January is the month where everyone is spent. No money, no time, no energy. Why go see a movie? It’s cold out. Let’s stay in. It’s this mentality that leads the following movies to be released now. They weren’t good enough or family friendly enough to be released between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but they’re still movies so they’ve got to be released some time! And that time is the dreaded January release. You might see a pattern and think ‘do I really want to pay to see this’? Some people do, many don’t. That being said, there’s some decent sounding stuff here.
The Woman in Black: Angel of Death
Kicking off the year rather bleakly is a sequel to that movie about a ghostly woman starring opposite a post Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe. This one is sans Radcliffe as he is off to pursue other projects like the sequel to Now You See Me (if you want to shed the image of you as a little boy wizard, don’t co-star in a movie about magic, just saying). This one has little children who have been evacuated from London during World War II hiding out in a haunted house. As if their lives weren’t hard enough.
A Most Violent Year
Another bleak movie from the director of Margin Call, a star studded tale of our current financial crisis where the rich win and everyone else loses. This is a tale of a young immigrant trying to protect his business and family in 1981 New York City which, apparently, was the city’s most violent year. It’s listed as an "action/ crime/drama/thriller" but something tells me it’ll be mostly drama. This seems like rough stuff, not exciting stuff.
Taken 3
In Taken his daughter gets kidnapped and he must save the day. In Taken 2 he gets kidnapped and his daughter must save the day. Now in Taken 3 they kill his ex-wife, frame him for murder and parents all over America tell their children to watch ‘The Fugitive’ instead. That being said, I will still see this. I’m a fan of seeing Liam Neeson beat people up and this time he’s back in the states being chased by cops and whoever set him up. Should be a silly, fun time.
Blackhat
In 1995 we had Hackers, which will only be remembered for Angelina Jolie. In 2001 we had Swordfish, which will only be remembered for Halle Berry. Now it’s 2015 and we have this film. The common thread you ask? Well they all have to do with recently paroled hackers who are pulled into the hacking game for one reason or another. These are movies that make sitting behind a computer look exciting and flashy. Right now you are behind a computer, do you feel like Chris Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman or Johnny Lee Miller? Yeah me neither, that’s Hollywood for ya...
The Wedding Ringer
If you’re a weird shy guy and somehow you are marrying Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting (Penny from Big Bang Theory), you might want to hire Kevin Hart to liven things up. Josh Gad plays the shy groom who has no best man and finds a company that provides just that very thing to make any wedding fun. It’s a story about putting on a show at a wedding. Things are going to get ridiculous.
Paddington
Remember Paddington Bear? Yeah I hardly remember him either. I think I had a Paddington Bear car seat, or at least my younger brother did. I just remember there being one. Anyway, this is probably like Ted if it was originally made for children. It takes place in London, so like any British movie, it features many recognizable actors. The most recent actors to portray Q, Dumbledore and Dr. Who all appear as this walking talking bear travels London and avoids a taxidermist. Seriously, that’s the plot synopsis.
Escobar: Paradise Lost
A young, super cool surfer, Josh Hutcherson, hanging out in Columbia meets a woman, falls for her and then gets to meet her uncle Pablo, Benecio Del Toro. With the rather generic subtitle of ‘Paradise Lost’,one can assume this doesn’t end with the surfer and Escobar surfing side by side into the sunset. I’m not an expert on all things Pablo Escobar so who knows.
Still Alice
Julianne Moore plays a ‘renowned linguistics professor’ (which I didn’t know was a thing), who ‘starts to forget words’. Normally I can paraphrase the synopsis I read but not this one. I know no other way to say what they’re saying. This looks like a sad movie, it’s got Kristen Stewart in it whose smile is more of a frown than anything.
The Boy Next Door
J-Lo (do people still call her that?) plays a divorced woman who falls for the young man next door, played by the lead actor of the Step Up movies that Channing Tatum was not in. It’s described as a thriller, so I’m sure she gets in trouble and the young man is dangerous and/or obsessive. This is from the director of the first Fast and Furious and Dragonheart. That means nothing to the plot, I just wanted you to know that.
Mortdecai
Johnny Depp plays a mischievous art dealer who is searching for a painting that is linked to Nazi gold. Sounds like, and this hurts to say, a goofier version of National Treasure. Hopefully it’s the fun kind of goofy and not the stupid kind. Johnny Depp hasn’t really had a hit outside of the Pirates movies in a long time…is this the one that breaks the slump?
Black Sea
Jude Law plays a submarine captain, who, under some shady circumstances, is coerced into searching the Black Sea for rumored gold. Now in my experience submarine movies are pretty boring. There’s more room on boats, that’s why there’s plenty of boat movies but submarine movies pretty much rely completely on tension and that can get dull. The director of Top Gun made one, the director of Terminator 3 made one and so did the director of Point Break. No one has really pulled it off, so we shall see how this turns out.
Project Almanac
Some of these movies seem like they were dumped in January, but this movie sounds like it was MADE for January. As it turns out, this too was supposed to be released earlier and got dumped in January. It’s a found footage film, where a group of kids play with a time machine and of course there are consequences. This kind of looks like a lot of fun, I am still not tired of the found footage films. I actually enjoy a lot of them and throwing time travel into the mix is probably just bonkers enough to be a fun time.
The Lazarus Effect
Much like we are still in the era of found footage, it also seems we are still in the era of zombie movies. This one seems a bit different though. It’s from a documentary director, a decent production company, and it features actors we’d all recognize from American Horror Story, House, The League and Community. Whether it will be good or not has yet to be seen, but I’m interested.
Max
Now this movie seems like it was seconds away from being a Hallmark movie of the week or just a straight to DVD feature, but it showed up on a list of movies coming out in January, so I’m writing about it. Max is a dog that helped soldiers in Afghanistan who returned to the states, gets a adopted and probably gets into family friendly trouble. Now it sounds like a tug at the heartstrings kind of movie, but it’s from the writer of a few Van-Damme movies, so I’m very confused.
