By Erin Free
IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD (Undated 2017) One of the most audacious, daring, and truly singular talents on the world cinema scene today, 27-year-old Canadian actor/writer/director, Xavier Dolan, has blasted audiences back in their seats with emotionally charged, visually bold films like 2009’s I Killed My Mother, 2013’s Tom At The Farm, and 2014’s Mommy. He polarised audiences at The Cannes Film Festival with his latest work, It’s Only The End Of The World, which follows Louis (Gaspard Ulliel), a young man who returns to his childhood home to tell his estranged family – his mother (Nathalie Baye); his sister, Suzanne (Léa Seydoux); his brother, Antoine (Vincent Cassel); and Antoine’s wife, Catherine (Marion Cotillard) – that he’s dying of AIDS, which leads into a psychodrama driven by extreme close-ups and emotions turned up to eleven. Xavier Dolan’s films aren’t for everybody…and that’s the whole point.
MOONLIGHT (January 26) Shaping as 2017’s answer to the groundbreaking 2009 barnstormer, Precious, the indie drama, Moonlight, has already clocked up six Golden Globe Award nominations, with a heavy award season presence practically guaranteed. Written and directed by Barry Jenkins (Medicine For Melancholy), this low budgeter tracks three time periods – young adolescence, mid-teen, and young adult – in the life of African-American Miami man Chiron, played by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes. The son of an abusive crack addict mother (Naomie Harris), and the victim of neighbourhood bullies, Chiron finds unlikely and ironic solace in the home of the drug dealing Juan (Mahershala Ali), and later struggles with the complicated nature of his sexuality. With its all-black cast and willingness to ask big questions, Moonlight has turned daring and originality into Oscar bait…
PERSONAL SHOPPER (March) Like all of cinema’s most daring talents, French director, Olivier Assayas, has developed a regular habit of cleaving audiences in two. At The Cannes Film Festival, his latest effort, Personal Shopper, was roundly booed at its press screening, but then gained five-star reviews from a considerable number of duly impressed film commentators. Assayas ultimately ended up taking out the Best Director prize at Cannes (which he shared with Romanian director, Cristian Mungui, for his searing drama, Graduation), which has given added heft to the weighty anticipation surrounding his Kristen Stewart-starring ghost story set in the heady fashion world. Expect it to fit nicely beside such other Assayas originals as Clean, Demonlover, Irma Vep, and Boarding Gate.
OPERATION AVALANCHE (January 12) With his debut on-the-cheap feature, The Dirties, actor/writer/director, Matt Johnson, announced himself as a brave talent, daring to grind comedic value out of the subject of high school shootings. The film got noticed, but it didn’t exactly send Johnson into the stratosphere, and the multitasker is now back with his follow-up, which is still located at the lower end of the budgetary spectrum. Operation Avalanche is a goofy satire on the rampant paranoia of The Cold War mixed with a raft of knowing movie geek jokes. The off-the-wall plot follows Matt (Matt Johnson) and Owen (Owen Williams), two Ivy League movie nerds recruited by the CIA in 1965 to investigate the possibility that film director, Stanley Kubrick, is a spy. From there, the conspiracy deepens, with the two involved in a fake moon landing…amongst other things. Using all manner of retro visual trickery, the largely improvised Operation Avalanche is a cheeky treatise on the possibilities of cinema itself.
PORK PIE (May 4) If 2016’s Hunt For The Wilderpeople proved anything (aside from the fact that director, Taika Waititi, is a comic master, and that Sam Neill is one of the most underrated actors on the planet), it was that New Zealand punches way above its weight when it comes to cinema, and that if a film is good enough, it doesn’t matter where it comes from. Not surprisingly, 2017’s Pork Pie is being eyed off as a possible similar success to the funny and wildly original Hunt For The Wilderpeople. Directed by debutante, Matt Murphy, Pork Pie tracks the escapades of a trio of accidental outlaws (Dean O’Gorman, James Rolleston, Ashleigh Cummings) as they barrel across New Zealand in a yellow mini, flipping their middle finger at the status quo, with a posse of cops and the media in hot pursuit.
FREE FIRE (April 27) Brit director, Ben Wheatley, is now a bona fide prince in the world of on-the-edge cinema, thanks to a quartet of one-of-a-kind winners: the esoteric hitman thriller, Kill List; the psychedelic period piece, A Field In England; the grimly funny serial killer romance, Sightseers; and the ambitious J.G. Ballard adaptation, High-Rise. Though decidedly and distinctly British, Wheatley has now taken the same trip as most of his contemporaries and made his first film about America with the Boston-in-1978-set Free Fire, a low budget bolter with more bullet spray than dialogue. But this is no mere bloodbath, with Wheatley proving just as eccentric as ever, and a fine cast (Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, Sam Riley, Noah Taylor, Cillian Murphy, Sharlto Copley) on top form.
T2: TRAINSPOTTING (February 23) Adapted from Irvine Welsh’s cult novel, Trainspotting, Danny Boyle’s hyper-kinetic look at a bunch of seedy junkies in cold, dank Edinburgh was one of the flashpoint cult hits of the nineties, its hipster status only second to the cooler-than-thou films of Quentin Tarantino. And while Welsh penned a sequel, Porno, in 2002, the big screen follow-up has remained in limbo, partially due to the long simmering discord between the original film’s star, Ewan McGregor, and director, Danny Boyle. But with hatchets now buried, the oddly titled T2: Trainspotting will finally be released in 2017, with all of the principal players returning. And if any sequel can be daring and original, it’s this one…
THE BIRTH OF A NATION (February 2) Though initially shopped as an Oscar possibility, the historical drama, The Birth Of A Nation (which burst out of the gate with a thundering gallop at The Sundance Film Festival, picking up awards and provoking audiences in equal measure), failed to score any nominations at The Golden Globe Awards, suggesting that it might have run its race. None of which, of course, makes it any less daring or original. A passion project for multitasker, Nate Parker – who writes, directs, and plays the lead role – the stridently titled The Birth Of A Nation (no, it’s not a remake) details the life and struggles of the divisive Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher in the antebellum South who inspires his fellow slaves with his fiery sermons and eventually orchestrates an uprising.
A STREETCAT NAMED BOB (February 9) Though based on the popular memoir by James Bowen, and running largely on an upbeat, positive vibe, A Street Cat Named Bob makes this list because it dares to put two difficult subjects – drug addiction and homelessness – front and centre. Directed by veteran journeyman, Roger Spottiswoode, the film follows James (gifted young actor, Luke Treadaway), a recovering drug addict and busker living rough on the streets of London and barely getting by. But when he meets a stray ginger cat called Bob, James’ life slowly starts to turn around. The too-cool Bob becomes a popular part of James’ busking act, perched on his shoulder, and the pair become odd local celebrities, and later a hit on YouTube, then still a nascent phenomenon. A three-hankie weepie for cat lovers, A Street Cat Named Bob is also a tough-minded take on the horrors of addiction.
DOWNSIZING (December 26) From 2007 to 2009, director, Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways, About Schmidt) burnt the midnight oil penning a science fiction script (with his regular writing partner, Jim Taylor) called Downsizing. Set to star his past performers, Paul Giamatti and Reese Witherspoon, the film was about a man with financial problems who shrinks himself in order to save money. Payne finished the script – which demands copious special effects – in the spring of 2009, just as the recession was biting. Forced to temporarily put such an expensive project aside, Payne instead turned to TV (Hung) and a project with a considerably smaller budget (The Descendants). But after the success of 2013’s Nebraska, Payne managed to get Downsizing off the ground again, and this delirious sounding satire is now set for release in 2017, with Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, Alec Baldwin, and Christoph Waltz in the starring roles.
Click through for 2017’s Most Highly Anticipated Blockbusters and 2017’s Female Directed Flicks.
