...which I *might* get angry about if it turns out I’ve hyped them up too much and they are in fact “just okay.” Here are a few honourable mentions, because I’m weird and I feel sort of guilty for not putting them in the top 10: “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” “Jupiter Ascending,” “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,” “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” “Noah,” “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1.” Now the top 10:
10. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"
I quite liked the first “Captain America” — it had heart, it had spirit, it had Chris Evans' steaming, bountiful pecs — and if the trailer is to be believed, follow-up “The Winter Soldier” has every chance of being just as good or possibly — gasp — even better. While Joe Johnston’s 2011 flick was a pulpy, Indiana Jones-style WWII actioner, this looks to be a darker and (dare I utter it) grittier, modern-day political thriller, with Robby Redford playing a shadowy government official and Cap himself sporting a notably darker costume (he’s been Dark Knight-ified!). Marvel have a track record of providing reliably entertaining superhero pics (let’s ignore “Iron Man 2” for a second), so Cap’s second solo outing oughta be a bunch of fun.
9. "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"
Andy Serkis’ monkeying around caused quite the stir among the awards circuit in 2011: was his motion-captured performance as Caesar the CG chimp in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” really eligible for awards love? The correct answer: of course it was, and he deserved every gong he could get his hairy mitts on. In Matt Reeves’ “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” Serkis returns as the apes’ revolution against mankind continues in a world ravaged by a deadly disease. Even if the film doesn’t live up to expectations (with Reeves at the helm, I doubt it won’t), it’ll surely be worth the price of admission for Serkis’ performance alone — there’s real human emotion behind those simian, computer-generated eyes.
8. "Transcendence"
Christopher Nolan’s frequent, gifted cinematographer Wally Pfister directs his debut feature film, so one thing’s for certain: this is gonna be one hell of a competently lit movie. A high-concept techno thriller, “Transcendence” is said to finally introduce the singularity — that’s the predicted point in time when artificial intelligence officially tops human intelligence — to the mainstream, as Johnny Depp’s terminally ill scientist Dr. Will Caster has his consciousness uploaded onto a computer system, where he turns world-endingly sinister. There’s a lot of potential here, so let’s hope Pfister doesn’t cock it up and make himself look like a massive wally. Ahem.
7. "Godzilla"
In 2010, Brit filmmaker Gareth Edwards made a staggeringly impressive directorial debut with his zero-budget creature feature “Monsters,” about ferocious alien beasties walking the earth. In 2014, he gets the big guy: Japanese mega-lizard Gojira (or Godzilla to western audiences), who hasn’t wreaked havoc across the silver screen since that god-awful Roland Emmerich film from the late 1990s. An apocalyptically ominous trailer hit the net a few weeks back, promising a true monster scale and tons upon tons of disastrous destruction. Here’s hoping it’s not another Emmerichian let-down, lest I breathe hellfire.
6. "Gone Girl"
David Fincher has directed four mystery thrillers in his movie career, two of which are undeniable masterpieces (“Se7en” and “Zodiac”) and two of which are very good indeed (that’s his underrated ’90s gem “The Game” and his bone-chilling “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” remake, which I and I alone thought was even better than its Swedish counterpart). Those are four reasons to get excited about “Gone Girl,” Fincher’s new mystery thriller in which a woman disappears on her wedding anniversary; another is that its literary inspiration, written by Gillian Flynn, has literally (not literally) been flying off book shelves and from what I’ve heard — i.e. from one friend who's more literate than I — is apparently quite good. Can Fincher pull another great thriller out of his brainbox? ‘Course he can.
5. "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Just look at that fucking cast: Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Saoirse Ronan, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Lea Seydoux, Bill Murray... but I could copy and paste from IMDb all day. And it’s directed by ever-so-quirky super-auteur Wes Anderson, whose last film, “Moonrise Kingdom,” was an eccentric delight from beginning to end. Shot in three different aspect ratios (and, as always, Anderson’s own symmetry-vision), “The Grand Budapest Hotel” follows the adventures of a famed hotel concierge and his trusted lobby boy in 1920s Europe, as sparked by an inherited Renaissance painting and a dead widow. Some are put off by Anderson’s deadpan, deliberately framed style, finding it irritating or simply tired of it; me, I think it’s gorgeous, side-splitting and oddly, irresistibly enchanting — judging by the trailer, which already has me in stitches, this looks to be no different.
4. "Inherent Vice"
Six movies in, and Paul Thomas Anderson is yet to take a single misstep — his “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia” and “There Will be Blood” are all epic, breathtaking masterworks, and the rest aren’t trailing very far behind (much as people may try to convince you that “The Master” is rubbish, it really isn’t). “Inherent Vice” is Anderson’s seventh film and considering his career so far this is absolutely one to look forward to: based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon, it’s a 1970s-set LA crime thriller and stars Joaquin Phoenix as a drug-addicted detective investigating the disappearance of a former girlfriend. Could it be Anderson’s next masterwork? We’ll just have to wait and see.
3. "Guardians of the Galaxy"
A talking, sentient space tree voiced by Vin Diesel? A gun-toting, wise-cracking raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper? Marvel have gone mad. Call it off: this’ll never work. They couldn’t possibly pull it off... or could they? “Guardians of the Galaxy” is the last film in the three-year build-up to “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” and I’m quaking in my official Marvel superhero slippers just thinking about what spectacular, spacey madness director James Gunn has in store for us. Judging by the teasing glimpse we got in the post-credits sting of “Thor: The Dark World,” as well as the crazy cast of characters, this is gonna be weird, and brilliantly so.
2. "Interstellar"
Having completed his triumphant “Dark Knight” trilogy on a suitably bombastic note, Christopher Nolan returns to the (hopefully) mind-melting sci-fi territory he so masterfully swaggered through in “The Prestige” and “Inception,” only this time he's in space! A right delicious appetiser of a teaser released last month showed little in the way of actual footage from “Interstellar” (it comprised mostly of stock footage of rocket launches from the '60s space race), but it did have a rather inspiring voice-over from Matthew McConaughey lamenting our lost desire to “break barriers” and “reach for the stars.” Oh, and four written words: “One year from now.” I’m counting down the days.
1. "The Raid 2: Berandal"
Let’s face it: Gareth Evans’ 2011 thriller “The Raid” was the best action movie of the last 10 years and sequel “Berandal” is going to be all kinds of rip-your-shirt-off-and-scream-to-the-heavens awesome — I can feel it in my veins, man. I can feel it in my veins! Again directed by Evans, “The Raid 2” follows Iko Uwais’ super-cop/pro ass-hander Rama as he goes undercover in an Indonesian prison, where the fistfights and general butt-kickery kicks off all over again. The first film ran at a fairly brisk 101 minutes; word is that the runtime for “Berandal” is 148 minutes. Just think about that: that’s over 2 hours and 20 minutes of no-nonsense, bone-snapping, bollock-dropping, action-crammed mayhem, as directed by the man they’re calling “the next John Woo.” Fuck yes, you should be screaming, clenched fist raised to the sky. Fuck yes...
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