The Best of Me (Michael Hoffman, USA 2014)

• It seems that Nicholas Sparks is a bit repetitive.
• Michael Hoffman is still making films??!!! I thought he was finished after The Emperor’s Club (USA 2002), but it turns out he even made one I watched and completely forgot about since then! Holy crap!
• I think that was probably more thinking about Michael Hoffman’s career than anyone not related to him has ever done.

Fury (David Ayer, UK/USA/China 2014)

• Shia LaBeouf is still alive?
• This really is about as nondescript looking as a war film could get. The only thing that makes it stand out is having Brad Pitt.

Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, USA/UK 2014)

• Is this movie just going to be an elongated version of “Kill the Moon?”
• I really can’t tell much about it, but I’m in on anything Christopher Nolan makes or that has Jessica Chastain, and this has both.
• “You have to choose between seeing your family again and saving all of humanity.” Um, that’s not a choice, is it? Yes, I know that I’m a cold, heartless, terrible, rational, skeptical, atheist bastard, but how on earth do you choose to end humanity in order to see your family? You would be not only objectively wrong but absolutely insane, right?
• Mr. Nolan, I understood casting Christian Bale in every movie, because he’s awesome. Michael Caine is not. Please stop.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay–Part 1 (Francis Lawrence, USA 2014)

• Julianne Moore is still working? I’m not unhappy about that, not at all. Still, I haven’t seen her since Chloe (Atom Egoyan, USA/Canada/France 2009).
• Donald Sutherland seems to have gone full Bond Villain.
• I know we’re supposed to treat YA movies like this with respect (And, hey, I love Harry Potter movies. I own all of them. On Blu-Ray. I think I may have just announced that I’m a loser.), but these movies look really stupid. So how the hell do they get people like Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci–people who can really act and have no difficulty at all finding work or need of money?
• Philip Seymour Hoffman has to be setting some kind of record for posthumous film appearances. He was a great actor–so good he could succeed in spite of looking vaguely like me–but it’s still weird how much he keeps showing up.

Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott, UK/USA/Spain 2014)

• I really wish I could be surprised that Ridley Scott is still making things–he is awful.
• One thing I can say for Scott: It took about five seconds of the trailer to know it was him. Only Ridley Scott can provide the sexual politics and international relations strategies of Frank Miller with the religious propagandist vision of Dinesh D’Souza, put it on top of a background straight out of a Zack Snyder film, and somehow make it look even more bloated and terrible than it sounds.
• What a waste of Christian Bale and Aaron Paul this is going to be.
• Yeah, I get that Hollywood has discovered that there is money to be made in the Christian market and they won’t stop as long as they can keep it going, but I’m still really tired of it.

American Sniper (Clint Eastwood, USA 2014)

• Clint Eastwood is still directing? (Okay, it’s gotten silly enough I will quit now–Jersey Boys only came out about a week ago.)
• It may not tell us much about the film, but that trailer is fantastic–it’s tense, moody, and actually has a theme that can carry a film.
• Eastwood has been in a rut for a while and I’m afraid that taking on something with political ramifications is not the best way to get out of it, but maybe it will shake something loose. I still hope the man who gave us Unforgiven (USA 1992) is in there somewhere.

Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, USA 2015)

• This seriously looks like a tamer version of The Story of O (Just Jaeckin, France/West Germany/Canada 1975). (Fun fact: I had always assumed that director name was a pseudonym for someone anonymous. Apparently, he actually went by that name regularly, though he was of course a softcore porn director.) Think about that–it’s a watered-down version of something that was released only based on shock appeal in 1975. I remember someone saying of Boy George crossdressing in the ’80s, “Anybody can crossdress now. Back in the late ’60s, when Alice Cooper did it, it was a big deal.” Fifty Shades of Grey is Boy George.
• There is nothing about this film that looks good. BDSM was shocking 40 years ago, and that still didn’t make The Story of O worth watching (Seriously. Don’t bother. Corinne Cléry is gorgeous, but there is nothing else good. Udo Kier may have set the all-time bad acting record.), so why would it be enough to carry a film now?
• After all of the hullabaloo mentioning every big name in Hollywood, they end up casting these two relative nobodies? Interesting. One note about that casting situation: I laughed hysterically when supposedly Emma Watson was going to star. That is a pipe dream in the extreme. Also, imagine the scene in this trailer with her–saying, “There’s not much to tell about me. I mean, look at me.” Yeah, even ignoring how clearly this film is something she would not do, that scene would be absolutely laughable with someone that good looking in the part.
• The fact that there are no name actors and a nobody director should tell you this is a simple cash-in. Not even an effort.
• The phenomenon around this book really creeps me out. I think it may say some frightening things about our society’s feelings about women.

Taken 3 (Olivier Megaton, France 2015)

• Liam Neeson is a big-budget version of Steven Seagal at this point. Every one of his films seems to be exactly the same.
• Shouldn’t women run screaming from him at this point?
• I cannot believe there have been three of these.