Hey there! Welcome to the first Looking Ahead for 2016!!!!

….yeah…ok, I know….I haven’t written a Looking Ahead for a full month. I do apologize for that, but hopefully I can explain a bit as to what happened to this column in the last month.

See, I’ve been doing LOOKING AHEAD for nearly three years. I’ve had other Agents come in and did fill in weeks, but for the majority of the time, it’s been me. Well, I’m not gonna lie I was starting to feel like my writing the column was getting a bit stale.  I’ve done some changes to the column to freshen it up(cutting it down to only the movies I wanna talk about as oppose to writing about EVERY movie coming out that week.) but in the end, I felt like I needed to take a break from the column. January seemed like the perfect month to take that break.

If you don’t know, January is usually the DUMP month for movie releases. It’s the month in which movies that don’t have an obvious time to releases them (is it a movie that summer movie crowd will dig? Will the Winter/Christmas crowd wanna see it?) can be released in January and everyone can just hope for the best.

So, instead of slogging through five columns of me not being excited about any of the films, I went off and did several different kinds of articles for the site while I recharge my batteries for LOOKING AHEAD’s return.

Now, let me tell you, by the look of February’s first week of new movies, I already feel we’re off to a good start. So what’s coming out this Friday? First we got….

What’s it about? A father is accused of a crime he has no memory of committing.

My thoughts? While the trailer seems to be pushing a tad bit too hard that this film is gonna be a unique entry of the thriller genre, I can’t deny the talent in this film. Ethan Hawke and Emma Watson are usually pretty great so I’m definitely interested in them being in this. Director Alejandro Amenabar’s done some incredibly impressive films in the past. I loved Open Your Eyes (which was remade into the just as good American film, Vanilla Sky) and The Others, so I hope he can deliver the same kind of craftsmanship to this new film like he did in the past. The premise is intriguing enough and he’s got a strong cast to make this work.

What’s it about? The venerated filmmaker Eisenstein is comparable in talent, insight and wisdom, with the likes of Shakespeare or Beethoven; there are few – if any – directors who can be elevated to such heights. On the back of his revolutionary film Battleship Potemkin, he was celebrated around the world, and invited to the US. Ultimately rejected by Hollywood and maliciously maligned by conservative Americans, Eisenstein traveled to Mexico in 1931 to consider a film privately funded by American pro-Communist sympathizers, headed by the American writer Upton Sinclair. Eisenstein’s sensual Mexican experience appears to have been pivotal in his life and film career – a significant hinge between the early successes of Strike, Battleship Potemkin, and October, which made him a world-renowned figure, and his hesitant later career with Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible and The Boyar’s Plot.

My thoughts? One of two movies about making movies this week, but obviously I’m a bit of the a sucker about this subject. While I have seen Battleship Potemkin, I don’t really know much about the films director, Sergei M. Eisenstein, but if I was to judge a film on the trailer alone (and this is what I do here.) then it seems like Eisenstein is quiet a interesting and eccentric person, a person  I won’t mind learning more about. The film looks to be visually lush too, and I quiet enjoy the bits of humor that I saw in this trailer.

What’s it about? Jane Austen’s classic tale of the tangled relationships between lovers from different social classes in 19th century England is faced with a new challenge — an army of undead zombies.

My thoughts? On the surface this looks exactly how I hope this adaptation was going to be executed. It’s lighting is like a high class Jane Austen adaptation. The casting is spot on  as I think Lily James, Sam Riley and Matt Smith would be great in a proper Pride and Prejudice adaptation, and the film’s tone is completely straight and not jokey. Had this film come out 6 years ago then I would have been excited about it…..but we now live a world filled to the brim with Zombie movies, TV shows, comics and more. Is this movie too late? I don’t know, but the lack of word of mouth is another sign of worry for me. No ONE is talking about it. Is there anything left to be excited about this? Is author Seth Grahame-Smith’s remixed history ever gonna work for a movie audience? I personally had fun with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter but it’s hardly a movie I find myself rewatching a ton. I know that I will catch this flick one day, but I also know that won’t really be any day on opening weekend.

And now, Agent Justin’s first real movie he’s excited to see in 2016!

What’s it about? A Hollywood fixer in the 1950s works to keep the studio’s stars in line.

And because I think the trailers are great, I’m posting BOTH!

My thoughts? I must have watched the first trailer on a continued loop the first week it came out and that second trailer made me laugh out loud like an idiot.  Hail, Caesar! looks to be classic Coen Brothers, and I’m loving the idea that they are making a big old goofy movie set in the 1950’s era of Hollywood (my personal favorite period in movie history). I think the trailers are all you need to be sold on this movie. I don’t know if any further points from me will get you to see it any more than those trailers. If you love the Coen Brothers, then this movie should be an obvious must see. If you don’t love the Coens? Well….your loss. Also? This movie’s cast also includes Clancy Brown, Christopher Lambert (so yes, a Highlander reunion of sorts!) and fucking Dolph Lundgren. If seeing Dolph Lundgren in a Coen brothers film isn’t an instant ticket bought I don’t know what will be.