Top 50 Most Anticipated Films of 2010: List 40-45

By our guest blogger, Tim Strain

Editor's Note:  Guest blogger Tim Strain has compiled his list of the 50 most anticipated movies of 2010.  WeekinRewind.com will offer five per day, starting from the bottom and ending at the number-one spot.  Tim wanted us to note this:  "By the time the final portion of the list has been published, 'Shutter Island' will already have been released.  I hope you appreciate cinema enough to have made it to Scorsese’s newest on opening night.  Please look for it later on this list as it progresses."  Thanks to Tim.  Below is his list.  You can read Part 1 here.

40. Looking for Eric (Ken Loach): Pictured above
Ken Loach (winner of the 2006 Palm d’Or for “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”) directs this story about a down-on-his-luck Brit who runs into his former idol just when he needs inspiration in his life. The idol is former Manchester United player Eric Cantona, playing himself, in one of the oddest casting calls and concepts of any movie this year. The Playlist says the film is “wonderful, celebratory, and full of zest.”

41. Zonad (John Carney)
John Carney made one of the most genuinely likeable movies of the last few years in “Once,” a tender story about the love or something like it between two sad, small-time musicians in Dublin. This is his next low-key, low-budget drama, starring his brother, and is already finished. Variety calls the 50s-set film a mix of “Pleasantville,” “The Quiet Man” and old “Carry On” films.

42. Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell)
Mitchell is one of the best independent voices working in film (“Shortbus” and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” are flat-out masterpieces), and he is merging into the mainstream with this very personal project. Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman play a married couple whose lives are ruined after their four-year-old son is killed in a car accident. Their situation becomes even more complicated when the driver attempts to contact them. This is based on the 2007 Tony-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire, who penned the screenplay as well. Sandra Oh, Dianne Wiest and Tammy Blanchard co-star.

Note: I previously wrote that Mitchell lost his own son. This is false, and I apologize for the error.

43. Triple Frontier (Katherine Bigelow)
I know I’ll get flack, but I wasn’t huge on “The Hurt Locker.” It wasn’t bad and actually worked in a lot of ways, and I wouldn’t even be upset if it won Best Picture, but it wasn’t for me. That being said, I like Bigelow’s style and her ambition as a female director in a male town. This recent project was only recently announced, but it will revolve around the drug trade ‘la tripla frontera,’ the area between the borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. If they plan on shooting on location, good luck getting this out by the end of the year. Bigelow also recently announced that she’ll be doing a pilot for HBO based off a John Logan script, so this could definitely be a 2011 attraction.

44. Machete (Robert Rodriguez, Ethan Maniquis)
“Machete” was the best of all the fake trailers in “Grindhouse,” but is spreading that out into an 80-90 minute film the best idea? Doesn’t it take some of the fun out of the joke that was the trailer?  Or will the movie succeed?  The film has one of the oddest casts in years, with Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro (“Heat” reunion, cool), Steven Seagal, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodríguez, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson and Rose McGowan all greased and grimed and sleazed out.

45. Fair Game (Doug Liman)
Naomi Watts and Sean Penn together again! They gave two of the great performances of the decade in “21 Grams,” and now collaborating with Liman (“Bourne Identity,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”) in the story of CIA Agent Valerie Plame and how her life was turned upside down in 2003 when her husband wrote an op-ed in the New York Times saying the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence about WMDs in Iraq.