There are a lot of awards-baiting movies coming out soon, and while I have absolutely no doubt they are good/great, I just have zero interest in watching them. Like I said before, they just don’t have the cast and/or subject matter to interest me.
Movies that I will think about catching, but probably will watch on DVD instead, if I ever watch them:
There are no movies in this category this time. I am pretty sure I won’t think about catching these movies, even if I eventually watch them on DVD somewhere.
Movies I will most likely be skipping:
The Theory of Everything (Jan 8)
It’s like Birdman and The Imitation Game — i.e. great press reviews, lots of awards buzz, Eddie Redmayne even won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama etc. Only thing is, I don’t really care for Eddie Redmayne or Felicity Jones. And like what Amy Poehler said sarcastically at the Golden Globes, “it combines two things that audiences love: a crippling nerve disease, and super-complicated math” — additional factors stacking it unfavourably on my do-not-want-to-watch list.
Inherent Vice (Jan 29)
It looks weird, but then again, it’s adapted from a Thomas Pynchon novel. I can’t remember much about him from my days doing Literature in university, because I wasn’t interested at all in postmodernism, which his works are categorised under. But I do remember postmodernist works are bizarre, so if the movie wasn’t equally so, I would be surprised. It also means that I have no interest in watching the film, though the cast is stellar. But I wouldn’t protest vehemently either, if someone sat me down in front of a TV and offered no other viewing choices.
Mortdecai (Jan 29)
I used to like Johnny Depp loads, but now I think he’s overrated. His recent movies have tanked at the box office, and him leaving long-term partner Vanessa Paradis and shacking up with Amber Heard was a blot on his image, in my eyes. He was really good as Captain Jack Sparrow in the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but On Stranger Tides ruined a perfectly good series. I don’t care that the film made a billion dollars at the worldwide box office — he was just rehashing his schtick without adding anything new to it; they included a needless subplot starring Sam Claflin (before he was Finnick Odair) as a priest and Astrid Berges-Frisbey as a mermaid; and I did not like the addition of Penelope Cruz at all. :S
Okay fine, so *perhaps* my grievances have more to do with Johnny Depp than with the film Mortdecai itself. It looks passably quirky I suppose. I do quite like Ewan McGregor and Paul Bettany. But have I mentioned that I dislike Olivia Munn, who is also in it? (My dislike for her is almost on par with Jai Courtney. Seriously, I dislike him so much, and for no reason at all, that I can’t stop talking about how much I dislike him for no reason at all.) I think she is overrated too, but this is compounded by the fact that I am absolutely bewildered exactly *when* and why she became famous. One day she was just a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and then suddenly *poof!* she was considered a celebrity. Somebody tell me why.
Unbroken (Feb 5)
Before it came out in the U.S., there was lots of hype surrounding it, based on the fact that it was directed by Angelina Jolie and it *looked* like a prestige pic. It’s the type of film that Academy voters lap up eagerly — a gut-wrenching story about overcoming the odds based on the true story of Louis Zamperini who survived World War II in a prisoner-of-war camp targeted by a sadistic Japanese officer. But it opened to terrible reviews from the critics, so the fervour has since cooled down. But more than anything, I’m not going to watch it because I really don’t need to see people get tortured for two hours. Or for any amount of time.
Wild (Feb 5)
Think Into the Wild, the Sean Penn-directed film about Chris McCandless who forsook the materialism of the world to wander in the wilderness (based on a true story, by the way. Chris McCandless died in the end too, unfortunately); but with Reese Witherspoon, whom I don’t care for, though her performance in this movie has been lauded.
Focus (Feb 26)
A movie about con-men. Margot Robbie looks like she’s playing almost the same bombshell role she did in The Wolf of Wall Street, so nothing new to watch there. I’m not a big fan of Will Smith too.
Chappie (Mar 5)
It’s directed by Neill Blomkamp, who did District 9 and Elysium. You can tell because the world it’s set in looks exactly like in those movies. It also looks a bit like Real Steel, but set in a futuristic world, with a message ripped from Bicentennial Man and Automata (Robots are like people! They have feelings too!) And hey, Hugh Jackman is also in it! All these things add up to: Not my cup of tea.
There are plenty of movies I haven’t bothered to put down (like Jennifer Lopez’s The Boy Next Door) because they look terrible and I really have zero interest in talking about them, much less watching them. And there are others that I don’t mention because they are my movies, but I wouldn’t have watched them if they aren’t. Not that they are bad — they have won accolades actually. They are just not movies I want to watch normally, for various reasons.
