Over the years, wherever I happen to be blogging at the moment, I tend to take time in the Fall to share my excitement about the coming movie season. Because Fall and into the Winter is a veritable candy store of the best films of the year. If you happen to be a kid who loves movies like most kids love candy. With the Oscars (and every other major awards) hitting in the beginning of the new year, studios release their heaviest hitters at the end of the year (so Academy voters remember them come voting time).
Besides, with rare exception in the likes of special effects categories, no one expects summer blockbusters to rake in the awards.
So consider this fair warning – I plan on writing about a lot of movies in the near future. Like, more than normal. Very soon, I’ll post the first of my monthly overviews, a rundown of everything that’s set to open in October. I’ll do one for November, and one for December, too. It’s helpful to me to draft up lists of what I’m most looking forward to each month, and hopefully you’ll get a few ideas of what to see as well!
I’m not sure I’ll delve into the world of making predictions (since it’s still so early they just look like this), but maybe I’ll start putting some thoughts out there, especially as I start recapping the films I’ve seen this year. For the first time, after years and years of saying I’d do it, I’ve actually kept a running list of every movie I’ve seen this year. It’s actually a lot less than normal if you figure this is the first time in several years I’m not programming a festival and watching hundreds of submitted films. But it’s still quite a few, no doubt.
Already, I’ll say that there are a handful of observations I’ve got about the coming season. For one, I’m paying much more attention to the Foreign Language nominees, seeing how at least two of the films already on the short list, and maybe more to come, are films my company is distributing in the states.
There’ve also been a few release date updates that keep the playing field interesting. After Diana got middling-to-poor reviews out of its London premiere, word came that the other princess biopic in the mix, Nicole Kidman as the titular role in Grace of Monaco, has been bumped to 2014, putting it out of the Awards race. Same for the latest Scorsese/DiCaprio effort, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Channing Tatum’s closest thing to an Oscar hope, Foxcatcher. These moves typically signals test screenings aren’t going as well as hoped, or the film’s stalled in post, but they don’t always mean a dead-end for the films; The Great Gatsby was bumped six months to Summer 2013 and managed to do just fine at the Box Office. It probably won’t garner more than visual nominations, if anything, but the studio made their money in the end despite a shift in release season.
Between the films to look forward to and the films shuffling around, I love this time of year, and in what I’m sure comes as a surprise to no one, I have all the thoughts about it. And after all, it’s my party and I’ll blog about movies if I want to! I hope you’ll read (and comment!) along.
