Circle the date

I'M DEFINITELY SEEING THAT: Looking ahead to 2012

LINKS: Gettin' Misty with it — the leader of the pack

So I looked at the calendar and realized that it's nearly March, which means that there's finally (probably) a movie worth seeing about to open at the neighborhood multiplex. Everyone else who writes about movies most likely did one of these forward-looking "List of Films to See in 2012" rundowns back before it was actually 2012 ... minus a couple of months already. But is there ever really anything that anyone really wanted to see to in January and February anyway? I say no, and just to be sure, I checked. It's not like I haven't been paying attention anyway, of course, but in the interest of thoroughness, I looked back in horror at the Katherine Heigl thing, the new Kate Beckinsale vampire movie, the obviously essential sequel to Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth movie (sans Brendan Fraser), the thing with Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah, the thing with Captain Kirk and Locutus of Borg (or is it the Romulan dude who got in Troi's noggin?) fighting over Reese Witherspoon, the Liam Neeson thing, the horror thing, the other horror thing and the 27 money-grubbing 3D re-releases. Yup. Nothing any of us were actually looking forward to seeing.

So let's do an about face and look at the rest of the calendar, all the way to Dec. 31. I spy 18 movies I'm definitely going to see, 18 that are intriguing for one reason or another, and 8 that get the Han Solo salute from The Empire Strikes Back. We'll examine the back 26 next week. For today, here are the movies I'm most excited about seeing in 2012:

1) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Warner Bros.) — "Unexpected" is probably the right word. Peter Jackson is bound to mess with the details even beyond the known insertion of a plot-expanding (and canonical, incidentally, per Tolkien's meticulous appendices to The Lord of the Rings) "Mission to (Southern) Mirkwood" side story in which Gandalf pokes around Dol Guldur looking for Sauron. On the other hand, the first trailer for the movie is quite promising, especially the dwarf-by-dwarf introduction shots, and the moody depiction of dwarven chanting in Bilbo's home. There are problems aplenty with Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, but he's certainly developed a potent visual language and atmosphere for his personal Middle-earth. Dec. 14

2) Prometheus (20th Century Fox) — To be honest, I haven't really ever wondered about the backstory of the crash site on LV-426 where the crew of the Nostromo encountered what android officer Ash called a "perfect organism." Ridley Scott's Alien is still so awesome, however, that I'm willing to roll with whatever he's got cooked up. Speaking of which, I'm going to remain pumped about the involvement of LOST mastermind Damon Lindelof at the screenplay level. Right up until 10 of the last 20 minutes of the movie are set in an existential dream-verse where Michael Fassbender helps the other members of the crew meet up again before moving on to the next plane of their existence as one big happy family. June 8

3) The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Bros.) — As covered previously in this space, the Big Question about Christopher Nolan's Last Dance with Merry Wayne (Bruce Wayne,  yo) is whether it's got more of The Dark Knight or more of Batman Begins in its DNA. There's no need to Begin again, Mr. Nolan. Embrace your Dark side. July 20

4) Brave (Disney) — Can Pixar bounce back from the mediocrity of Cars 2? The initial indications weren't very promising. The teaser for Brave was a dull underlining of the thematic weight of its title, and its first trailer was a mishmash of terrible jokes ("Feast yer eyes!") and proto-feminist hoo-hah, capped off by the exceedingly lame tag line "If you had the chance to change your fate ... would you?" The idea of a very different Disney princess is hugely appealing, but the marketing team didn't really nail it until the trailer released last week, which sticks to a single scene and offers the strongest impression yet of Merida, the red-haired Scots firebrand who, as they say, needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. June 22

5) The Hunger Games (Lionsgate) — Post-apocalyptic North America, here we come. I love the cast: Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, Wes Bentley as Seneca Crane, Donald Sutherland as President Snow. On the other hand, why waste the awesomeness of Elizabeth Banks on plot non-entity Effie Trinket? (Not one person in the world read the books and thought for two seconds about who would play Effie Freaking Trinket.) And I'm on the fence about the fellas: Josh Hutcherson has maybe got a decent Peeta in him, but Liam Hemsworth (as Gale) is ... tall? Need more data. March 23

6) The Pirates: Band of Misfits (Sony) — Hugh Grant needs to be a pirate captain. Beyond that, I'm pinning my hopes for this animated adventure on the Aardman Animation braintrust. They're the Wallace and Gromit folks, so this should be fun, right? Yar! April 27

7) The Bourne Legacy (Universal) — Sayonara, Matt Damon. Welcome aboard, Jeremy Renner. Renner, the charismatic star of The Hurt Locker has got the chops to play this game at least as well as Damon. I'm also a fan of writer/director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton). Aug. 3

8) Looper (TriStar) — Writer/director Rian Johnson makes interesting movies — his first film was Brick — and it's cool to see him branch out. This one has a sci-fi plot, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a contract killer assigned to hunt down a visitor from the future (Bruce Willis) who turns out to be ... ain't saying. But it sounds cool. Sept. 28

9) Les Miserables (Universal) — Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe as Javert, Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) directing. Sold. With Anne Hathaway as Cosette and Amanda Seyfried as Fantine ... because those two could totally be mother and daughter. Um, sure. Dec. 7

10) Snow White and the Huntsman (Universal) — Hey, it's Bella from Twilight, in a movie with no vampires. And with, um, Snow White making Crispin's Day speeches and leading warriors into battle. It's either going to be really fun, or really silly. June 1

11) John Carter (Disney) — Tim Riggins meets Edgar Rice Burroughs, from the director of Finding Nemo and WALL*E. March 9
12) The Amazing Spider-Man (Sony) — Pressing the reset button with Mark Zuckerberg's likeable friend from The Social Network as Peter Parker. July 6
13) The Avengers (Disney) — In Joss Whedon we trust. Because, dang it all, we still miss Firefly. Maybe there will be an Adam Baldwin cameo? May 4
14) Skyfall (Sony) — This is only Daniel Craig's third movie as James Bond, but it already feels like he's sort of playing out the string. There's a definite "ho-hum" factor. Here's hoping for a strong, interesting plot. Nov. 9
15) Gravity (Warner Bros.) — Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron goes spacewalking with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. Nov. 21
16) Life of Pi (20th Century Fox) — Boy. Boat. Bengal tiger. Directed by Ang Lee. Dec. 12
17) Django Unchained (The Weinstein Co.) — A Western in the Deep South with writer-director Quentin Tarantino. I'm not entirely certain QT himself knows what to make of this. Dec. 25
18) The Great Gatsby (Warner Bros.) — Leonardo DiCaprio's other Christmas movie. He's also a villainous plantation owner in Django Unchained. Dec. 25

Back in business

SOMETHING I WROTE FOR WORK: More of the Best of 2011

LINKS: Recapping the year in movies with the Daily Herald

I've been away. Some of you may have noticed. Or not. At any rate, it turns out that I didn't quite go down to my final resting place in the Secret Movie Writer Burial Ground. Still kicking, still here, ready to fire it up after several months' hibernation. When last I appeared on this beat, the typical post-summer harvest of Oscar-baiting "blogbusters" (heh — the movies destined to be endlessly dissected on movie blogs like this one) wasn't even a hot topic yet. Now I've seen it all, or seen a lot it, or seen at least enough of it to get my Ten Best of 2011 hammered out for the Daily Herald. The link is above.

Most people probably don't ever feel 100 percent satisfied with those lists, however, and I always struggle to keep myself in check. I don't like being "limited as to number," as Gwyneth Paltrow once put it. So for my (ahem) first blog post of 2012 (ahem), I'm rolling back the curtain of my mind just a bit to reveal my Second Ten of '11 list of films, the ones that almost made the grade.

11) Rango — Here we go: Proof that repeated exposure to Captain Jack Sparrow hasn't killed Johnny Depp's ability to create new and interesting characters. The animation is also exceptional here, a richly textured look that makes you feel like you're almost touching the characters and environments in the film just by looking at them. The goofy, offbeat humor may not connect with every viewer, but it tickled me quite a bit

12) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy — One of the perils of adapting novel-length fiction is that you run the risk of confusing viewers with a wealth of information. Lots of commentators felt like this film ran in the opposite direction, but I like that Tomas Alfredson doesn't insist on laying out the whys and wherefores of every development. There's enough here to keep up if you're paying attention. And it's also nice to see a spy story that's driven more by human weakness and imperfection than by improbable gadgets, chases and explosions.

13) My Week with Marilyn — I don't really get the whole Marilyn Monroe mystique, probably at least a little bit because I didn't live through any of it. (Although I do remember when Madonna went through her Breathless Mahoney phase.) Michelle Williams may not be a physical doppleganger for Monroe, but her extraordinary performance certainly suggests the whatever-it-was that Marilyn had going for her that made men weak in the knees.

14) Margin Call — Some movies live and die by the crackling monologues that flare up at certain points, and this one has several such moments. There's something about talking dollars and cents that gets a lot of actors in a fire-in-the-belly fettle, although Stanley Tucci also has an nice extended bit here about civil engineering. High finance makes for low drama when you read about it in the newspaper (or on Google News), but money and movies often go together like syrup and hotcakes.

15) Captain America — Chris Evans has been wasted on a lot of middling Hollywood product, including previous superhero films — he was Johnny Storm in the recent Fantastic Four duology — but Captain America is a role he was, yes, born to play. Having Cap's origin story unfold against the backdrop of World War II is also a pleasant touch, and there's a great supporting cast here that includes Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci and especially Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper.

16) Source Code — The release date for this brain-bending sci-fi drama was April 1, which may or may not have been a sly wink from the production team. Not that Source Code is a shallow prank akin to the ol' Saran Wrap under the toilet seat gag. It's definitely subversive, though, in addition to being a ton of fun. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan are very solid as two strangers on a train, who may or may not be trapped in something akin to the Matrix.

17) The Tree of Life — People often try to read grand portents into the work of Terrence Malick, but it's not what he's actually saying that will drown you in its depths, so much as the way that he goes about saying it. Like other Malick films, this is one is exquisitely crafted and gradually, patiently realized. Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain give deeply moving performances as people of profoundly different natures who end up being parents together.

18) Contagion — This is as close as I ever want to be to a lethal global pandemic. Steven Soderbergh has an Ocean's-style all-star cast, but it's a resurgent Jennifer Ehle (the long-forgotten Elizabeth Bennett to Colin Firth's career-making Mr. Darcy) who makes the strongest impression. (Poor Gwyneth Paltrow almost surpasses the ickiness of her famously untimely demise in Seven.)

19) Rise of the Planet of the Apes — Reboots rarely come together this crisply. There's an excellent blend of human drama and low-level sci-fi in this table-setter that may or may not launch an all-new Planet franchise. Director Rupert Wyatt and writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver set a high bar, especially in terms of the film's uncanny ape visual effects. The worldwide take was close to half-a-billion, so we're likely to get more of ... something. Hopefully it will be more of the same.

20) Do I really have to choose between Jane Eyre and Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol — See? It never ends.

A Knight to remember?

PREVIEW REVIEW: By the pricking of Christopher Nolan's thumbs ...

LINKS: Watch the official teaser for The Dark Knight Rises; Daily Herald reviews of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight

Yo, A-S: This "Cherry Burst" business isn't fooling anyone.

Nobody drinks Alka-Seltzer for the flavor. Nobody drinks it at all, really. You take Alka-Seltzer by dissolving it in water and, yes, pouring that water down your throat, but that's just ingestion. The way I see it, when you actually drink something — whether it's a glass of lemonade after mowing the lawn, or a Big Gulp of your favorite soda at the movie theater — the act of drinking itself is pleasurable. My point is that I've never seen Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, but I know that almost everyone who did see it hated it. And that's why I tend to think that people get confused in their estimation of Batman Begins, the film with which writer and director Christopher Nolan assumed the Batmantle. For everyone whose innards were aflame with the heartburn of Batman & Robin, Batman Begins was a hearty swig of Alka-Seltzer. Soothing. Calming. Healing. But a great movie? Come on.

For starters, the screenplay was only co-written by Nolan, with David S. Goyer, from a story by Goyer. Goyer's left his mark on the good, the bad and the ugly of cinema, but when he's bad, he's really bad. You had an uninspired performance of a weak central villain, a stilted revisitation of the death of Batman's parents, and probably the most problematic action direction Nolan has ever done. Batman Begins isn't terrible, but at its best, it's boilerplate. Perfectly adequate if what you need is some sweet relief from the awful taste of Batman & Robin, but hardly a bold reinvention of a worn-thin franchise. Nolan had a better idea of what he wanted to do with The Dark Knight, got a world-class performance from Heath Ledger, didn't waste any time on backstory, and basically delivered a superhero movie grand slam.

So which Nolan is coming to the plate for The Dark Knight Rises next summer? Now that we've been given our first real indication of what's to come, I think it's safe to say that there's another home run in the works. The teaser is essentially a conversation between Batman, who's off camera, and Commissioner Gordon, who looks like he's either recuperating from an Adam Sandler movie marathon, or just got hit by a truck. Gary Oldman has been aces as Gordon from the start, so it's fitting to have him lead us into the next chapter in the story. There's a brief glimpse of Tom Hardy as Bane, once from the front, and a second time from behind. The rear-angle view,  with a wobbly Batman in the foregound while Bane comes to get him, rising up to fill the entire frame, is sheer brilliance. Bane is slightly out of focus, but his movement is direct and purposeful. I'm going to break that Bat-guy in half. It's a mesmerizing and mesmerizingly simple cut. The effect is to leave you almost more worried for Batman than for Gordon, who's only on life support in a hospital bed. There's a lot of opinion from fans of the comic books that Bane is a minor Batman villain, but this teaser definitely gives him some punch.

There's already a ridiculous roster of talent in the mix, with Oldman and Bale backed up by Morgan Freeman (Batman's tech guru) and Michael Caine (Alfred the butler), but The Dark Knight Rises is certainly raising the bar on casting. Hardy is one of three actors to come over from Nolan's Inception — the director also found room for Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt — and all three are strong performers. To say nothing of the fact that just about anything that got borrowed from Inception would be fine by me. The casting question mark, and it's a big one, is Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. Do we really even need Catwoman? I admit that I'm intrigued to see what the more serious-minded Nolan has in store for a character who's always been more goofy than grim. But if you're going to go there, why make her a second-class citizen? She's obviously not the lead villain. And I'd guess that Cotillard is the clear successor to Katie Holmes (from Batman Begins) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight), so Catwoman isn't even Batman's main squeeze here. It's nothing against the inarguably gifted Hathaway, but the whole thing just feels extraneous. I'd be just as happy to see as much of Catwoman in the movie as there is of her in the teaser. That is to say, nothing at all. Less is more, Mr. Nolan.

Lost weekend

THAT AND MY TWO CENTS WILL GET YOU: This is all there is?

LINKS: The world's best Boss; a movie with Kevin James that's a whole lot worse than Zookeeper

Crack open a bottle of Heinz, folks, it's a ketchup weekend at your local multiplex. There are a lot of movies that get released during the summer season, and it's tough to keep track of them all. If you missed seeing Super 8 or Kung Fu Panda 2, or even Thor or X-Men: First Class, then this is your big chance to catch up. (See what I did there?) If you haven't gotten around to seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides or Cars 2, eh, read a book or mow the lawn. And if you haven't gotten around to seeing Transformers: Dark of the Moon, um, take all of the four-fifths empty bottles of (wait for it) ketchup out of the fridge, stand them upside down and see which one drains all the way to the top of the bottle first. I promise you'll be much more entertained than if you wind up languishing in a darkened auditorium with Optimus Prime and the fellas, wondering whether your brain cells are dying faster than they would if you were stuck above 26,000 feet on Mt. Everest.

Summer is traditionally Hollywood's golden goose, so who knows how it happens, but once in a while you get a prime weekend in the middle of June of July when there's just nothing new that's worth anyone's moviegoing dollar. This weekend, we've got Horrible Bosses and Zookeeper. No, really, that's it. I checked. Anyone remember the scene in Better Off Dead where John Cusack winds up in the back of a garbage truck that's passing a couple of tree trimmers? One of them says to the other, "Now that's a real shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good white boy like that." What gives, movie studios? I say it's a real shame when folks be throwing away a perfectly good weekend in July.

Horrible Bosses looks bad in a garden-variety sort of way. Three dudes have rotten managers at work and decide that the only way of making their office hours bearable is to kill the jerks lording it over them. Ho, ho. The movie's rep is that it's the latest film to equate boundary-breaking vulgarity, crudity, obsenity, etc., with humor, which means that it's merely the next in a very long line of films to go for the gross-out gold. There's a scene, for example, involving Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd — an entirely respectable sort whose performance in the excellent historical drama Amazing Grace is absolutely worth digging up on DVD — that's basically a joke about how his character makes a living by getting paid to urinate on people. Don't you sometimes wish that you hadn't lived to see the all-bets-are-off, anything-goes era of movie comedy?

As for Zookeeper, well, Kevin James is fat, which is always good for a laugh, and he plays a guy at a zoo who discovers that he can talk to the animals, which is like throwing a bucket of water on the comedy flame. A "bucket of gasoline" is what some of you are thinking that I meant to say. Trust me, I've had plenty of experience not laughing at live-action films where a doofus interacts with all creatures great and small. Maybe there's some catsup in the fridge.

Dwarves ahoy!

GET A LOAD OF THIS: First-look photos from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

LINKS: Follow The Hobbit on Facebook; watch the first teaser trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

If there's one thing that we know about hobbits, it's that they don't really kick a lot of (butt), you know? If you need someone to host an unexpected party, or crave a basket of mushrooms, or check out an awesome map with secret writing, or live in a hole in the ground (though not a nasty, dirty wet hole, or a dry, bare, sandy hole), then a hobbit is probably pretty close to the top of the list. A hobbit would never miss a nuncheon, but he probably couldn't make heads or tails of a truncheon. Hey, hobbits are lovers, not fighters. So it's no surprise, really, that Peter Jackson's "get the word out" approach to his two-film adaptation of The Hobbit is light on Bilbo Baggins — who's only, like, the guy in the title of movie — and heavy on dudes who look like they're ready to cleave some orcs in two, ideally in a rainstorm and preferably with lots of seething CGI hordes in the rear of the frame. Hey, world, there's a bunch of awesome battles in this one, too. I mean, only one, really, and it's way at the end of the second movie. And, technically, it doesn't have any oliphaunt-surfing, dwarf-tossing, or Nazgul-baiting. It's going to be rad, though.

OK, fine the dwarves are important to the movie. Only a couple of them get a lot of face time in Tolkien's book, but Thorin has a strong character arc and his companions as a collective presence are essential to Bilbo's growth. Let's have a look at the gang. That's Thorin up above, by the way:

L-R: Nori, Ori and Dori

L-R: Oin and Gloin

L-R: Fili and Kili

L-R: Bombur, Bofur and Bifur

L-R: Balin and Dwalin

I dig most of the costume and makeup work that's been done here. I never really pictured Dwalin as being the heavily tattooed, Conan-sized, war-hammer-wielding enforcer of the bunch, but I wouldn't get between him and his morning coffee, or whatever dwarves use to snap out of that 5 a.m. haze. All of the armor and gear of war, much as it panders to a certain segment of Jackson's Lord of the Rings viewership, does at least seem appropriate to the mission the Dirty Dwarvish (Baker's) Dozen has appointed itself. You don't set off intending to mess with a treasure-hoarding dragon in your feast day frock and lace-trimmed knickers. The hairstyles are fun, too, even though Bifur could probably use a trim and Fili and Kili are maybe a bit too ready for a starring role in a shampoo commercial. And Nori maybe gets some help from Dori and Ori rockin' the old starfish 'do every morning? (Do dwarves take along their scissors, combs and hairpins when they go on a quest?) The posed, GQ magazine look of the whole thing suggests that sets and locations aren't in the mix yet. Or maybe those are greenscreens (grayscreens?) and the Middle-earth environs will be added in post. There's still plenty of time to fix and fiddle with things before Christmas 2012 ... at least as long as the ancient Mayans were wrong about this.