Top 50 Most Anticipated Films of 2010: List 29-15

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 follow them from the bottom and end 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 the continuation of his list.

15. Green Zone (Paul Greengrass)
Matt Damon, always a busy man (5 movies in 2010), is no-BS as rogue Army commando Roy Miller (who will be a classic character--I’m calling it). It is based loosely on the nonfiction novel “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” which Paul Greengrass adapted into a fictional tale about the commando who looks for the truth regarding WMD’s in Baghdad’s Green Zone, ruffling the feathers of the government, the media and the other side. Amy Ryan, Brandon Gleason, Greg Kinnear and Jason Isaacs co-star. Greengrass has yet to make anything less than stellar, but I can’t help but be a bit apprehensive about this after its multiple release shifts. Look for it Friday.

16. The Expendables (Sylvester Stallone)
Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny Trejo. Mercenaries. South America. Dictatorial overthrow.


17. Moneyball (Bennet Miller)
This project has been through a meat grinder over the last year. Steven Soderbergh had long been attached to it to direct and had gone so far as already spending $10 million on it in pre-production. This was before his star, the highly reclusive Brad Pitt, got cold feet and contemplated walking away, and Soderbergh was given the axe just hours before production was supposed to begin. Aaron Sorkin then re-wrote Steve Zaillian’s script and Pitt is still set to star in a movie that probably won’t be as interesting as all the real-world drama surrounding it. Pitt will play Billy Beane, who invested pennies in his Oakland Athletics organization in the late-1990s and developed a new way to win, based on home grown players and stats previously not focused on by teams.

18. The Social Network (David Fincher)
Facebook: The Movie! Starring Justin Timberlake and New Michael Cera (Jesse Eisenberg), from the director of “Seven.” Doesn’t make a bit of sense, does it? The beg-borrow-steal story of the founding of Facebook by then-Harvard undergrads Mark Zuckerberg and The One Who Didn’t Get Credit is allegedly one rife with drama. It’s a tool that now ties 400 million people together, so its power is undeniable. Fincher has a tendency to tap the darker nature of people, so perhaps the movie will be interesting for that reason.

19. Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn)
Vaughn (“Layer Cake”) and infamous comic writer Mark Millar (“Wanted”) tell the story of Dave Lizewski, an unnoticed high school student and comic book fan who one day decides to become a super-hero, even though he has no powers, training or meaningful reason to do so. He soons develops enemies as well as heroes in it to really fuck shit up. The film is hyper-violent and distributed by Lionsgate, and the geeks at Comic Con went crazy for it. Nicolas Cage as “Big Daddy” and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin) as “Red Mist” makes me snicker, and Aaron Johnson plays Lizewski/Kick-Ass. I’m hoping this is the funnest dumb action movie of the year.


20. Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñarritu)
Iñarritu, the bleakest of the Three Amigos (Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro are the others and they’re producing), has been constructing his newest fatalistic interconnected story for a while now, so I assume this will be released this year. Iñarittu is again dealing with dark themes, this time a story revolving around a petty Mexican criminal who is confronted by a childhood friend who is now a cop. Javier Bardem stars, and much of the crew Iñarittu used on “Babel,” “21 Grams,” and “Amores Perros” also is working on this.

21. The Fighter (David O. Russell)
Russell and Christian Bale, two of the most generally nicest guys in the business, unite to tell the heart-warming story of real life crackhead/former boxer/trainer/Dickie Ward (Bale), brother of welterweight champ“Irish” Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg). Bale has lost a disturbing amount of weight for this and base on his teeth, looks like he did smoked a rock the size a milk crate. The script is supposed to be excellent, and the talent that has surrounded this over the past several years (Darren Aronofsky was originally supposed to direct Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) has me pretty excited. Plus, sub-150 lb. Bale is the only Bale to watch. Go gaunt or go home.


22. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (Werner Herzog)
Herzog is one of the true crazies--the man who put a gun to his lead actor’s head in what many consider his masterpiece, “Fitzcarraldo,” and set up a college for “rogue filmmaking.” He made one of 2009’s few great movies, the crazy artistic remake of “Bad Lieutenant,” this time entitled the somehow hilarious “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.” He shot both this and “My Son” over the last couple years and debuted them both at TIFF. Michael Shannon is the lead in a strange story of a man who murders his mother, supplemented by the police investigation of the mysterious events leading up to it. The film was in theaters for a week in NY and LA last year, and will be on DVD soon.

23. Carlos the Jackal (Olivier Assayas)
Assayas made one of the three or four great movies of 2009--the breathtaking “Summer Hours.” Here, he is tackling terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez’s life story, making a three-part miniseries for the Sundance Channel that is being adapted into an epic film released by IFC in the fall. The project will trace the exploits of the man as he organizes a worldwide terrorist organization that raided OPEC headquarters in 1975 before being caught by French police. The film was shot on location across Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Lebanon and Morocco.


24. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Edgar Wright)
Edgar Wright directs what could be the “most hip” (interpret that as you please) movie of the year. Having shown his talent regarding action and genre knowledge with “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz” and the short-lived show “Spaced,” this is his biggest project in scope yet. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are nowhere to be seen, and every up-and-coming twentysomething in Hollywood is in this, including Michael Cera (in the titular role) Anna Kendrick, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Evans, Kieran Culkin, Brandon Routh, Alison Pill, Jason Schwartzman, Aubrey Plaza, Brie Larson, and Marc Webber. It revolves around a Canadian slacker (Pilgrim) who decides to pursue the girl of his dreams, only to find out that in order to win her heart, he must defeat her seven ex-boyfriends in battle. Early word has been overwhelmingly positive by the few who have seen it. This hits theaters August 13, 2010.

25. Your Highness (David Gordon Green)
The second installment in the Saga of Stoners, after Green’s “Pineapple Express.” In medieval times, a slovenly knight (Danny McBride) must try to save his father's kingdom and a princess (Zooey Deschanel) while also kicking a pot smoking habit. Luckily, he has a brother (James Franco) and a warrior princess (Natalie Portman) to abet his quest. McBride is one of the funniest guys around right now, and is sure to flirt with the line of too much tongue-in-cheekness. All I can say is that I hope this is as brilliant as the talent involved, and not as stupid as the plot. I can’t decide which way it will go, hence the placement.

26. Paul (Greg Mottola)
Two British sci-fi nerds (Nick Frost and Simon Pegg) driving across America to a comic convention stumble upon and eventually befriend an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen, who really, really loves the sound of his voice) in the New Mexico desert. Mottola directed “Superbad,” so he clearly works well with good comedians, and it will be interesting to see Frost, not Pegg, in the starring role.

27. Mother (Bong Joon-Ho)
In what has been proclaimed by nearly every critic who has already seen it as “Hitchcockian,” a mother frantically tries to search for a killer who has framed her son for murder. All signs point to this being great. Bong Joon-Ho is a terrifically skilled director; “Memories of Murder” is a brilliant, in-depth look at the investigation of a crime and the obsession that cops are overcome by, and “The Host” is among the most critically loved movies of the past decade that I have yet to see. Magnolia recently picked this up and is releasing it tomorrow, March 12.

28. Leaves of Grass (Tim Blake Nelson)
Edward Norton plays twins--one an Ivy League professor and the other a small-potatoes marijuana cultivator--in Tim Blake Nelson’s directorial debut. Susan Sarandon, Keri Russell, Melanie Laurent and Richard Dreyfuss (as the local drug lord) co-star. It’s amazing how quiet the buzz has been about this considering the talent involved. It was rumored that this was going straight to DVD on 4/20, but that was dismissed as stupid stoner shenanigans. Expect it out on April 2, instead.

29. The Beaver (Jodie Foster)
Based on one of the most highly acclaimed scripts in Hollywood over the last few years, this stars Mel Gibson as a twisted, depressed man who develops a condition where he only can communicate with people through a beaver hand-puppet. This isn't Jodie’s directorial debut, but she is eternally gorgeous and brilliant, so this will be too. And Gibson as a total crazy=enticing.