Also ‘Unknown,’ ‘Larry Crowne,’ ‘Footloose’ & ‘Take Me Home Tonight
While its award season and everyone still has 2010 in the rear view mirror, there is a brand new year of movies ahead, and with the tentpole season soon set to begin, the LA Times has unveiled a cornucopia of new pics and stills from a batch of forthcoming films. Hold on to your eyeballs.
First up is the “The Hangover 2” which will undoubtedly be the comedy of the summer, hands down. Expectations are running very high for this sequel in which Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) travel to exotic Thailand for Stu’s wedding. Drunken and drug-fueled mayhem presumably follows. Liam Neeson cameos. The film lands in theaters on May 26th; a trailer soon please?
And here’s a fresh look at the Brett Ratner directed (we know) comedy that we’re cautiously looking forward to, “Tower Heist.” Our hopes lie in the incredible cast which features Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Téa Leoni, Gabourey Sidibe, Michael Pena, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck and Judd Hirsch. The film will follow an overworked manager of a luxury building (Stiller) who, along with other staff, loses their pensions to a Bernie Madoff-like Wall Street crook (Alda). It so happens that the fraudster is being held under house arrest in the luxury penthouse apartment upstairs, and the manager and four cohorts figure a heist will make them whole. Sidibe and Pena will be joining Stiller in the master plan to rip off the Madoff character. Broderick will play Chase Fitzhugh, a Wall Street-type who also lost his money to the fraudster. “Tower Heist” will hit theaters on November 4th.
Zack Snyder‘s teen male fantasy “Sucker Punch” hits on March 25th, yet another spring bow for the director. To refresh your memory, the film stars Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish, Carla Gugino, Jon Hamm, Scott Glenn and Oscar Isaac and centers on a girl who enters an alternate reality with her friends and begins planning an escape from a mental institution where she was put by her evil stepfather who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. From there robots, dragons, airplanes, WWI battlefields and schoolboy fantasies all come into play as the quintet of girls kick ass in a CGI-filled landscape. We’re not sure what to think of this one but Snyder recently said the film is inspired by Terry Gilliam‘s “Brazil” so maybe it won’t totally suck?
Oh hey, here’s our first look at the dream teaming of Taylor Lautner and John Singleton. The first real post-“Twilight” starring vehicle for the thesp centers on a young man who uncovers the truth about his life (he was kidnapped) after finding his baby photo on a missing persons website. Washboard abs and jumping ensue. The film co-stars Alfred Molina, Lily Collins and Elisabeth Röhm and will open on September 23, 2011.
Meanwhile, anticipation is building for Duncan Jones‘ “Source Code,” his followup to the solid sci-fi flick “Moon.” The film centers on a soldier, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who is part of an experimental government program investigating a terrorist incident. He finds himself in the body of an unknown commuter living and reliving a harrowing train bombing until he can find who is responsible for the attack. The film features a fantastic supporting cast including Vera Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan, Jeffrey Wright and comedian Russell Peters. It will open the SXSW film festival and hits theaters on April 1st with the U.K. getting it first on March 11th.
Liam Neeson will once again kick ass in a foreign country in “Unknown.” In the film he plays a man who awakens from a coma only to find out that someone has stolen his identity and that no one believes him. The solution? To hang out with a cab driver (Diane Kruger) and kick some ass to prove who he is. January Jones also stars in the film that opens on February 18th.
Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts hope their star power will decimate the competition with “Larry Crowne” when it arrives right in the middle of the summer moviegoing season on July 1st. Written and directed by Hanks, the film is about a man who is forced to find a new career and reinvent himself as he enters the second half of his life. An expansive ensemble surrounds the picture with Peter Scolari, Bryan Cranston, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wilmer Valderrama, Jon Seda, Cedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Rami Malek, Malcolm Barrett, Maria Canals Barrera, George Takei, Holmes Osborne, Pam Grier, Grace Gummer, Rita Wilson, Dale Dye and Bob Stephenson among the cast. As for “Footloose,” man, do we really have to summarize this? It’s a remake of the ’80s dance flick starring a bunch of people you never heard of. If somehow your life isn’t complete until you see the remake of the Kevin Bacon film directed by the guy who did “Hustle & Flow” and that somehow involves Dennis Quaid, the movie opens on October 14th.
Finally, we get another peek at the long-delayed, but surprisingly good looking ’80s set comedy “Take Me Home Tonight.” Directed by Michael Dowse (”Fubar,” “It’s All Gone Pete Tong”) the film chronicles the events of one crazy night in 1988 when Matt (Topher Grace) bluffs his way into a massive end-of-summer party where he hopes to impress his high school crush Tori (Teresa Palmer). It opens on March 4th.
