NO, I SAID WHAT KIND OF BIRD...ARE YOU?

BEFORE I GO FREAKIN' NUTS , let me just explain that my Portugal blog containing at least 20 perfectly-resized and edited pics, and several paras of flowery description and colourful banter, which by the way took me OVER AN HOUR to write, HAS DISAPPEARED FROM BLOGGER with no explanation!

I can't actually face going through it all and re-writing it again at the moment, so that post will just have to be delayed until this overwhelming, totally-justified feeling of INTENSE RAGE subsides.

In an effort to quell my extreme frustration, I'm instead posting this - my old faithful backup post (of which I normally have a few kicking about) which happens to feature the trailers to three films I'm absolutely DYING TO SEE.

So, yes, a little random, but run with it.

Moonrise Kingdom



The reasons to expect great things from this are numerous: Wes Anderson directs, Roman Coppola co-writes, pastel 60s colour palette, pre-pubescent love and heartbreak, TILDA SWINTON, swoon-worthy aesthetics, nuanced comedy, Bill Murray, dreamy soundtrack, TILDA SWINTON... Gahd, I can feel my earlier rage ebbing away already - surely the sign of an awesome film?


Prometheus



I don't know how you could watch that and NOT be wetting yourself with excitement! Ohhh, I do love me an epic sci-fi romp and who better to provide it than the man who gave us both Alien and Blade Runner - the former of which was actually on last night and is STILL as shockingly powerful as ever. Reviews of this are mixed so far, but, in the words of Cheryl Cole, this looks to be RIGHT OOP MA STREET. Plus, yi know, Fassbender...


The Great Gatsby



Ah, now we come to my most anticipated film, POSSIBLY ever. If ever anyone asks me to name my favourite book, Gatsby is never far from my lips. As a former English Literature student, this is perhaps more than a bit of a cliche since we all studied it at some point, and it's over-exposure in schools and universities can mean that it's subtle themes and famous quotes now sometimes feel unfairly trite and obvious. But regardless of its notoriety it is still one of the most wonderfully written books that exists - to read it is to delight and marvel in the power and beauty of language. FOR REALZ. BAH I could write an essay here, BUT I WON'T I promise!

Anyhoo, when I heard last year that Baz Luhrmann was directing a remake of the pretty poor Mia Farrow/Robert Redford original, I was SCARED! Him off of Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet (both of which I love by the way, but I'm a slave to a love story and gaudy aesthetics) would surely ruin my beloved Gatsby and trample all over its subtleties, quiet tension and inner monologuing... right? Because that's where the beauty of Gatsby lies - in the things unsaid. In Nick's poignant observations of Jay and Daisy, in the rich description of complex emotions, the unhurried sensitivities of language and the hints at a shared pain which lie dormant in all of us...Regret. Entrapment. Inevitability. Loss. How could him that gave us a singing Ewan McGregor be able to express all that?

Well of course, he can't. The film is NOT the book, merely a representation. It'll never capture all the things I love about the book and it's frankly absurd to expect it to. But believe me, it's so hard to remind myself of that! Anyway, so far the trailer actually looks pretty promising. I'm warming to the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay and ESPECIALLY love Carey Mulligan as Daisy since she is a fantastic actress and looks very much how I always imagined Daisy to look, so yay for me! That being said, I DETEST the use of No Church in the Wild in the first half depicting the Roaring Twenties. THAT'S HARD TO ADMIT because, come on now, it's a tune and a half! Seriously, the whole Watch the Throne album is amazeballs but this track in particular is up there as one of the best on it. But for me it just doesn't work. I know the yoof might need something current to relate to since this is, after all, a period film, but the visuals are contemporary enough, surely? I don't know, it's an issue for me. Jack White's cover of Love is Blindness works well enough since it somewhat matches the drama thematically, but, I don't know... It might still go a bit wrong mightn't it? We'll see. Roll on Christmas anyway!



What films are you guys excited for this year? Any I've missed out?