Movie preview: 2013

All the nominations and marketing buzz of awards season usually focuses the attention of those outside the United States on the big films that we'll get to see very soon. The beginning of 2013 will bring an unusually large batch of films made by some of the top directors in the industry, and although there are bound to be some disappointments, we will almost certainly be a few that will stand the test, not just of the members of the Academy and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but of all time.

Locally, 2013 will begin with a bang. One of the most talked-about films of the year is Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, an examination of the 16th president of the United States that closely follows his gentle arm-twisting and charming of the many players who would eventually pass the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery.

Daniel Day-Lewis is a shoe-in for best actor everywhere, and this may turn out to be Spielberg's most critically acclaimed film since Schindler's List.

Day-Lewis' most recent starring role was as the oil prospector Daniel Plainview in the 2007 picture There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, whose rare film projects (on average he makes one every five years, about the same as Day-Lewis) usually generate great excitement within the community of critics, though not always with viewers.

Anderson's latest film, also scheduled for release in early January, is the The Master, whose plot, set in the 1950s, is loosely based on the events surrounding L. Ron Hubbard and the religion - often called a cult - he established: Scientology, here simply known as "The Cause." Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as the self-anointed prophet; Joaquin Phoenix, making a welcome return to the acting world, is the World War II veteran who needs something to give him hope for a better tomorrow.

Finally, the other January film, one for which the draw is the director rather than the story, is Quentin Tarantino's latest, Django Unchained. Starring Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz, it is a film about a slave freed by a bounty hunter on condition he helps him out with some very bloody business.

DiCaprio also stars as the title character in a film that should be released around summertime, the adaptation of the classic F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, the film was originally scheduled for release at the end of 2012, but was ominously pushed back, leaving many fans of the director and of the novel worried this project will not meet expectations.

The Anthony Hopkins vehicle Hitchcock, which looks at the master of suspense and his notorious misogyny by focusing primarily on the production of 1960's Psycho, will be a wonderful opportunity to get a little closer to this overweight genius who made some of the most important films of the 20th century.

Lincoln won't be the only film about a former U.S. president. Bill Murray will star as Franklin Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson, a slightly comedic take on FDR's growing attraction to his sixth cousin on the eve of World War II. Helmed by Notting Hill director Roger Michell, the film has received less-than-stellar reviews, but is sure to be a pleasant enough way to pass the time, especially with Murray in the lead.

When it comes to attraction and love, though, the French film Amour leads the field. Director Michael Haneke brings together two faces well-known in France: Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, both in their 80s, whose characters face the sudden, emotionally draining situation of dealing with Alzheimer's disease. The film is extraordinary in its depiction of the love these two individuals, married for more than 50 years, have for each other, made evident by small gestures that reveal a lifetime of profound intimacy and understanding. The film will be released in local cinemas (in French, with Czech subtitles) in February.

Currently, the only important film for which no release date has been confirmed is Zero Dark Thirty, a surefire Oscar contender about the hunt for and ultimate assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Finally, we have entered another round of receiving glimpses of Middle-earth every year, as the second part of the Hobbit trilogy, titled The Desolation of Smaug, will be released at the end of 2013 and eventually conclude with part three in December 2014.

The awards season films seem to be a much more impressive bunch than was the case at the beginning of 2012, and with To the Wonder by Terrence Malick, the new take on Superman in the summer film Man of Steel and the second Hunger Games film, Catching Fire, also coming out during the year, this ought to be a good one.

André Crous can be reached at
acrous@praguepost.com