2010 could mark the beginning of decade where movies take advantage of the meteoric rise in advanced special effects that the noughties also heavily relied upon. It seems the big studios will make money (despite the ubiquitous recession) as long as there are super-hero graphic novels to pillage and tween vampire tales to tell. Unfortunately, this also means that the dearth of original ideas will continue to plague cinemas. Most mainstream movies today tend to be adapted from or are sequels of a book, movie, blog and/or a memoir. In fact, one upcoming movie is even about facebook! As many of us plan the year ahead — with resolutions, family, vacations, career, etc — we at WearetheMovies.com have shortlisted, from the 200-odd movies that Hollywood will unload on cinemagoers this year, a few of the more popular titles that we look forward to. The aim is to get you excited about what’s in store. Some of these may be postponed, even cancelled. Others may turn out to be total duds (Transformers 2, anyone), and yet others may surprise everyone, coming out of nowhere and stealing the limelight (like last year’s funny Hangover). The titles are sorted in ascending order of their US release dates.

Daybreakers
Michael Spierig | USA | 2009

In a world inhabited by vampires, who are running out of valuable blood supplies, Ethan Hawke leads a group of his kind to try and save vampires (and humans). What works in building intrigue is the movie’s sleek trailer, the presence of the Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill and an apt rating of R (for Restricted kiddos). Daybreakers may finally give the grown-up boys a vampire movie to talk about after the Blade series. continue reading »»

Up In The Air
Jason Reitman | USA | 2009
109 min

Up in the Air finds Clooney as a “career transition specialist”. His work requires him to travel frequently, feeling little remorse in letting go of people earmarked for downsizing by companies too afraid to handle them personally, because of the mess. Welcome to another view of the modern world by way of director Jason Reitman, him of Juno and Thank You for Smoking fame. continue reading »»

The Messenger
Oren Moverman | USA | 2009
112 min

The Messenger treads a noteworthy path. It is a slice-of-life film, focusing on essentially three characters in everyday America, yet is about a lot more than it shows. It brings a global conflict to our doorstep and down to a personal level. Although it is about grief, the movie is not heavy-laden with the emotion itself. This becomes the movie’s biggest accomplishment. continue reading »»

Nine
Rob Marshall | USA | 2009
118 min

Nine is a cinematic burlesque show. It stumbles into the spotlight as a treatise on art and cinema and the difficulty of filmmaking, but is really nothing more than an awful excuse to bring together on the big screen one named actor and a bunch of famed beauties. Based on a stage musical, itself based on Federico Fellini’s seminal 8 ½, Nine suffers from a grim setting, unmemorable songs, a wayward script, but mostly due to the miscasting of Daniel Day Lewis in the lead role.  continue reading »»

The Limits of Control
Jim Jarmusch | USA | 2009
116 min

Jim Jarmusch is an original. As critics and audiences celebrate Inglourious Basterds, Limits of Control is the year 2009’s genuine swansong to film culture; most subversively, it is a fuck-you to blockbuster cinema and quirky American indies from a maverick independent filmmaker in complete command of his craft and technique. Limits of Control seeks to study the nature of existence through the eyes of a hero (that rarely speaks), but the film is not taxed with ponderous philosophizing. Although Jarmusch has always been interested in big ideas — ideas about love, sex, death, reality; it is his idiosyncratic approach to these themes that protects and improves him as a innovator of cool and the new in cinema. continue reading »»

Man Who Sold the World
Imad & Swel Noury | Morocco | 2009
108 min

Man Who Sold the World is based on “A Faint Heart” a short story by the granddaddy of existentialism Fyodor Dostoevsky; it is the second feature film from Moroccan brother-duo Imad and Swel Noury, who probably grew up on Godard instead of Big Bird from Sesame Street, played with Taschen art books instead of crayons and favored punk rock over Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars. (Bowie’s song Man Who Sold the World also becomes the film’s title.) In fact, it is such a labor of love that the filmmakers’ own mother Pilar Cazorla had to assume the sole duty of producer, allowing the young directors carte blanche in self-indulgence. Then why blame the Brothers Noury when they spare no expense in creating a very personal vision of style and excess? continue reading »»

Avatar
James Cameron | USA | 2009
162 min

Know this fact: director James Cameron has made better films than Avatar. This is not to say that Avatar is a failure; it is simply overhyped as Cameron’s return to filmmaking after he proclaimed himself King of the World over a decade ago. Avatar has an emptiness about it that cannot compensate for the lack of sufficient live motion scenes. While the planet of Pandora is vividly realised, it evokes cheerless memories of the world created by the Wachowski’s in latter films of The Matrix trilogy, one level above animation and every bit heavy laden with as much wall-to-wall CGI as your largest IMAX screen can contain. continue reading »»