Most Anticipated Films 2011

The film section takes a look into 2011 (near and far) and picks out some of their most anticipated films.

SEAN ROM

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)

Black Swan has one of the juiciest trailers of the year that plays like the deranged spawn of Single White Female and 80s classic The Fly. Darren Aronofsky is a brave director who risks a lot to both extraordinary (Pi and Requiem For A Dream) and ridiculous (The Fountain) effect. And this film looks to be both extraordinary and ridiculous.

Australian release date January 20th

True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen)

I’m not a Coen Brothers fanatic who believes they can do no wrong. I remember Burn After Reading. But if U.S. critics are correct, this is likely to be one of the most enjoyable films of the year. It is also the fusion of two amazing things: the Western and Jeff Bridges.

Australian release date January 26th

Hanna (Joe Wright)

Like Black Swan, Hanna by director Joe Wright has a trailer alluring in its outrageousness. Hanna is a fourteen year old girl (Saoirse Ronan) who has been raised by her father to be a killer. Ronan, so astonishing in Wright’s adaption of Atonement, has some atoning of her own to do after the disaster that was Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. Here’s hoping her and Wright deliver the goods.

Australian release date June 16th

MELISSA WELLHAM

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)

Apart from the fact that Natalie Portman is pretty much perfect in everything she does, and that this film is directed by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler), Black Swan looks like it’s going to be a beautiful and nightmarish blend of insanity, rivalry and a psychological, sexual thriller.  Um, cool.

Australian release date January 20th

Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek)

Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s dispassionate, distant and yet ultimately heartbreaking novel of the same name, Never Let Me Go also features the perfectly cast Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield.  Plus, Alex Garland, author of The Beach, has written the screenplay.  Not since Where The Wild Things Are have so many people I admire been involved in the one production.

Australian release date March 17th

Howl (Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman)

Starring James Franco as Allen Ginsberg, Howl will combine three narrative threads: Ginsberg’s formative years as an artist, the obscenity trial that followed the publication of Howl, and an animation of the famous poem itself.  Oh, to be a bohemian artist.

Australian release date yet to be confirmed.

GLENN DUNKS

Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell)

Nicole Kidman is the finest actor of her generation, I am sure of that. She routinely burrows into territory that most actors wouldn’t dare to go, and with Rabbit Hole she’s doing it again. Directed by John Cameron Mitchell (the man behind the incredible Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus) directs this adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play about a couple dealing with the loss of their four-year-old child. It looks like an astonishing piece of work.

Australian release date February 17th

Scream 4 (Wes Craven)

15 years after director Wes Craven and then-unknown screenwriter Kevin Williamson asked “do you like scary movies?” comes the highly anticipated fourth entry. Craven and Williamson return, as do Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette alongside a new roster of wannabe slasher victims including Emma Roberts, Hayden Panetierre, Adam Brody, Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell. I’m positively stabby with excitement!

Australian release date April 14th

Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga)

Yet another retelling of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, yet one that looks sumptuous and cinematic in the best way possible. Directed by Cary Fukunaga, who made a splash in 2009 with Sin Nombre, this adaptation stars Australian actor Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids are All Right) as the titular heroine and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) as Edward Rochester. The trailer looks marvellous and promises all the foggy moors and period costumes you could possible hope for.

Australian release date May 26th

The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

A new film by Terrence Malick is something to behold. Thankfully we haven’t had to wait 20 years for this! What little we know of The Tree of Life revolves around Brad Pitt as a domineering father to a boy who grows up to become Sean Penn. Cue Malick’s trademark stunning cinematography, tear-jerking emotions and glacial storytelling pace. If you’re a fan of Malick’s work then The Tree of Life is a can’t miss experience.

Australian release date to be confirmed

Melancholia (Lars von Trier)

Director Lars von Trier (second left) with the cast of Melancholia

Much like Terrence Malick above, Lars von Trier is a name that elicits both cheers and boos. I am firmly in the pro-von Trier camp after such masterworks as Dogville, Dancer in the Dark and Antichrist. He returns with, perhaps, his most audacious-sounding work yet with a plot that revolves around – quite literally – the end of the world and two sisters who must reconcile in Earth’s last days. Kirsten Dunst takes on lead duties and has said she finds “poetry in the way [von Trier] tortures women.” Take that as you please.

Australian release date to be confirmed

BETH WILSON

Source Code (Duncan Jones)

After the critical success of his first film Moon, I’m very intrigued to see Duncan Jones‘ sophomore film. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan and Jeffrey Wright, Source Code is a sci-fi thriller involving military experiments and terrorist attacks. I’m not blown away by the trailer, but I’m willing to give the film the benefit of the doubt.

Australian release date April 14th

Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga)/ Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold)

The Brontë sisters adaptations- apart from classic stories what makes these films so appealing?

Jane Eyre has an exciting young Mexican director Cary Fukunaga, a risk-taking British actor Michael Fassbender (Fish Tank), a rising Australian star Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and is generating a lot of buzz. Wuthering Heights has talented British director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank) at the helm, whose casting of Cathy (Kaya Scodelario from the TV series Skins) and Heathcliff (James Howson, the first non-white actor to play the role in its many screen adaptations) is based on authenticity to the text as opposed to star power.

Jane Eyre‘s Australian release date May 26th

Wuthering Heights‘ Australian release date is yet to be confirmed

Cowboys and Aliens (Jon Favreau)

This could be awful or it could be amazing- the trailer definitely makes me want to find out.

Australian release date August 11th

Fright Night (Craig Gillespie)

The reason this remake has made my list? Nostalgia, the 1985 comedy/horror film about a teenage boy who believes he is living next door to a vampire was a childhood favourite. Directed by Australian Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) and starring Anton Yelchin (Star Trek), Colin Farrell ,David Tennant (Dr Who) and Toni Collette, I’m going to remain optimistic that this could be a good update.

Australian release date August 18th

We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)

It is no surprise that Lionel Shiver‘s 2003 bestselling novel, about a high school massacre told from the perspective of the killer’s mother, has been adapted into a film. Thankfully this great material has been rewarded with an exciting director and cast. Lynne Ramsay‘s under-appreciated 2002 film Morvern Callar showed her talents, but it is definitely the casting of Tilda Swinton (I Am Love) as the central character, Eva and John C. Reilly (Chicago) as her husband Franklin that make this film one of my most anticipated of the year.

Australian release date yet to be confirmed.

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