Warming up with the winter movie season part 1

The Blood Diamond, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, Dec. 8: No one could have turned around their career better than Leonardo DiCaprio in my mind. Yes, I know that he's been a large draw for a while, but he seems to constantly refocus and go after new and ballsy
roles, instead of sticking to the pretty boy images that we all had of him post-Titanic. Now he's Martin Scorsese's new DeNiro it seems and once again is headlining a promising movie with The Blood Diamond. DiCaprio plays a man caught up in the middle of conflict diamonds crisis in Edward Zwick's (The Last Samurai and Glory) new movie.
Outlook: DiCaprio's performance could make or break the movie.

Apocalypto, December 8 : Yeah, I know Mel Gibson's a lunatic; an absolute maniac at times; but the guy knows how to make a big scale movie. Braveheart is one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen and one of the only epics that can hold up at all made in
the 1990's. While I didn't like The Passion of the Christ all that much, I have tremendous respect for the amount he put into that film, making it clear he will go all out to make a movie the way he thinks it should be made. While I was skeptical of Apocalypto at first, the
more and more I see the trailer, the more and more I'm interested.
Outlook: A very interesting topic that not many people know about
could translate into a pretty good movie.

The Good German, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, December. 8
(limited), December 25 (wide): Steven Soderbergh is back with George
Clooney, this time with a film a little more serious than the Oceans's
movies. While it was probably fun for Soderbergh to make less serious
movies, he does his best work in the realm of darker material. And I
love that Soderbergh is using black and white as well as a design
scheme that's a loving shout-out to the classic filmmaking era (see
Good German poster). Set in post WWII Germany, Clooney plays an
American caught up in a murder investigation in the beginning of cold
war politics in Berlin. Outlook: A must see – ballgame.

Rocky Balboa, Sylvestor Stallone, December 20: I'm probably the only
movie lover on the planet who hasn't seen all of the Rocky films, so
maybe I'm not the best judge here – but the footage from the trailer
looks horrible. And not like Home Alone 3 horrible or Weekend At
Bernies 2 horrible, I mean Freddy Got Fingered horrible – Plan 9 From
Outerspace or Jaws the Revenge horrible. I'm not sure why anyone,
Stallone included, thought it was a good idea to revise a series that
was almost universally shut down as having gone on for too long as it
is. Movie miracles happen all the time, as they seem to do with
Rocky, so it's not impossible for it to be a halfway decent flick.
Outlook: The film looks to be just as big of an underdog as Rocky.

The Good Shepherd, Matt Damon, William Hurt, Angelina Jolie and Robert
DeNiro, Dec. 22: Well, when you're Robert DeNiro and you want to make
a movie, you get people like Matt Damon, William Hurt, Angelina Jolie,
Joe Pesci and Alec Baldwin. A tale of one of the most interesting,
and certainly powerful, covert agencies in the world. Not much needs
to be known other than the movie has an unbelievable cast and a good
topic for a film. Damon stars as a young, ambitious man looking to
establish the CIA. While A Bronx Tale didn't knock my socks off, it
was a pretty good movie in it's own right and I'm looking forward to
DeNiro taking another crack at directing. Outlook: I'd be surprised
if it wasn't at least relatively entertaining, if not very, very good.

Children of Men, Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, December
25: With a first-rate cast that includes Clive Owen, Michael Caine and
Julianne Moore, director Alfonzo Cuaron's is very intriguing. Those
who missed Yu Tu Mama Tambien, a film that if it was in English would
have made a much bigger dent on Americano cinema, will get a chance to
see what Cuaron can do when he's not playing with wizards and magic
spells ala Harry Potter. Set in the near future, it's a tale of a
society that hasn't had an increase in population in almost three
decades – 27 years to be exact. Owen soon finds himself escorting a
pregnant woman, Moore, to safety in what promises to be a chilling
thriller. Outlook: Has tremendous upside with a very interesting
story as well as an A-list cast and director. Warning: While good
sci-fi stories can make GREAT movies, sci-fi movies also have a
tendency to implode from the inside if they aren't handled properly.

The Number 23, Jim Carrey, Viginia Madsen, February 23: At his best
director Joel Schumacher is not bad (see The Client, St. Elmo's Fire
or A Time to Kill). At his worst, well, he's pretty bad (see Batman
and Robin, Batman Forever and Phone BoothI) This one tells the story
of a man (Carrey) who seems to be living a life based upon a book. It
promises to be a dark film, very different from Carrey's other dips
into serious acting, which I'm very interested in. Many laughed when
Carrey said he wanted to do more serious stuff – not many should be
laughing now. It's been pretty clear that as long as Carrey does
stupid comedies like Fun With Dick and Jane once in a while, he's free
to do other, more thought-provoking films like Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind and The Truman Show. Outlook: Not overly impressed with
Schumacher, but with the right script and actors, a lot of directors
can shine. This one has potential to be pretty good.