Indieoma

After my recent and very public commitment to the Red Hot Chili Pepper Plan (whereby after three weeks of self-inflicted torture/excercise I’d grow a pony tail, tone my muscles and get a series of tattoos) I feel I’m done with new years resolutions. Kaput. Finito. I am now perfect.

It is, therefore, time for a radically different approach. I propose everyone take up an anti-new year’s resolution. Screw what you’re giving up – it’s time to take something up. Cigars, gambling, hell, even vampirism – there are plenty of evils out there which I simply haven’t experienced yet. I might even take to running around the town center dressed as a Nazi bad-guy while exposing my buttocks and playing the trumpet. There are just so many options…

One thing you’ll definitely want to take up in the new decade is cinema. In 2011 Guillermo Del Toro – director of the gothic tragedy Pan’s Labyrinth – will be bringing us The Hobbit. I don’t know about you, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy felt a bit self congratulatory to me, though the films were sprinkled with bursts of genuine magic. Toro’s Hobbit is bound to be a shade or two darker, and with a tinge of the European arthouse movie to it.

I read The Hobbit last month (some bastard had told me the film was coming out this year so I rushed out to get a copy before the movie wiped my brain of the original text). There are even more goblins, dark forests, ghosts and – of course- dragons than you could possibly wish for, and with Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis returning (to play Gandalf and Gollum respectively), all we’re waiting for is an announcement as to who is playing Bilbo before we can say for a dead cert that it’s going to be a masterpiece.

One step at a time though, and let’s take a close look at what 2010 has in store for the casual popcorn muncher. Rhys Ifans will be playing the world’s most wanted dope fiend Howard Marks in the film adaptation of his book Mr Nice next month. This film will appeal to anyone who was a student in the 90s, anyone who takes an interest in Welsh culture, and indeed anyone who smokes copious amounts of dope.

I once met Howard Marks at a festival, where he was taking ‘confessions’ from behind a church style booth. I confessed I didn’t find my girlfriend sexually attractive anymore, and waited for an answer. A ploom of cannabis smoke slowly wafted through the netting, before Marks gently said; “Well, my child. You must let her down gently” like a true priest. It was supremely moving.

Oz magazine will be familiar to anyone with an interest in the 1960s counterculture: it was basically a DIY publication catering for the hippies, and acted as a laboratory for psychedelic artwork and radical thought. It was also a cop magnet, and Oz were busted on numerous occasions for alleged obscenity (read: lewd cartoons and a few pairs of breasts). The inner-workings of the magazine were chronicled by editor Richard Neville in the book Hippie Hippie Shake – which is coming out as a movie in May.

I’m not entirely sure if I like Neville, and I’m not entirely sure if I like Cillian Murphy, who’s lined up to play Neville. The omens, therefore, are not good. Nonetheless, if director Beebee Kidron manages to avoid the cliches of Austin Powers and get some gritty sense of realism going, this could be a fascinating watch. Hippie Hippie Shake isn’t the best book on the 60s counterculture (that accolade goes to Neville’s rival Mick Farren, whose ‘Give The Anarchist A Cigarette’ is a far smellier, funnier ride), but it will be interesting source material.

Less tasty, I should admit, is the prospect of The A Team (July) with Liam Neeson playing Hannibal. In fact, I’d wedge big bucks on it being utterly devoid of brains. Smarter but only slightly more appetising is the prospect of Michael Moore’s new movie Capitalism: A Love Story (Feb), in which the bearded one himself traces the roots of the global recession. It should be fun and informative, but… what is it about Moore? His irritability factor is hard to place your finger on, but it’s definitely there.

Tim Burton’s remixes of Planet of the Apes and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory were respectively dull and eerie-for-all-the-wrong-reasons, so I’m not filled with ecstasy at the prospect of Alice In Wonderland, despite some nicely psychedelic preview shots. Burton is very much a director who works with colours, and for some reason the brighter the colours in his films, the worse they get. Take our advice Tim, stick to purples and blacks.

A more interesting remake is going to be A Nightmare On Elm Street (May) starring Jackie Earle Haley (last seen playing Rorschach in Watchmen) as Sir Frederick Kruger. You could easily assume this is gonna be chock-full of dumb ultraviolence (see the remakes of Texas Chainsaw, Friday The 13th etc), but Haley is an indie actor with a strong resume, so keep your fingers – or indeed your knife gloves – crossed.

Other horror remakes of note include Piranha (April), which reboots the 1978 film about angry fish being accidentally released into a public river, and Wolfman (Feb) which stars Benicio Del Toro as the beastly, er, beast.

The Predator films arguably went pants as soon as the first sequel arrived, yet after all this time it’s hard not to admire the primal thrill of the jungle-bound original. It’s with a smidgen of optimism then, that we anticipate Predators (July) a direct follow up to the first film. Sure, the AVP spin offs have been terrible, but with oscar winning actor Adrien Brody in the lead, you’d be forgiven for anticipating the best Predator movie since 1987.


MAIN PICTURE: NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2010