Monotreme
02-05-2007, 03:16 PM
Grind House. Zodiac. Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass. We all know of all the big releases this coming year (the ones mentioned being those that I am personally anticipating, but I'm sure there are those who can't wait for Shrek the Third, Ocean's 13 or Transformers). But what about the smaller movies, the "arthouse" movies if you will? We've got some fantastically sounding projects from acclaimed directors and actors alike. Here's a (not so brief) breakdown of the smaller films to be released in 2007 I am anticipating:
NOTE: In addition, rumour has it that Tim Burton's upcoming feature, Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen, is being prepared and slated for a Winter 2007 release. If that is indeed the case, you're looking at one VERY happy camper right here! Anyways, on to the list:
Lions for Lambs
Directed by: Robert Redford
Starring: Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford
Plot: Three interconnected lives converge: A congressman who interacts with a journalist; an idealistic professor who attempts to inspire a privileged student in his class; and a pair of American soldiers wounded in enemy territory in Afghanistan, one of whom is the professor's former student.
Rendition
Directed by: Gavin Hood (Tsotsi)
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Peter Sarsgaard
Plot: When an Egyptian engineer "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere in the middle east.
Charlie Wilson's War
Directed by: Mike Nichols
Starring: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
Plot: A drama based on a Texas congressman Charlie Wilson's covert dealings in Afghanistan, where his efforts to assist rebels in their war with the Soviets have some unforeseen and long-reaching effects.
No Country for Old Men
Directed by: Coen brothers
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, Javier Bardem
Plot: Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.
There Will Be Blood
Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
Plot: A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the early days of the business.
American Gangster
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, Russel Crowe, Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Plot: A drug lord smuggles heroin into Harlem during the 1970s by hiding the stash inside the coffins of American soldiers returning from Vietnam.
The Bucket List
Directed by: Rob Reiner
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman
Plot: Two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.
I'm Not There
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Richard Gere, Adrien Brody, David Cross (seems like THE movie to be in this year!)
Plot: Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where seven characters embody a different aspect of the musician's life and work.
My Blueberry Nights
Directed by: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris
Plot: A young woman takes a soul-searching journey across America to resolve her questions about love while encountering a series of offbeat characters along the way.
Margot at the Wedding
Directed by: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Turturro
Plot: A drama/comedy set over a single weekend, where a mother takes her son on a visit to his aunt's home.
The Darjeeling Limited
Directed by: Wes Anderson
Starring: Natalie Portman, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola
Plot: The death of their father sends three brothers on a journey through India.
Synecdoche, New York
Directed by: Charlie Kaufman
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Tilda Swinton, Samantha Morton
Plot: A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to creating a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
The Golden Age
Directed by: Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth)
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Hollander, Samantha Morton
Plot: An exploration of the relationship between Elizabeth I and the adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh.
Mr. Magorum's Wonder Emporium
Directed by: Zach Helm (writer of Stranger than Fiction)
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman, Dustin Hoffman
Plot: Molly Mahoney is the awkward and insecure manager of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, the strangest, most fantastic, most wonderful toy store in the world. But when Mr. Magorium, the 243 year-old eccentric who owns the store, bequeaths the store to her, a dark and ominous change begins to take over the once remarkable Emporium.
Reservation Road
Directed by: Terry George (Hotel Rwanda)
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly, Mira Sorvino, Elle Fanning
Plot: Two families become intertwined when the father from one kills the son of the other in a hit-and-run.
Margaret
Directed by: Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count On Me)
Starring: Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Allison Janney, Kieran Culkin
Plot: Margaret centers on a 17-year-old New York City high-school student who feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in a traffic accident that has claimed a woman's life. In her attempts to set things right she meets with opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideals are on a collision course against the realities and compromises of the adult world.
The Savages
Directed by: Tamara Jenkins
Starring: Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Plot: A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.
Funny Games
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Starring: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt
Plot: Michael Haneke retells the story of his 1997 original, through the eyes of middle-class housewife Anna, of how she and her husband George and their 10 year old son Georgie, submitted both physically and mentally to the tortures enforced upon them by two young unexpected visitors at their weekend vacation retreat near the lake.
Youth without Youth
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Tim Roth
Plot: A pre-WWII drama where a life-changing incident turns a professor into a fugitive.
The Other Boleyn Girl
Directed by: Justin Chadwick
Starring: Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana
Plot: Two sisters contend for the affection of King Henry VIII.
Michael Clayton
Directed by: Tony Gilroy (writer of the Bourne movies)
Starring: George Clooney, Tom WIlkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack
Plot: A New York attorney learns that after 15 years of cleaning up his high profile clients problems, they can come back to haunt you, in what will be the last and worst days of his career.
Rescue Dawn
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Starring: Christian Bale
Plot: This film tells the real-life story of U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, a German-American shot down and captured in Laos during the Vietnam War. Dengler organized a death-defying escape for a small band of POWs, including Duane Martin.
3:10 to Yuma
Directed by: James Mangold
Starring: Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, Ben Foster, Gretchen Mol, Peter Fonda
Plot: A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher.
Bernard and Doris
Directed by: Bob Balaban
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Susan Sarandon
Plot: The story of the twilight years of tobacco billionairness Doris Duke and her relationship with her gay butler Bernard Lafferty, to whom she left her entire fortune.
Battle in Seattle
Directed by: Stuart Townsend
Starring: Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Ray Liotta, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Rodriguez
Plot: Activists arrive in Seattle, Washington en masse to protest a meeting of the World Trade Organization. Riots and chaos ensue when large crowds become hostile and police are outnumbered.
An American Crime
Directed by: Tommy O'Haver (Ella Enchanted?!)
Starring: Ellen Page, Catherine Keener, James Franco
Plot: The true story of suburban housewife Gertrude Baniszewski, who kept a teenage girl locked in the basement of her Indiana home and encouraged torturing of the girl by her children and others in the neighborhood during the 1960s.
In the Valley of Elah
Directed by: Paul Haggis
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, James Franco, Susan Sarandon
Plot: A career officer investigates the disappearance of his son, an exemplary soldier who went AWOL after his recent return from Iraq.
Snow Cake
Directed by: Marc Evans
Starring: Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss
Plot: A drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman and a man who is traumatized after a fatal car accident.
Savage Grace
Directed by: Tom Kalin
Starring: Julianne Moore
Plot: Julianne Moore stars in this dramatization of the shocking Barbara Daly Baekeland murder case, which happened in a posh London flat on Friday 17 November 1972. The bloody crime caused a stir on both sides of the Atlantic and remains one of the most memorable tragedies.
Cassandra's Dream
Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Michelle Williams, Tom WIlkinson
Plot: ?????
PHEW!!!!!!!!
NOTE: In addition, rumour has it that Tim Burton's upcoming feature, Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen, is being prepared and slated for a Winter 2007 release. If that is indeed the case, you're looking at one VERY happy camper right here! Anyways, on to the list:
Lions for Lambs
Directed by: Robert Redford
Starring: Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford
Plot: Three interconnected lives converge: A congressman who interacts with a journalist; an idealistic professor who attempts to inspire a privileged student in his class; and a pair of American soldiers wounded in enemy territory in Afghanistan, one of whom is the professor's former student.
Rendition
Directed by: Gavin Hood (Tsotsi)
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Peter Sarsgaard
Plot: When an Egyptian engineer "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere in the middle east.
Charlie Wilson's War
Directed by: Mike Nichols
Starring: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
Plot: A drama based on a Texas congressman Charlie Wilson's covert dealings in Afghanistan, where his efforts to assist rebels in their war with the Soviets have some unforeseen and long-reaching effects.
No Country for Old Men
Directed by: Coen brothers
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, Javier Bardem
Plot: Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.
There Will Be Blood
Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
Plot: A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the early days of the business.
American Gangster
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, Russel Crowe, Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Plot: A drug lord smuggles heroin into Harlem during the 1970s by hiding the stash inside the coffins of American soldiers returning from Vietnam.
The Bucket List
Directed by: Rob Reiner
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman
Plot: Two terminally ill men escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.
I'm Not There
Directed by: Todd Haynes
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Richard Gere, Adrien Brody, David Cross (seems like THE movie to be in this year!)
Plot: Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where seven characters embody a different aspect of the musician's life and work.
My Blueberry Nights
Directed by: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Ed Harris
Plot: A young woman takes a soul-searching journey across America to resolve her questions about love while encountering a series of offbeat characters along the way.
Margot at the Wedding
Directed by: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Turturro
Plot: A drama/comedy set over a single weekend, where a mother takes her son on a visit to his aunt's home.
The Darjeeling Limited
Directed by: Wes Anderson
Starring: Natalie Portman, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola
Plot: The death of their father sends three brothers on a journey through India.
Synecdoche, New York
Directed by: Charlie Kaufman
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Tilda Swinton, Samantha Morton
Plot: A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to creating a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
The Golden Age
Directed by: Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth)
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Hollander, Samantha Morton
Plot: An exploration of the relationship between Elizabeth I and the adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh.
Mr. Magorum's Wonder Emporium
Directed by: Zach Helm (writer of Stranger than Fiction)
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman, Dustin Hoffman
Plot: Molly Mahoney is the awkward and insecure manager of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, the strangest, most fantastic, most wonderful toy store in the world. But when Mr. Magorium, the 243 year-old eccentric who owns the store, bequeaths the store to her, a dark and ominous change begins to take over the once remarkable Emporium.
Reservation Road
Directed by: Terry George (Hotel Rwanda)
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly, Mira Sorvino, Elle Fanning
Plot: Two families become intertwined when the father from one kills the son of the other in a hit-and-run.
Margaret
Directed by: Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count On Me)
Starring: Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Allison Janney, Kieran Culkin
Plot: Margaret centers on a 17-year-old New York City high-school student who feels certain that she inadvertently played a role in a traffic accident that has claimed a woman's life. In her attempts to set things right she meets with opposition at every step. Torn apart with frustration, she begins emotionally brutalizing her family, her friends, her teachers, and most of all, herself. She has been confronted quite unexpectedly with a basic truth: that her youthful ideals are on a collision course against the realities and compromises of the adult world.
The Savages
Directed by: Tamara Jenkins
Starring: Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Plot: A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.
Funny Games
Directed by: Michael Haneke
Starring: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt
Plot: Michael Haneke retells the story of his 1997 original, through the eyes of middle-class housewife Anna, of how she and her husband George and their 10 year old son Georgie, submitted both physically and mentally to the tortures enforced upon them by two young unexpected visitors at their weekend vacation retreat near the lake.
Youth without Youth
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Tim Roth
Plot: A pre-WWII drama where a life-changing incident turns a professor into a fugitive.
The Other Boleyn Girl
Directed by: Justin Chadwick
Starring: Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana
Plot: Two sisters contend for the affection of King Henry VIII.
Michael Clayton
Directed by: Tony Gilroy (writer of the Bourne movies)
Starring: George Clooney, Tom WIlkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack
Plot: A New York attorney learns that after 15 years of cleaning up his high profile clients problems, they can come back to haunt you, in what will be the last and worst days of his career.
Rescue Dawn
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Starring: Christian Bale
Plot: This film tells the real-life story of U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, a German-American shot down and captured in Laos during the Vietnam War. Dengler organized a death-defying escape for a small band of POWs, including Duane Martin.
3:10 to Yuma
Directed by: James Mangold
Starring: Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, Ben Foster, Gretchen Mol, Peter Fonda
Plot: A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher.
Bernard and Doris
Directed by: Bob Balaban
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Susan Sarandon
Plot: The story of the twilight years of tobacco billionairness Doris Duke and her relationship with her gay butler Bernard Lafferty, to whom she left her entire fortune.
Battle in Seattle
Directed by: Stuart Townsend
Starring: Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Ray Liotta, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Rodriguez
Plot: Activists arrive in Seattle, Washington en masse to protest a meeting of the World Trade Organization. Riots and chaos ensue when large crowds become hostile and police are outnumbered.
An American Crime
Directed by: Tommy O'Haver (Ella Enchanted?!)
Starring: Ellen Page, Catherine Keener, James Franco
Plot: The true story of suburban housewife Gertrude Baniszewski, who kept a teenage girl locked in the basement of her Indiana home and encouraged torturing of the girl by her children and others in the neighborhood during the 1960s.
In the Valley of Elah
Directed by: Paul Haggis
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, James Franco, Susan Sarandon
Plot: A career officer investigates the disappearance of his son, an exemplary soldier who went AWOL after his recent return from Iraq.
Snow Cake
Directed by: Marc Evans
Starring: Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie-Anne Moss
Plot: A drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman and a man who is traumatized after a fatal car accident.
Savage Grace
Directed by: Tom Kalin
Starring: Julianne Moore
Plot: Julianne Moore stars in this dramatization of the shocking Barbara Daly Baekeland murder case, which happened in a posh London flat on Friday 17 November 1972. The bloody crime caused a stir on both sides of the Atlantic and remains one of the most memorable tragedies.
Cassandra's Dream
Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, Michelle Williams, Tom WIlkinson
Plot: ?????
PHEW!!!!!!!!