Top 10 Anticipated Films of 2013 (Part 1)

Most Anticipated Films of 2013

It’s a little bit late, but here is a quick look at my top 10 Movies of 2013…

10. Warm Bodies

When I first heard the announcement of a book called ‘Warm Bodies’, being turned into a film, I took note, hearing of it’s ‘different’ plot of a zombie with, sort of, a heart and a conscience. I subsequently bought the book and devoured it in a week or so. It’s a great, if not clichéd story, and at times throughout the book I could visualize it, as a film, and it could be great. Judging by the first trailer, below, it looks like a combo of drama and comedy that such a situation threatened to have. Despite it being described as ”Twilight with zombies’, which the b0ok didn’t strike me as being true, and with a release date the week before Valentines Day in the UK, it could do big business with the same sort of audience, who will be looking for a new supernatural hero to worship. ‘R’, played by ‘Skins’ favourite Nicholas Hoult, could be the zombie tweens would die for (geddit?!).

9. Monsters University

A strange choice for an 18 year old lad, you may think, but ‘Monsters Inc’, was a film released at the height of my childhood, and captivated me. As with many Pixar films, it was great for kids and adults, meaning I even like to watch it every now and then nowadays! And I fully expect screenings of the long-awaited prequel to packed full of the supposed ‘target audience’ of children and parents, aswell as teens and young adults, who worshipped Sully and Mike the first time around, like myself. Very little has been revealed about the film, bar a couple of teaser trailers and a funny ‘university’ style ad for the titular, University in the film, but so long as it carries with it the same spirit as the first film, it’ll all be good. A sneaky cameo (somehow?!) by everyone’s favourite human ‘Boo’, would be great too, go on Pixar you know you want to!

8. Django Unchained

Having literally JUST seen the film today on it’s UK release, I can confirm that my suspicions of this being one of the biggest and best films of the year were true, ‘Django Unchained’, is one of Tarantino’s best yet. It’s a typically daring project for the divisive director, who follows up the time-bending ‘Inglorious Basterds’, with his brutal slavery-based spaghetti-western. Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington all star in a, a times hard watch, but it needs to be to display and show up the horrors that black men and women had to face in the 19th century. Also divisive will be the excessive use of the n-word, something often brought up when Tarantino’s films are being discussed, and whilst it is a sticking point, and at times really not needed, it has its place whilst the director works to create a haunting recreation of those dark days a couple of centuries ago. I’ll go into further detail in my review, but Django certainly deserves his place on this list.

7.  Into the Wonder

This only came up on my radar the other day, with it’s stunning trailer (below) spellbinding to the senses. The music astounding, and something I personally LOVE in a film, the shots, as artistic and beautiful as it gets for a Terence Malick film, and the voiceover from star Javier Bardem haunting. All of it came together nicely, and has got me interested, interested in the same way it’s predecessor, and supposed companion piece, ‘The Tree of Life’, did, which incidentally I didn’t get round to seeing. ‘To the Wonder’, may well go the same way, but with one of my favourite actors of the moment, Javier Bardem, present, a well-shot, well-scored drama could be right up my street. It’s Spring release will see whether I get round to seeing it or not, but it looks very, very promising at the minute, with critically acclaimed director/star Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko joining Bardem, along with Mailck, one of the most highly regarded directors of all time.

6. The World’s End

The third and final part of the much acclaimed, and bizarrely titled, Cornetto trilogy, The World’s End, sees buddies Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright teaming up once again, this time turning their thinly veiled parody with apocalyptic movies. ‘Shaun of the Dead’, and ‘Hot Fuzz’, were excellent films in their own rights, aswell as cracking takes on the zombie and buddy-cop genres, and ending it with an apocalyptic theme seems just right.

It’s great to see how far the trio have come since ‘Shaun’, too, with Simon Pegg, almost capable of leading a Hollywood movie all on his own, and supporting roles in big franchises, ‘Mission Impossible’, and ‘Star Trek’. Nick Frost has stayed closer to his roots, with parts in British films, ‘Attack the Block’ and ‘The Boat That Rocked’, but mixing it up with ‘Tintin’ and ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’. Director Edgar Wright has also made a strong name for himself with the stylish ‘Scott Pilgrim vs the World’ and the upcoming Marvel adaptation of ‘Ant-Man’. So as a result of this bizarre trilogy, three solid careers have been made, but most importantly, genuinely brilliant films in their own right have brought laughter to the millions.

This outing throws ‘The Office’ and new Hollywood Hobbit, Martin Freeman into the mix aswell as the great Paddy Considine, as they join Pegg and Frost on the bar crawl to end all bar crawls, as the world is conveniently ending simultaneously. It’s going to be a cracker!

The second part of my preview for the new year’s films is coming soon!

Book Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

“Warm Bodies“, at first, looks like your typical zombie story, that most recently has been done to death (literally). However, along with the successful TV show and comic book “The Walking Dead”, “Warm Bodies“, is just as concerned about its characters as the ensuing apocalyptic doom that encompasses it.

I’d heard it recommended as “Twilight with zombies”, which put me off immediately! The recommendation of one of my favourite actors, Simon Pegg, meant that I had to check it out though, and I have to admit the plot caught my attention. A quick summary of the story without any spoilers would be this: ‘R’ the zombie has no recollection of his past life, but senses things, can grunt a few syllables and staggers slightly quicker than the rest of the Dead. Then one day he meets a human girl called Julie, and instead of an insatiable urge to eat her, he instead takes her back to the airport in which a large majority of the Dead reside, and keeps her ‘safe’, in his words.

Admittedly, this does sound a bit of a shallow story, it is a tough read at first, with little dialogue being uttered by anyone, zombie or human, with lots of description and little action. We see the world directly from the first-person viewpoint of our ‘hero’, ‘R’, and it’s a strange perspective. Humans are seen as ready meals, and ‘R’ expresses the reasoning behind tearing them apart, purely so he can feed his newly wed wife and their zombie kids. Yes really. Zombie kids. He enjoys simple things like riding the airport elevators and listening to Frank Sinatra in his Boeing 747 home. It sounds bizarre, but you soon slip into the blank, dark world of ‘R’ and, sort of, emphathise with him and his actions.

As he becomes ‘aware’ of the world around him, his meeting with Julie drags the plot up to speed, and is an important device to stop the book from plodding along, like it threatens to at times. Her introduction is where most of us would be. She’s forced into hiding by ‘R’, to keep her alive within the zombie homebase, having to douse herself in zombie blood to put off her scent, and generally stay cooped up in an aeroplane all day long. Their relationship isn’t forced, but develops at a satisfying pace, for what is essentially a zombie falling in love with a human being, who in no way should return feelings back. I won’t divulge into anymore further plotlines in case you haven’t read the book, but from the second half onwards the story really comes alive and you never know where it’s going next. Towards the very end, I felt it was a bit wobbly in terms of narrative, but that is understandable given that this is author Isaac Marion’s first book, which makes this even more of a great achievement.

I mentioned the feeling of  empathy the reader feels for ‘R’, but as we go on, this grows and grows. ‘R’ begins to gain partial knowledge of scraps of memories from a previous life, remembering what it felt like to live as a human, the simple things of life, and he misses it. It makes you appreciate your own life, and is a strong device, used to make the reader think about it, long after they have put the book down (if that is possible!).

The book’s film rights have already been snapped up, and is set for a February 2013 release date in the UK. A Brit, Nicholas Hoult of ‘Skins‘ fame has snagged the leading role of ‘R’, with Teresa Palmer as ‘Julie’ and John Malkovich as Julie’s father ‘General Grigo’. Directing is ‘50/50‘ helmer Jonathan Levine, so we could perhaps see the comedic element of the book brought to light too, and there is a fair bit of humour spread throughout. My only main worry over the conversion from book-to-film, is that the narration of ‘R’, will not be carried through. It’s one of the main reasons for the empathy given towards him, and may hurt the successfulness of the film if it is transferred over.

As it is, ‘Warm Bodies’, is certainly worth a read, purely as it isn’t anything like you expect, and is more than just a bog-standard zombie story.

8/10