You’ve had the list of my favourite films of the last 12 months, and now it’s time for my most anticipated movies of 2013.

Last year, my list featured a handful of things that ended up not being released at all, and a couple of those make a reappearance on this list.

But, we’ll begin with an all-new entry…

Man of Steel

Superman Returns sucked. Let’s make no bones about it. However, since 2006 we’ve had Iron Man, The Avengers, Watchmen and The Dark Knight which all showed how superhero movies can stay true to a beloved character while offering something new. This revamped Superman has a solid team behind it, including Christopher Nolan (Batman) on story and Zack Snyder (Watchmen) directing, and I think it might finally drag Supes into the 21st century.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

The original Sin City was my favourite film of 2005, and this sequel promises to recreate the monochromatic violence of its predecessor. Directed again by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, most of the cast are returning for this follow-up, including Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson and Mickey Rourke. Fingers crossed A Dame to Kill For can reach the same ultra-violent levels as the first part.

Gravity

Gravity was on the list last year, and amazingly, not much more has emerged about this ultra-secret project over the past 12 months. Children of Men writer/director Alfonso Cuaron’s next film stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts, living in a dilapidated space station, unsure about whether they’ll ever be able to get home. Test screening audiences are throwing out words like “masterpiece”, with one viewer claiming: “This is next level shit… this is like if Avatar had been released in 1927 a week after The Jazz Singer. People won’t know how to comprehend what they are seeing.”

Elysium

More sci-fi on the list, this time from Neill Blomkamp, the South African writer/director behind District 9. Once again starring Blomkamp’s childhood friend, Sharlto Copley, Elysium is another parable about a government’s treatment of immigrants.

Also starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, the film looks at what happens when Earth is ruined, leaving most of humanity to struggle while the elite live on a luxury space-station.

Pacific Rim

Huge monsters versus gigantic robots – Pacific Rim sounds like a dumb action film, but the fact that Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) is behind the wheel makes it automatically one to look out for. Watch the trailer below to see just how massive and mental this film is going to be.

The Great Gatsby

Another refugee from last year’s list, my excitement for The Great Gatsby has only increased.

One of my favourite books, adapted by one of my favourite directors and starring one of my favourite actors. Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrman brings his inimitable style to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic story, with Leonardo DiCaprio as his lead.

Footage released so far shows how Luhrmann has employed his trademark hyper-kinetic style and it looks wonderful.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Proving that films based on popular teen-novels don’t have to be dreadful, the first Hunger Games film was better than anyone expected and catapulted its star Jennifer Lawrence into the A list. Catching Fire has a different director (Francis Lawrence) so the film will hopefully look different, as we see how Katniss Everdeen moves from player to rebel.

Anchorman: The Legend Continues

Will Ferrel’s greatest comic creation is back in cinemas this year. It is believed the plot of the new movie will see the news team get to grips with increased workplace equality and the advent of rolling news and the 24 hour news cycle. Along with previous costars Vince Vaughn and Paul Rudd there will be new cast members, including Bridesmaids star Kristen Wiig.

After Earth

Although his work in recent years has been terrible, I will always root for M. Night Shyamalan because he was responsible for Unbreakable (one of my all-time favourites), and After Earth may well be his return to form. Starring Will Smith (who is massively bankable and doesn’t appear in duff films), the film is about a crash landing that leaves a teenager (Jaden Smith) and his father stranded on Earth, 1000 years after humanity left the planet. Big themes, big names and a big budget – I have high hopes for this movie.

Oblivion

There’s a lot of sci-fi on this list, huh? Especially stuff about the destruction of Earth. Meh, I have faith that LRH will save us all.

People mock me for liking Tom Cruise, but here’s the thing, he’s an excellent movie star and his films are never anything less than entertaining.

In Oblivion, The Cruiser plays one of the few remaining drone repairmen assigned to Earth which has been ruined after decades of war with an alien race. On one trip, he discovers a crashed spacecraft that brings into question everything he believed about the war, and may even put the fate of mankind in his hands.

At the beginning of the year, I listed my 12 most anticipated films of 2012.

Some of those films were worth the wait (The Avengers), some weren’t (The Dictator), while others haven’t even arrived yet (The Great Gatsby). However, there was enough gold out there to make this list of the top ten films of 2012.

As with any list like this, it’s all entirely subjective, so while there are technically great films out there that should appear (and would, were it a top 100), there are only ten spots. But here goes… my favourite films of 2012:

Haywire

Released by Steven Soderbergh at the beginning of the year, Haywire was more than just a female interpretation of The Bourne Identity – the film represented the birth of a female action star in ex-cage fighter Gina Carano.

With an impressive supporting cast including Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas and Michael Fassbender, Haywire stood out from other action thrillers due to the lack of gimmicks. No flashy cinematography was needed (the reality-based fight scenes didn’t need embellishment) and the simple screenplay kept things powering along. The ending was a bit weak, but it wasn’t enough to keep this off my list.

Titanic 3D

I’ve made no secret of how much I love Titanic, and how excited I was for James Cameron’s 3D re-release, so it was a huge relief when it turned out to be just as good as the 1997 version, if not better.

No other film has matched the 3D Cameron gave us in Avatar, but Titanic 3D was as near as anyone has come – really making the most of the gorgeous cinematography and superb performances. The time, care and money lavished on Titanic 3D made it feel like a new film. No, I didn’t cry at the end – you shut your dirty mouth.

The Raid

Every so often two films come out at the around the same time, that share a number of striking similarities (think Deep Impact/Armageddon, Volcano/Dante’s Peak, Capote/Infamous) – this year, it was The Raid and Dredd. Both films involved cops, trapped and massively outnumbered in a high-rise building, trying to make their way to the top in order take out a drug kingpin. And while Dredd was awesome, The Raid was better, thanks largely to the outrageous martial arts abilities of Iko Uwais.

Life of Pi

Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s ‘unfilmable’ book is one of the most remarkable examples of cinema ever, let alone this year. The acting from first-timer Suraj Sharma was impeccable, while the direction and cinematography were simply astonishing. For once, the 3D improved the cinematic experience, rather than ruin perfectly good shots. This was a film that begged to be seen on the big screen.

Argo

Ben Affleck: one of the best directors working in Hollywood today. Who the hell would have guessed that? After the success of Gone Baby Gone and The Town, Affleck continued his run of great cinema with Argo – the true life story of a covert operation to rescue six Americans from Tehran by pretending they were making a sci-fi movie.

Tense and much funnier than you’d expect, Argo boasted some wonderful character acting. Yep, including Affleck himself. I hate that guy.

Here Comes The Boom

Every year I do this list, and there’s always something that causes readers to email me and ask me how long I’ve been an alcoholic. Here Comes The Boom is this year’s example.

Kevin James plays a tubby teacher who tries to save the school’s under-threat music department by fighting for money. In a cage. Yes, it’s remarkably similar to Warrior in some respects, but where that was a serious drama, this is very much a comedy.

I’m well aware this film wasn’t for everyone, but in this case, my fondness of MMA made a real difference, and I got a serious kick out of seeing the likes of Chael Sonnen pop up in teeny tiny cameos. Furthermore, Bas Rutten’s comic turn was genuinely one of the funniest of the year. Who’d have thought that a decade ago he made a living punching lumps out of people.

Utterly unbelievable, and completely daft, this feelgood film and its cast were hard to dislike.

The Avengers

I refuse to call this film by the name given for its UK release. It’s The Avengers, and it was awesome. I was uncertain that Marvel would be able tie the various superheroes together in a cohesive way, but then it hired Joss Whedon who produced not only one of the best comic books films of the year, but one of the best anything films of the year, full stop.

Moonrise Kingdom

From frame one, this film screams ‘I am a Wes Anderson picture’. Moonrise Kingdom was the director’s first live-action feature since The Darjeeling Limited in 2007, and contained all his usual touchstones – perfect framing, an idiosyncratic soundtrack, unlikely casting and beautiful acting.

Young Adult

Even though she won an Oscar for Monster, it’s still strange to look at Charlize Theron when she’s all polished and on the red carpet or in ostentatious perfume adverts, and think that she’s a good actress. But she is, and Young Adult proved it once again.

Theron plays a misanthropic teen-fiction writer who returns to her hometown to try to steal her high school sweetheart – now happily married and expecting a kid. From the same writer/director team as Juno, the performances in this brilliantly sour anti-romantic comedy were routinely excellent, particualrly from Theron and Patton Oswalt as her geeky, disabled ex-schoolmate.

Chronicle

Released among a pile of over-marketed tat, Chronicle didn’t get the audience it deserved.

It was a relatively low budget film about three teenage boys who gain superpowers, looked better than a lot of this year’s big releases, and had a surprising air of reality about it.

Chronicle wasn’t just all about the action though, it also boasted some surprising performances, not least from main protagonist Dane DeHaan who has since landed the role of Harry Osborne in the next Spider-Man film.

Due to most of the film looking like it was shot on a home movie camera or mobile, it looks just as good on the small screen as it did on the big – so track it down.

A version of this article first appeared in the Kent Messenger series of newspapers.

A few months ago I wrote a piece called Why George Lucas Isn’t Getting Any More Of My Money. In it, I explained how – even though I still love Star Wars and want to see the new releases – the director’s incessant tinkering and apparent egomania meant I couldn’t in good conscience chuck more money at him and his “improved”, “remastered”, “ultimate version” cuts of the beloved movies.

And then, a couple of days ago, the news dropped that Lucas had sold Star Wars and the rest of Lucasfilm to Disney, who immediately announced parts seven, eight and nine.

It seems you can have your cake and eat it.

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Ever wonder why most of the interviews you read with celebrities are virtually identical?

Well, it’s because very often they are the same interview, just packaged differently. Despite the “Exclusive interview!’ lies you’re fed, few outlets actually get to have one-on-one time with the stars of new movies, and have to make do with dry, generic interviews done in-house and sent out to thousands of websites, magazines and newspapers across the world. There are only so many ways a put-upon feature writer can make it sound like they actually met the subject of their article, and so what we are left with are piles of interviews with the cast of The Avengers, each one framed slightly differently, but with remarkably similar quotes.

Now there’s another option open to journalists, but as with most things, it costs. Canadian journalists at this year’s Cannes Film Festival were being charged thousands of dollars for interviews with the likes of Brad Pitt, Kristen Stewart and Nicole Kidman.

Alliance, the Canadian distributor for Stewart’s film On the Road and Pitt’s new movie Killing Them Softly Alliance sent out a “menu” of prices to various outlets prior to the event, letting them know how much different people cost if they wanted to talk to them. While Brad Pitt started at £2400 for a 20 minute interview, McConaughey was a bargain at just £1200 with two funny anecdotes and a high five thrown in for free.

Unsurprisingly, journalists rebelled.

However, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Harvey Weinstein tried a similar tactic back in 2007 with Tarantino’s Death Proof and it didn’t go down well either as the cash-for-questions style scheme resulted in a huge storm of bad publicity; and wouldn’t you know it, the same has happened here. Not least because in the handful of interviews that were secured with Brad Pitt to promote Killing Them Softly, the dunce happily announced that he was hooked by the script because it was “making a commentary” on our consumerist society. Ho ho ho.

Let’s ignore for a second the fact that journalists shouldn’t be expected to pay for the privilege of helping film companies promote their latest rubbish. The more pressing issue here is, even though the actors and actresses involved are now being paid to speak, they STILL just trot out the same old tired cliches.

Most outlets are running on a shoestring budget and will never be able to afford to pay for interviews (nor should they) but if they are able to, then they should be rewarded with far more than a semi-awake celebrity gurgling on about how ‘challenging’ their latest role is, and how the director is a ‘genius’.

Would you pay £2400 for that? I wouldn’t. Why the hell should I pay to listen to megarich celebrities promote the movies they’re starring in? Films they’ve already been paid more than you or I will EVER earn to promote as part of their multi-million dollar contracts. They should be paying us for making the turgid nonsense that spills out of their mouths sound like it came from someone with a grain of personality, and not just a polished automaton parroting whatever their publicist has told them to say.

For years there has been a symbiotic relationship between the press and publicists. They give us interviews with their ‘talent’ which helps us attract readers and in return we help to raise awareness about their films with little focus on whether the product is actually any good. Think about it – when was the last time you read a lengthy interview with a movie star or saw an actor on a TV show where the product came off badly? Never – that’s when.

And now publicists like Alliance want to rock the boat and make the press pay? This can only end one way, and it won’t be the press being made to look stupid and forced to back down.

An Alliance spokesperson said: “The fee is simply a means for the expenses to be shared… These stars travel by private jet, with their agents, make-up artists and hairdressers; someone’s got to pay.”

Yep, sure they do – but not the people you are relying on to promote your films, idiot.

After months of hype and a very cool viral campaign, Prometheus is upon us.

You may have noticed that, unlike most new releases, the number of reviews out there before the release was quite small. Usually when this happens it’s because the studio knows that their film sucks, and they don’t hold preview screenings for critics so that the public have no clue that what they are paying £15 per ticket for is a steaming dog egg.

However, Prometheus is not a bad film, far from it – it’s an excellent piece of sci-fi, and if taken as a standalone film and not part of the Alien canon, is well worth your money.

In the case of Ridley Scott’s new film, the issue lies with shortsighted and downright rude PR people barring access to press screenings.

Let me explain – journalists are currently in the middle of a war where legitimate film, theatre and art reviewers with real audiences are being pushed aside in favour of people who have the right email address.

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Scarlett Johansson is fat. Did you know?

Yeah, apparently she’s a big fat fatty and the public shouldn’t be subjected to her big fat fatness in The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble if you insist on being all British about it).

I have to be honest, the thought hadn’t occurred to me, but I have read it in so many Avengers reviews in newspapers, magazines and websites that I must be wrong. And these aren’t just reviews written by 400lb geeks who have never had a real girlfriend so spray piping hot bile all over women in movies who represent everything they will never have; nor has it all stemmed from bitter female writers, furious with actresses who dare to pander to the patriarchy by being pretty. These comments have appeared in reviews written by proper, well-respected, and otherwise sane critics.

It reminds me of a similar phenomenon when The Hunger Games was released earlier this year. The murmurs about Johansson’s figure are nothing when compared to the screams of derision aimed at Jennifer Lawrence, who played lead character Katniss Everdeen.

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The High Court has ruled that file-sharing site The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK internet service providers.

For the unaware, The Pirate Bay is perhaps the most popular file-sharing site on the web and allows people to access a huge range of content including movies, games and TV shows.

Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must all prevent their users from accessing the site. BT have requested “a few more weeks” to consider their position on blocking the site.

A statement from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said: “Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists,” while BPI’s chief executive Geoff Taylor said: “Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them. This is wrong – musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else.”

While this ruling surrounds music, it is going to downloads of every shape and size including TV and, yep, movies.

Which is nonsense. The arguments against online filesharing are as flawed as those that surrounded home recording in the 80s and branded kids that recorded eachothers’ cassette tapes as pirates. Not that I’m condoning piracy, quite the opposite. I just feel we should resist attempts to control the internet, as it’s a pernicious process. With SOPA and now CISPA in the States, we are following suit in the UK and are on a slippery slope towards internet censorship.

Ultimately, these measures are pointless as they can be got around using proxy servers or simply going to other filesharing sites.

Furthermore, entertainment producers and providers just aren’t keeping up with their audiences, and leave people with little choice but to find other ways of accessing content when legitimate means don’t cut it. Putting aside the argument that a new DVD shouldn’t cost £15 (though that is a valid complaint), many people simply cannot get hold of the films and TV shows that are being shoved down their throats. Have you seen The Cabin In The Woods yet? Why not? See it. See it now. Watch it now. Why haven’t you watched it? All your friends have watched it. You’re a loser. Your parents hate you. Watch it now… And so on and so on until the impressionable teenager who the adverts are aimed at and who doesn’t have a multiplex nearby gives in and Googles “free download Cabin In The Woods.”

But that doesn’t explain why adults download illegally. However, this does, and is based on a real situation experienced by a friend in who lives in New York.

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At this point each year, I normally tell you to put money on my Oscar predictions, because I’m so very, very good at what I do.

However, this year I can’t. I got one wrong last year and it has rocked my confidence to such a degree, that I’m no longer comfortable telling strangers to gamble their hard-earned money based on my opinion of which actor or director will be given a little gold man to take home and put in their downstairs toilet.

However, here are my predictions for 2012. Do with them what you will:

Best Film

If there’s one thing the Academy loves, it’s being told how special what they do is, and The Artist is a 100 minute long cinematic loveletter to the art of filmmaking.

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Last week I was engaged in every geek’s favourite pastime – arguing online about Star Wars.

A review of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D had fired up emotions between two equally passionate factions, so I stepped in with the following: “I think I’m probably representative of a lot of people who loved the originals, was disappointed with Episode I, but is still interested to see what the pod race and big battle with Darth Maul look like in 3D. Although I know it’s going to leave me disappointed, and filled with hate over the stupid cutesy rubbish (again), and even though I completely trust the reviewer’s opinion – my inner fanboy means I have to see it for myself.”

Of course, this wasn’t exactly what I said – it was online so slightly fruitier language was employed – but it’s how I have felt since the 3D rerelease was announced.

But now I’ve changed my mind. And this is why: IT’S NEVER GOING TO END.

Read on »

Some time in the last ten years, cinemas stopped showing trailers for lots of different films, and simply started rotating the same two or three over and over again.

If you’ve been to the cinema in the last couple of months, you’ll have probably had to sit through trailers for This Means War, Man on a Ledge (possibly the stupidest movie title of all time), and the terrible new Orange advert featuring The Muppets more times than you care to remember.

What this does is make it easy to spot the hardened cinemagoers (they’re the ones who sigh audibly when they realise they are going to have to sit through a trailer for a film about a man on a ledge AGAIN); as well as the idiots (they’re the ones who laugh at the trailer for This Means War, even though nothing even close to humorous happens in it)

But the worst thing about this new practice, is how it means trailers for films without stupendous marketing budgets risk slipping through the net entirely – films like Chronicle, which came out last week to virtually no fanfare.

The casual moviegoer won’t have heard about Chronicle because it doesn’t have any big stars and it hasn’t been rammed down our throats every time we’ve been to the cinema for the last eight weeks. And that’s a huge shame, because people are going to miss out on seeing one of the best action films of the year.

From out of nowhere, this small film about three teenage boys who gain superpowers has crept up and it deserves your attention.

The film has a simple set-up that sees three teenage boys investigate a big hole in the woods and come back out again with telekinetic capabilities. However, as their abilities grow, they become more reckless. With great power comes great irresponsibility.

From being able to move Lego pieces with their mind, they quickly progress to being able to throw cars around and even fly.

Billed as a “found footage” film along the lines of Blair Witch or Cloverfield, the action is pieced together from footage shot by the youngsters themselves, keen to document their progression and the stunts they pull. There are also occasional quick-cuts from various other recording devices (CCTV, iPhones) which are incredibly effective and even during otherwise ridiculous scenes, lend a sense of reality. Yes, really.

The conceit works well for first time director Josh Trank who has been able to make this sort-of superhero film on a small budget but with studio support. It has the best of both worlds – an indie vibe but with an expensive polish.

He cleverly gets around the problem of having to have someone behind the camera at all times by quickly establishing that the boys can control the camera using their powers, meaning that any and all shots are possible. Smart thinking.

The trio have fun messing about with the powers, pranking housewives and terrifying children, but it inevitably goes to their heads, and after one of the trio abuses his abilities and causes a rift in the friendship, problems start to arise and the action increases as the story quickly builds.

Chronicle isn’t just all about the action though, it also boasts some excellent performances, not least from outsider Andrew (Dane DeHaan) who is the main protagonist and has more than a hint about Leonardo DiCaprio about both his features and his acting. A boy with an abusive drunk dad and a bed-ridden mum hooked up to an oxygen tank, his story arc is the most gripping and believable of them all… once you factor out the flying and everything.

It’s not a perfect film by any means – the denoument is pretty much like any superhero film you’ve ever seen, and there are a couple of plot holes, but these problems are no bigger than those you’d encounter in any other film dealing with the same kind of subject matter.

A new spin on a familiar concept, Chronicle manages to feel both familiar and unique.

This column first appeared in the KM series of newspapers.