Here are some of the great movies you should be seeing in the 2014 Calendar year. From hot guys like Zac Efron to a little movie about one of our favorite childhood toys, Legos, there is something for everyone in the upcoming months. Take a look!
That Awkward Moment with Zac Efron will be…how do I phrase this politely…appropriately awkward. The writers showed solid sentiment in deciding to portray the “girly” side of men dealing with relationships, and that jibe at Bridget Jones in the trailer forced me to crack a smile. The movie seems to even narrowly miss making everyone in a heterosexual relationship look like a bumbling idiot. To be honest, though, I have never been able to get past the Zac Efron we all know and hate from High School Musical. In theaters January 31st and co-starring Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan of (fill in the blank if you can) fame, That Awkward Moment may actually provide a novel take on the bromance by making the characters a little less bro-y.
At Middleton with Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga follows two parents who bring their respective children to tour the fictive Middleton College to find themselves ditching their kids’ tour and falling in love. Not only do Garcia and Farmiga appear to have excellent on-screen chemistry, the pair might even make college look more fun than John Belushi and Tim Matheson do in Animal House. With plenty of airy screen shots that evoke the movie’s message of youth’s ephemeral possibilities (or so I assume), At Middleton should strike a chord with anyone who’s been touched by college or the reality of growing up afterward. Also coming to theaters on January 31st.
The LEGO Movie, boasting an insanely star-studded cast, comes out February 7th. With Chris Pratt voicing “the ordinary man who’s been improbably chosen to save the world,” Morgan Freeman as “the wise oracle,” and Will Arnett as, you didn’t guess it, Batman, the casting director knew how to turn children’s toys into a seemingly hilarious rag-tag crew of misfit super heroes without making us feel condescended to. Liam Neeson, Elizabeth Banks, Channing Tatum, and Will Ferrell also lend their voices. There’s no need to be ashamed attending this one without children under ten.
The Grand Budapest Hotel marks another potential gem by director Wes Andersen. With Ralph Fiennes as Gustave H., a concierge who “sleeps with all of his [eighty year-old plus] friends” at the Grand Budapest Hotel, the lively patterns, ingenious schemes, and fantastical villains will be almost certain to one-up Anderson’s most recent oeuvre, Moonrise Kingdom. The director’s usual suspects (think Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Willem Dafoe) will amicably haunt a plot revolving around family fortune squabbles, fine art theft, and an unusual mentorship between Fiennes and his “Lobby Boy.” The madcap trailer should be enough to draw you to theaters for The Grand Budapest Hotel’s premier on March 7th.
Only Lovers Left Alive directed by Jim Jarmusch just has to be the peak of the several-year silver screen vampire trend. The traditional portrait of vampires who have meshed in with human society à la True Blood prevails in the form of couture blood, high sex drives, and eternal lives of blending into too many centuries. Luckily, Jarmusch manages this in a way that was not amped up for similarly eternal seasons of television. Starring Tilda Swinson and Tom Hiddleston as two, passionate vampires who watch the modern world deteriorate around them after rekindling an old love affair (while navigating Swinson’s vampire sister’s sensual duplicity), Only Lovers Left Alive might comment on modern society without making our toes curl in a bad way. The least cheesy vampire flick you will spot on the big screen arrives there April 11th and will probably leave with you more than the desire to masturbate to some vampire porn.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes features Andy Cerkis again as Caesar, the intelligent lord of the apes, and takes place fifteen years after the prequel’s events. Matt Reeves, also the director of Cloverfield, leads actors through a new battle between a group of human survivors and Caesar’s serious ape army. This should be worth watching since Matt Reeves was allegedly asked back to direct Apes number three. Fans will flock to theaters July 11th.
What movies are YOU looking forward to?
Inherent Vice!