January Wrap-Up and February Look Ahead

This is something I have decided to do and I will do it at the end of every month.

So, January. Normally January and February are throw away months, where studios toss out movies they don't anticipate making much money. However, there was an incredible flux of December independents and movies that made Oscar runs early that came out in January which lended to a month of incredible quality. I'm also lucky the Wexner Center chose to play The Aura. But being able to see Children of Men, Little Children, Pan's Labyrinth, The Aura, Smokin' Aces, and Notes on a Scandal among so many others is awesome. Sure, I probably saw TOO many movies this month, and it was overwhelming, but the only one that I rated low was We Are Marshall, and even that wasn't awful. Of course, I only saw two movies that were actual 2007 releases this month, those being Alpha Dog and Smokin' Aces, so the quality of this month doesn't say much for the quality of 2007, though both Dog and Aces were pretty good movies. I'll review them here in the coming days. But yeah, it was a good month.

And now for February.
This upcoming month, there isn't as much coming out that interests me. I still am going to see Letters from Iwo Jima, the Academy Award contender. There is also The Good German, a post WW2 era mystery, filmed in black and white, and starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Tobey Maguire.

There are three larger studio releases that I think could either be very enjoyable and very bad, those being Ghost Rider, Breach, and The Number 23.

I am just hoping Ghost Rider is fun, like Constantine. I really dug Constantine, it wasn't amazing, but it was an effective dark comic book movie. Then again, I don't think Nic Cage is Keanu Reeves, who was a superb Constantine. Nic Cage just seems cheesy as the Ghost Rider, but Sam Elliot is one of the main reasons I am going to see it. I think there are three different times in the trailer where somebodies' face becomes transluscent so you can see their fangs underneath, which, as a note to the editors of the trailers, is not scary.

Breach is starring Ryan Phillippe, Laura Linney, and Chris Cooper is about an FBI agent that is possibly selling American secrets to the Soviets, and a new agent needs to investigate him. It looks good, but we'll see.

And then Number 23, starring Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen, about a guy that discovers that the number 23 is everywhere, and thus goes insane. I don't much care what movies are rated, but the preview screamed PG13 at me, and it was rated R so that's interesting. I heard a rumor that after seeing a screening of this movie, Carrey fired his agent, so that's not good. Joel Schumacher is directing.

Finally, we have two indies that might not even come to Columbus.

Seraphim Falls I don't think is going to but I'll hold out hope. It stars Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan as two men with a blood vendetta against one another during the Civil War. The former goes chasing after the latter in the West. I like westerns.

Breaking and Entering, starring Jude Law and Juliette Binoche, is another adultery thriller, but I've read some pretty good things about it. I have a good feeling this will make it here.

So yeah, only six, maybe seven movies this month. March picks back up, but I will welcome this break. See you soon with my reviews of Alpha Dog and Smokin' Aces.