam (or Mir) is the inheritor of no wealth, thanks to her artist grandfather selling the rights to the The TomorrowMen comic in the 1960s. Her family has always had a bit of a rivalry with the Warricks, the original writer of the series. To quote a 2017 tweet from Hicks, “The rest of the book is about teenage feelings, American and Canadian interactions, small Nova Scotian towns, dads who think they’re funny, working turf at a golf course, and people who love comics a little too much.”
That last line was unquestionably the hook for me, being a person who has spend much of his adolescence, youth, and adult life reading and writing about the funnybooks. It’s a fairly straightforward piece of YA romance: a (frequently referenced) Romeo & Juliet archetype if the Capulets and Montagues were closer in dignity to Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s families. (Of course, there’s countless stories from the Golden Age of comics about creators signing their rights away, not least of which is the infamous and decades-long battle between DC Comics and Superman creators Siegel and Shuster).
Comics are incredibly weird…That’s why they’re awesome.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay this ain’t, so Hicks doesn’t hit the comic book references too hard for the uninitiated. Some of the geek chatter comes out in conversations between the comics-obsessed characters, but there’s nothing in here that will send you scrambling for Wikipedia. Like the climactic scenes at the San Diego Comic-Con, comics are merely the language by which this particular group of teens converse. It kind of makes sense when comic book characters have represented the biggest box office hits for over a decade.
It’s incredibly comforting to see a YA book that doesn’t take Harry Potter and John Hughes movies as the only pop-cultural references in existence. Underlying Hicks’ tale is message of inclusivity and accessibility to the comics medium. As one character puts it more succinctly: “There’s no such thing as a fake geek.” Comic books need new younger readers to survive into the next generation, and this book goes some way to acknowledging the future of creators and fandom. After all, what is a comic without a reader?
When you think about the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the demolition of the Berlin Wall, David Hasselhoff may not be the first name that comes to mind. Sure, his track “Looking for Freedom” was a hit in a divided Germany in the late 1980s, culminating in him performing on the Berlin Wall on New Years Eve 1989.
Of course, none of us realised that he was a super spy on both sides of the Wall in the lead-up to this historic concert. In a Hasselhoff original audiobook for Audible, written (with David Gordon) and performed by the actor himself, the singular star blends fact with fiction to create a surprisingly satisfying – if self-consciously goofy – spy caper.
The setup is simplicity itself: Hasselhoff is about to embark on a tour of Germany to celebrate his hit single and Knight Rider fame. Meanwhile, CIA Agent Nick Harper is also in town to stop a catastrophic threat. The twist is that Nick is a doppelgänger of the Hoff. So while Nick fends off rabid fans and has to stretch his vocal chops, the real Hoff gets caught up in a spy saga that uses all of his considerable acting talents.
A career memoir remixed as a comedy of errors, Hasselhoff is aware enough to skewer the apotheosis of his fame with good-natured and self-effacing humour. Describing his double as the “shyer, less handsome brother,” the Hoff casts himself as a charismatic egotist who becomes “terrified and only slightly turned on” by the events happening around him. He even references future events, including the mega success of Baywatch, by using a dream sequence foretelling its fame.
Relying heavily on convention, Hasselhoff swings from one romantic encounter to the next. In one moment he’s at the barrel end of a father’s shotgun thanks to a sexual liaison with his daughter, and in the next he’s talking his way out of a low-stakes torture scene. It’s all shenanigans really: rarely does the drama ever take over the loose plotting, and never do we feel like there’s any actual threat to the narrator. Meanwhile, Hasselhoff takes every opportunity to drop in an over-the-top pun. Is it possible to mug the camera on an audiobook? (How’s that for a new badge achievement, Audible?)
At just over 8 hours, this takes you at least four times longer to get through than any equivalent made-for-TV counterpart that might surface. Of course, you wouldn’t be treated to quite so many lovably hammy pieces of dialogue and swashbuckling encounters as we are here. By the end of it, you may actually believe that Hasselhoff is a living hero to the German people.
With a fictional version of Hasselhoff, the writer/actor may have found a way of reliving his glory days without the digital de-ageing that cinema would require to pull this off. Prime for future adventures across world, you don’t even have to rewatch Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. to get your Hoff spy fix. Now try and get “Looking for Freedom” out of your head.
2019 | US | WRITER: David Hasselhoff (with David Gordon) | PUBLISHER: Audible | LENGTH: 492 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 February 2019 (AUS)
A sequel to Happy Death Day might be the one thing that makes sense in this crazy workaday world. The subversively clever 2017 film was the lovechild of Groundhog Day and Scream, cognisant of its own influences while sharply aware that younger audiences could care less about the 1990s. HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U is simply here to have fun. Party.
Picking up right after the events of the first film, we learn that ‘dickhead’ roommate Ryan (Phi Vu) is now caught in his own time loop and being hunted by a killer. Yet instead of simply repeating the formula with a different set of players, writer and director Christopher Landon (who directed Scott Lobdell’s script last time) subverts expectations by introducing quantum mechanics, multiverses, and other twisty stories within stories.
Any fear that an over-explanation of the time travel elements is swiftly forgotten with the reintroduction of Tree (Jessica Rothe) and her fledgling boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard). Landon deftly steers the film from straight-up horror to sci-fi comedy caper as Tree once again gets caught in a familiar loop but with a very different series of encounters to the last lot of times that she went through.
The focus is less on the whodunnit than it is on boldly having fun with the multiversal direction Landon has steered the franchise into. Just like Tree’s investigative montage in the first film, she repeatedly dies (again) in increasingly bizarre ways so she can memorise a formula needed to get back to her normal life. Some of these deaths make no literal sense, but Tree skydiving without a parachute (and wearing a bikini) is part of the anarchic silliness Landon embraces.
Each of the characters are given a little more depth this time around as well. From the get-go, the one-joke Ryan is revealed to be a student of quantum physics and is surrounded by intelligent characters. The surprisingly emotional core comes from Tree’s chance to reconnect with her deceased mother (Miss Yager) and gives the lead’s choices a deeper sense of urgency.
With almost double the budget of the first film – from a mere US$4.8 million to a modest $9 million – Landon allows himself a few more special effects this time around. Most of these are on the device Ryan and his team are working on, but it also allows for a little bit more scope in the various death montages the series is rapidly becoming known for.
Which is where this sequel really succeeds: it expands the Happy Death Day world, giving it the potential to be another big franchise series for the Blumhouse gang. Make sure you sit through the credits for a little stinger that indicates where it will go next. It’s not strictly horror, comedy, or sci-fi, but it is straight-up fun.
2019 | US | DIR: Christopher Landon | WRITERS: Christopher Landon | CAST: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Phi Vu, Suraj Sharma, Sarah Yarkin, Ruby Modine | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 14 February 2019 (AUS)
You couldn’t find two filmmakers who sit at polar opposites more than James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez. Cameron, one of the Master of Modern blockbuster filmmaking, goes for long stretches between films and has quietly built an empire. Rodriguez, on the other hand, still makes his movies with the same intensity of the indie filmmaker who crafted excitement on a shoestring budget. ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL represents the coming together of those minds and the results are a spectacular but uneven visual effects marvel.
Based on the manga Gunnm by Yukito Kishiro, we are introduced to the post-disaster world of 2563 as Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz) digs through the scrapheap. There he finds the mostly intact remains of a young cyborg girl that he soon dubs Alita (Rosa Salazhar). After she befriends the teenage Hugo (Keean Johnson), Alita begins to learn things about her past, Ido’s true calling, and the connection with enigmatic Vector (Mahershala Ali) and Chiren (Jennifer Connelly), Ido’s ex-wife.
ALITA is an ambitious film. When Rodriguez joined the production, he reportedly condensed Cameron’s 186-page shooting script and 600 pages of notes into something more manageable. Cameron and co-writer Laeta Kalogridis’ script definitely bites off a lot more than it can possibly chew through in the final 2-hour edit, pinging from moment to moment in an episodic and sometimes disjointed fashion.
It’s a good thing that those individual sequences are pure cinema, baiting the audience with the principal of escalation. A neighbourhood game of ‘Motorball’ – a hybrid of basketball and a roller derby – is a dynamic and fluid showcase for the titular character’s CG, one that pays off in the climactic final act. When the fighting starts, the CG-heavy violence employs every inch of the lessons Rodriguez learned on El Mariachi through to Sin City, rarely relying on the spectacle to replace thoughtful choreography.
It’s a hell of spectacle though. Given that Cameron’s Avatar popularised modern 3D, this is one of those rare instances where it adds layers to the world-building. Crowded city streets are layered with the same amount of detail Cameron put into the crockery choices on Titanic, and this extends to every scene in the film. Then there’s Alita herself, one of the most advance combinations of motion capture and CG the screen has ever seen, exaggerating her facial features just enough to avoid the uncanny valley. We’re a long way on from Jar Jar Binks (who turns 20 this year!)
So, it’s disappointing that the second and third acts of the film get a little muddled, trudging through these episodes rather than the possibilities of the handsome environment. What’s most disturbing is the way the narrative rapidly descends into a teenage robotic sex toy fantasy. Following her characterisation as someone who will “do whatever you want for you,” Alita’s body is literally replaced with something more adult and “more touch sensitive.” It gets a little icky when you consider that actor Johnson has been crafted as Rodriguez’s avatar, complete with bandana and leather jacket.
The rest of the cast don’t get nearly as much attention. Ido’s backstory is sputtered out when needed, while Connelly and Ali mostly get to stand around looking alternatively cool and annoyed. There’s some serious talent here, but the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by Salazar. It would have been nice, for example, to give the accomplished Idara Victor more than three or four perfunctory lines in the whole film.
If ALITA is a success, and the sequels roll out like so many Motorballs, then we make reflect on this film as an accomplished first act in a large story. After all, it has over 9 volumes of manga and other stories to pull on. The late reveal of the actor portraying the uber villain certainly indicates there’s bigger plans for this battle angel. Despite the weaknesses in story structure, this is a fun ride if you’re willing to switch your own brain circuits off for a few hours.
2019 | US| DIR: Robert Rodriguez | WRITERS: James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis (based on the manga by Yukito Kishiro)| CAST: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Keean Johnson | RUNNING TIME: 122 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: 20 Century Fox (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 14 February 2019 (AUS)
The Arthurian legend just lends itself to remixing. Indeed, the modern version that forms the basis of our stories comes from Sir Thomas Malory’s romanticised Le Morte d’Arthur in the 15th century – some 500 years after the first datable mention of King Arthur. From musicals to motorbikes, there’s few cultural touchstones that haven’t been influenced by the once and future king.
Writer/director Joe Cornish, who served up the brilliant Attack the Block back in 2011, brings the myth the contemporary Britain with a primarily pre-teen set of characters. It’s the kind of high-concept adventure that dominated the box office in the 1980s: bullied kid Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) suddenly has his life flipped and turned upsidedown when he pulls Excalibur from a concrete block at a building site.
Cornish’s script is a refreshing change of pace from overcomplicated exposition. Alex is the inheritor of the sword, he finds the sword without much preamble, he goes on a quest to stop the evil Morgan Le Fey (Rebecca Ferguson), who threatens to chew all of the Earth’s scenery apparently. Yet that same matter-of-factness keeps the film on rails, at at 120 minutes it’s a little sluggish in the middle.
In the wrong hands, the film would be interpreted as a return to British national values. After all, these kids answer the call by doing a spot of National Service, wot wot. Released in the midst of a failed vote on Brexit, Cornish is unapologetic in his politics but it’s an anti-Brexit message he’s delivering, preaching unity and and a call for fresh values at every turn.
Case in point is the ragtag group Alex surrounds himself with. Best friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo), and bullies Lance (The Dark Tower‘s Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Doris) must ultimately learn to put aside their differences if the country is to survive. It’s a wonderfully charming lesson for younger audiences, capably delivered by Merlin (played respectively by Angus Imrie and Patrick Stewart). Sir Pat’s wig work is exceptional by the way.
As the film eventually gets around to its schoolyard battlefield conclusion, in the form of the obligatory CG slugfest, Cornish again reminds us that “A land is only as good as it’s leaders.” It may not be subtle, but it’s a timely message for a younger generation, and one that has a bit of fun in the delivery.
2019 | UK| DIR: Joe Cornish | WRITERS: Joe Cornish| CAST: Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Tom Taylor, Rebecca Ferguson, Patrick Stewart | RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: 20 Century Fox (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 17 January 2019 (AUS)
Australians have spent well over half a century watching a boy develop a relationship with a pelican. Colin Thiele’s original children’s book has been adapted for the stage and screen several times since its debut in the 1960s, each reinterpreting the story for a new generation. For debut director Shawn Seet, updating a classic comes burdened with external expectations.
Theile’s relatively simple tale about a lonely boy and his pelican is significantly expanded by Justin Monjo’s script, turning it into something…odd. The primary addition is the overarching linking segment in which an ageing Mike Kingley (Geoffrey Rush) is guilted by his young granddaughter Madeline (Morgana Davies) into taking action against her father’s highly protested mining dealings.
When Monjo and Seet stick to the original narrative, the film is at its strongest. Framed as a morality tale the adult Mike tells Madeline, we see how the young ‘Storm Boy’ (Finn Little) grew up in a remote location raising three orphaned pelicans alongside his father (Jai Courtney) and Fingerbone Bill (Trevor Jamieson), an Aboriginal man with his own reasons for being in isolation. The core story remains unchanged, including the fateful dealings with the hunters on the shore.
Yet the new additions create something of a quandary: who is the audience here? A heavy-handed environmental message of the adult Mike coming to terms with his legacy clashes with the central story at best, and undercuts it completely at other times. Don’t you feel so much better about Storm Boy’s final touching scenes with the pelican once you are safe in the knowledge he grows up to be an embittered millionaire alcoholic? (The boy, not the pelican).
Cinematographer Bruce Young, fresh off the Netflix debut of Tidelands, breaks out of the small screen with some impressive photography of the South Australian coastline and its surrounds. His visuals are perhaps only hampered by some occasionally dodgy bits of CG pelicans and storms.
Finn Little (also of Tidelands fame) is a solid find and holds his own against Courtney and Jamieson. The awkward relationship between Rush and his on-screen granddaughter Davies doesn’t give either of them much to do except mope and pout respectively. The character of Fingerbone is only marginally more rounded than his 1976 counterpart.
If this had been just another straight remake of Thiele, Henri Safran’s 1976 film would render the whole thing null and void. Indeed, you could excise the entirety of the Rush segments – which is probably a good idea at the moment – and not suffer for it. Yet it’s a story worth telling because it does have a lot to say about the way humans treat our natural world, and serves as an antithesis to the pro-mining Red Dog: True Blue. It’s just a shame that the core of the story is lost in these larger pursuits.
2019 | Australia| DIR: Shawn Seet | WRITERS: Justin Monjo (based on the book by Colin Thiele)| CAST: Jai Courtney, Finn Little, Trevor Jamieson, Morgana Davies, Erik Thomson, Geoffrey Rush | RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 17 January 2019 (AUS)
On the eve of a new season, the Star Trek: Discovery tie-in novel series makes a triumphant return. Writer Una McCormack follows the theme of the previous entries by taking a deep dive into a single character’s backstory, in this case Cadet Sylvia Tilly. It’s one of the more lighthearted entries to date and has more in common with the conventions of contemporary YA than it does with other books in this series.
Bookended by a conversation between Burnham and Tilly on the eve of the cadet’s entry into the Command Training Program, Tilly recounts the decisions that lead her into Starfleet in the first place. It’s a familiar tale, and a relatable one, with Tilly taking on many of the tropes of the genre: not fitting in at school, conflict with her mother, a largely absent father, and an unrealised potential in engineering.
For the character who will go down in Trek history as the first to drop the F-bomb on screen, it’s a mostly chaste affair. (The term ‘gosh’ is used an alarming dozen times or so). Yet McCormack manages to give us more insight into this character than many of the entries to date. Tilly’s inner voice is a genuine one, even if her ingenuity occasionally borders on Wesley Crusher levels.
So, if the previous tie-ins (Drastic Measures and Desperate Hours) were hampered by our unfamiliarity with the then-new characters, THE WAY TO THE STARS succeeds because we are just starting to learn to like the crew of the Discovery. We want to see Tilly succeed all the more because we know where she came from. In this sense it is more like Fear Itself, the Saru-focused third novel in this series.
McCormack has no real sense of urgency here, taking the time to explore four distinct seasons in the year in the life of Tilly. While several dramas pop up along the way – from shuttle emergencies to the Trek fallback of first contact – none of them feel terribly threatening. It’s a purely character-based outing, and this novel series could use a few more like this. So who’s next? Can we please get the story of a young Paul Stamets in the 23rd century? I really want to see what the LGBTQ coming-of-age story looks like 200 years into our future.
Finally, major props have to go to the inclusion of Captain Yindi Holden, the Australian Captain of the Dorothy Garrod(named after the first woman to hold an Oxbridge chair). Not only is her name a reference to the Indigenous band Yothu Yindi, but she’s a graduate of University of Wollongong. Nice to know that tertiary education is going strong in 23rd century New South Wales.
2019 | US | WRITER: Una McCormack | PUBLISHER: Penguin (US) | LENGTH: 368 pages | RELEASE DATE: 8 January 2019
Admittedly that wasn’t the most promising way to start an obvious attempt at clickbait. Yet you’re still here. So there’s that.
2018 is now behind us and we’re already looking forward to the biggest, brightest, and weirdest of 2019. Yet every time I make one of these lists I find that I’m disappointed by the films when they come out. Is it just that hype is a killer?
One thing is for sure: Disney will dominate the box office. Glass. Captain Marvel. Dumbo. Avengers: Endgame. Aladdin. Toy Story 4. The Lion King. Artemis Fowl. Frozen 2. Star Wars: Episode IX. Let’s do the mental maths. Yup, checks out. That’s before you include anything coming out of the pending Fox merger. I, for one, welcome our new Disney overlords.
Naturally, the House of Mouse dominates this list. I am at heart a geek and always will be. Yet there’s a stack of films to get excited about in 2019, from the indies to surefire animated Japanese classics. So find a comfy place on your sofa or pre-book your favourite theatre seat. This ride has already started. 19 tickets, please.
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
While the first film had its issues, it has spawned a multimedia empire for LEGO that is frankly a welcome juggernaut. More LEGO films mean more LEGO sets. The only question is: where will I store them all? Directed by Mike Mitchell (Trolls), it’s due out in US cinemas on 8 February and in Australia on 21 March.
Captain Marvel
Based loosely on the Kelly-Sue DeConnick run of the comics, Marvel Studios takes us back in time to the 1990s when Brie Larson was a superhero and Samuel L. Jackson had both of his eyes. Most importantly, there’s a ginger cat. After being teased in Avengers: Infinity War, this will be the second biggest Marvel film of 2019. Disney sends this to Australian cinemas on 7 March.
Us
Jordan Peele’s Get Out was one of the most highly acclaimed horror-thrillers of the last few years, and his next film looks set to take it up a few notches. Speaking directly to race in America, many have already speculated that it will form part of the Get Out cinematic universe. It arrives in US cinemas on 15 March.
Avengers: Endgame
Do I really need to tell you why I’m looking forward to this? 10 years, 21 films, several TV series, billions of dollars, and one violent raccoon later we find ourselves at the climax of one of the greatest pieces of modern storytelling and world-building in the history of the medium. Yeah, I went there. It arrives in cinemas in April.
The Sun is Also a Star
Ry Russo-Young is one of the most interesting indie filmmakers of the last few years. Following 2012’s Nobody Walks, and the curious YA sci-fi flick Before I Fall, her latest film adapts Nicola Yoon’s 2016 novel of the same name. Starring Yara Shahidi, Charles Melton, Jake Choi, and Miriam A. Hyman, it’s due out in the US on 17 May 2019.
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu
Hear us out on this one. based on the video game of the same name, Rob Letterman (Goosebumps) directs a film he penned with Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel) with Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu. A joint US/Japanese production, it also stars Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton and Ken Watanabe. You have to be curious, right? As the theme song goes, you gotta catch ’em all. There’s really no choice. It’s out 10 May in the US and 16 June in Australia.
Toy Story 4
Yes, it’s another Disney. Even after leaving us emotional wrecks at the end of Toy Story 3, I reckon 9 years is enough time to get excited about this franchise again. There’s a fair bit of Buzz around it, after all. (See what I did there?) Josh Cooley (co-writer of Inside Out) makes his feature directorial debut
Weathering With You (天気の子)
Makoto Shinkai has earned a major reputation with Voices of a Distant Star, Children Who Chase Lost Voices and 2017’s Your Name. His next animated film comes with a massive amount of buzz, and follows high-school leaver Hokada writing for a shady occult magazine on a rainy island and Akina, a young girl who has the power to clear the grey skies. It hits Japanese cinemas on 19 July.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
That sound you hear surrounding Quentin Tarantino’s film focusing on the Manson Family murders may be a tone-deaf clang, especially in light of his recently unearthed and distasteful comments on Roman Polanski’s rape of an underage victim. However, a film about a faded TV actor and his stunt double starring Margot Robbie, Kurt Russell, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Dakota Fanning, and many more is something to get very intrigued about. It is released in the US and UK on 26 July.
It: Chapter 2🎈
While Stephen King’s Constant Readers knew IT‘s power all along, the surprise horror hit of 2017 returns in 2019 with James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, Bill Hader, and Isaiah Mustafa as the Loser’s Club all grown up as Pennywise returns after 27 years. It’s released on 6 September in the US. 🎈
The Goldfinch
Director John Crowley’s film, based on the Donna Tartt novel of the same name, is popping up on lists like these with regularity. Not for nothing: the cast includes Ansel Elgort, Aneurin Barnard, Ashleigh Cummings, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Wilson, Sarah Paulson, and Nicole Kidman. It hits US cinemas on 11 October.
Frozen 2
Disney was never going to let it go. After earning almost $1.3 billion at the box office – and spawning short films Frozen Fever (2015) and Olaf’s Frozen Adventure (2017) – the proper sequel hits US cinemas in time for Thanksgiving. While very little is known about the film’s plot, most of the original cast return. Can it live up to the first film? Will it rival the box office?
Star Wars: Episode IX
While we’ve been a bit saturated with Star Wars content in the last few years, it’s hard not to get a bit excited about the as-yet-untitled conclusion to Rey’s journey. J.J. Abrams returns to the director’s chair following The Last Jedi. If you didn’t know already, it’s arriving everywhere around 20 December, give or take a few international datelines.
Prisoners of the Ghostland
Longtime followers of this site will know that we love almost everything avant garde filmmaker Sion Sono puts out. While there’s no firm release date set, his first English-language film starring none other than Nicolas Cage should be on every list for the next 10 years. Given Sono’s output, there’s a good chance he’ll have another 5 films out before the end of the year anyway.
Parasite (패러사이트)
Bong Joon-ho (Okja, The Host) returns to Korean-language filmmaking with regular star Song Kang-ho (Memories of Murder, The Host, Snowpiercer). No date set yet, but Neon has got the North American rights to CJ Entertainment’s film, so expect a global theatrical screening.
Jojo Rabbit
OK, if this was anybody other than Taika Waititi, I’d say that this was the wrong tone at the wrong time. Based on the book Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, it’s about young boy Jojo “Rabbit” Betzler who escapes into a fantasy world during World War II with his imaginary friend…Adolf Hitler (Waititi)? Also starring Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson, and Thomasin McKenzie, this will have tongues wagging when it gets a release.
The Truth
Following the massive success and Palme d’Or for Shoplifters, one of the best films of 2018, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda will swiftly follow it with The Truth (La Verite), starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Ludivine Sagnier. It’s Kore-eda’s first non-Japanese film, shot in English and French. It’s also the second Juliette Binoche film planned with a Japanese director as she is also planned to appear in Naomi Kawase’s Vision.
The Irishman
Martin Scorsese gets the boys back together for Netflix. Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, and Al Pacino appear together in the master’s film about a mob hitman who remembers his (possible) involvement with the death of Jimmy Hoffa. Scorsese’s first film since 2016’s Silence, he brings back cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto for what is sure to be a handsomely shot film on any size screen.
The Laundromat
Speaking of Netflix, Steven Soderbergh also makes a pair of films for the streaming service. Based on the book by Jake Bernstein titled Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite, it’s a safe bet The Laundromat is probably catchier. How’s this for a cast: Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Alex Pettyfer, David Schwimmer, Will Forte, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Parnell, James Cromwell and many more. Also coming to Netflix from Soderbergh is High Flying Bird. It might just be the year that Netflix steals all the Oscar winners.
Other films to look out for
So as not to completely fill up the column with Marvel content, I’m also very excited by SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME, which is said to pick up right after Avengers: Endgame. THE CALL OF THE WILD is another adaptation of Jack London’s classic, this time from Chris Sanders, who follows the likes of Lilo & Stitch, The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon with his first live-action film.
Another Stephen King film makes its way to cinemas in the form of PET SEMATARY, Harmony Korine returns after 7 years with BEACH BUM, Greta Gerwig turns her talents to LITTLE WOMEN, bringing Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep with her.
Dee Rees follows Mudbound with THE LAST THING HE WANTED following a journalist (Anne Hathaway) who stops covering the 1984 US Presidential election to care for her dying father (Willem Dafoe).
Ok, I cheated. That’s 25 films. It’s just not as catchy as 19 in 2019, right?
