Ahhh, January. The year always begins with such promise, and then the first month is generally filled with crapola. Mostly, but not completely. It's an annual argument I tend to have with my pal and WAFCA president Tim Gordon that January never has any good movies in it. That's simply not true. You just have to look a little bit harder to find them, but every month, even January, has stuff to get excited for. And this year in particular there are quite a few; enough that I had to think a little bit about what to include and what to leave off.
Also complicating the process is that many of January biggest films actually opened in December for qualifying Oscar runs. So you won't find movies like Selma, American Sniper, Inherent Vice, Leviathan, A Most Violent Year, Still Alice, or Two Days, One Night on this list. And keep in mind these are simply MY picks for the 10 movies I think will be worth checking out; the kind that I think could be worth plunking down a few bucks to see. I could be wrong. I'll try to do this every month if time allows.
Appropriate Behavior (January 16th)
Director: Desiree Akhavan
Cast: Desiree Akhavan, Scott Adsit, Rebecca Henderson, Anh Duong
I always show a little preference to movies I missed at Sundance (where I spend most of January), and one film I kept hearing about last year was Desiree Akhavan's off-beat rom-com, Appropriate Behavior. She writes, directs, and stars in the film about a politically correct bisexual Persian woman who tries to remain in her family's good graces while dealing with the realities of the Manhattan dating scene. It's been called funny and irreverent, and certainly the film doesn't resemble what we usually get from this tired old genre.
Blackhat (January 16th)
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Tang Wei
Dude, it's Michael friggin' Mann! Any time he puts out a new film is a cause to stand up and take notice, and Blackhat couldn't get arriving in a more timely fashion. In the wake of the Sony hacking scandal a film about cyber-terrorism could resonate with audiences in a major way....or they could be burned out on the subject and avoid it. We shall see. The film stars Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, as a prisoner released to aid a joint American/Chinese task force in taking down a global cyber-criminal.
Taken 3 (January 9th)
Director: Olivier Megaton
Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Forest Whitaker, Famke Janssen, Sam Spruell, Jonny Weston, Dougray Scott
I'm only putting this on here because I'll happily pay to see this franchise end. Liam Neeson bashes in a few or skulls as ex-black ops dude Bryan Mills, and this time he'll need his particular set of skills to get out of a bum murder rap. Forest Whitaker joins the cast as the clueless top cop on his tail, proving once again that Whitaker is good for about one decent role per year surrounded by forgettable supporting performances like this.
Black Sea (January 23rd)
Director: Kevin MacDonald
Cast: Jude Law, Scoot McNairy, Michael Smiley, Ben Mendelsohn
Speaking of Forest Whitaker, his The Last King of Scotland director Kevin MacDonald returns with Black Sea, a submarine thriller some have likened to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Cool deal, sign me up. I love a good submarine flick because they always come with a certain degree of paranoia and claustrophobia, which should be heavy with a cast like this. Jude Law stars as an unemployed ship captain who takes a job with a mysterious backer and motley crew to locate a stash of sunken gold, and of course things don't go according to plan.
The Taking of Tiger Mountain (January 2nd)
Director: Tsui Hark
Cast: Tony Leung, Lin Gengxin, Zhang Hanyu
Chinese director Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time in China, A Better Tomorrow) may no longer be making the classics he used to, but I still hold out hope for the massive 3D epic, The Taking of Tiger Mountain. It tells the true and oft-adapted story of a Communist soldier who infiltrated a group of bandits during the Chinese Civil War and helped destroy them from within.
The Humbling (January 23rd)
Director: Barry Levinson
Cast: Al Pacino, Greta Gerwig
Basically this one had me with "Greta Gerwig", but the film is actually pretty good. I saw it at the Virginia Film Festival a couple of months back and enjoyed the comedic power play between Al Pacino, who plays an aging actor trying to reclaim his mojo, and Gerwig as the flighty and much younger lesbian woman he falls in love with. Pacino hasn't been this tuned in to a role in a very long time, and I can honestly say this is the first adaptation of a Philip Roth novel that I've enjoyed. Perhaps Pacino and Levinson, who worked together on HBO's You Don't Know Jack, should make their partnership a recurring one.
Still Life (January 16th)
Director: Uberto Pasolini
Cast: Eddie Marsan, Joanne Froggatt, Karen Drury
Full confession: I had never heard of this film until a friend saw it at Filmfest DC last year and wouldn't stop raving about it. It stars Eddie Marsan, a wonderful character actor you probably know from The World's End and the Sherlock Holmes movies, and it centers on a lonely man whose job it is to prepare funerals and eulogies for those who have died alone. Fun stuff, eh? The film is directed by Uberto Pasolini and has won awards at the Venice and Abu Dhabi film festivals, with many noting its depth of humanity when dealing with the subject of grief. I'm merely hoping it's another fine showcase for Marsan, an actor who deserves more time in the spotlight.
Red Army (January 23rd)
Director: Gabe Polsky
Rare that a documentary ever enters my radar as a must-see film, but there has been so much strong buzz about Gabe Polsky's Red Army that I can't ignore it. Polsky caught my attention in 2013 with his stirring adaptation The Motel Life (starring Stephen Dorff, Emile Hirsch, and Dakota Fanning) and now he turns his attention to the Soviet Union's hockey dominance during and just after the Cold War. While I could care less about the sport itself, the politics of the time are what fascinate me and how the team's performance was such a huge part of Soviet propaganda. Plus I've heard the team members interviewed absolutely rip into former coach Viktor Tikhonov, who was known for being a ruthless dick.
The Wedding Ringer (January 16th)
Director: Jeremy Garelick
Cast: Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Olivia Thirlby
I'll be honest with you, I think The Wedding Ringer looks pretty terrible, but I thought the same thing about Kevin Hart's other early-season comedies and they turned out okay. This one has him as a guy paid to be the best man for loser grooms with no friends. So it kind of looks like Wedding Crashers meets Hitch as Hart buddies up with Josh Gad, no doubt teaching him some kind of life lesson in-between the hijinks, dance-offs, and so forth. There will be more meaningful movies coming out this month but this one has the potential for the most laughs.
Mommy (review here, opens January 23rd)
Director: Xavier Dolan
Cast: Antoine Olivier-Pilon, Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clement
Duh, you knew this had to end up here somewhere. It made my top 10 best movies of the year and was a film I called "electric" and "life-affirming" with emotions too big for the screen to handle. Xavier Dolan's best film yet features a trio of incredible performances, led by Anne Dorval as a single mother who finds her world turned upside down when her violent son (Olivier-Pilon) returns home. What begins as a tense, potentially dangerous soap opera evolves into a unique, hopeful story (with a wonderfully eclectic soundtrack) about the power of maternal love.
A few honorable mentions: Jennifer Aniston's gaining some buzz (and a Golden Globes nomination) for her dramatic performance in Cake, and I would say she's the only reason to see it. Fans of cuddly bears who don't go into profanity-laced tirades may want to check out the CGI/live-action Paddington, starring Nicole Kidman and featuring the voice of Ben Whishaw. Ewan McGregor, Brenton Thwaites, and Alicia Vikander pull off a heist in the crime thriller, Son of a Gun. Hey Star Wars fans! George Lucas has a new movie coming out but it's the animated fantasy, Strange Magic. Sorry. Those looking for a scare may want to check out The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, a sequel that unfortunately features 100% less Daniel Radcliffe. And Benicio Del Toro is more than worth the price of admission as notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar in the kooky action flick, Escobar: Paradise Lost (review here), which also stars Josh Hutcherson.
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