2011's Most Interesting Upcoming Films - Updated -

Since I just looked back to 2010, I suppose I should also look forward as well.  Unfortunately looking back while looking forward requires a lot of ridiculous manic spinning, and I don't have the dexterity.  Growing eyes in the back of your head might help, but being since I am neither a parent in the front seat of the car or your third grade teacher, I lack those extra organs.  So instead I'll take it one at a time.  I already looked back, so now I can look forward.  Then I suppose I'll look left in another post.

A cursory look at 2011's major upcoming films is enough to depress anyone.  The superhero films just don't look good at all, and history has taught me that by and large, most superhero films suck.  So when I hear about "The Green Hornet", "Thor", "Captain America", "X-Men First Class", and "The Green Laturn", I'm not interested.  Then there's "Kung Fu Panda 2" and a slew of bad sequels to movies I didn't see in the first place like "Happy Feet 2", "Alvin and the Chipmunks 3", and a film that according to the known laws of physics should be impossible, "Spy Kids FOUR".  By the way, here's a title to make anybody cringe:  "Big Momma's House 3, Like Father Like Son".  And the remakes... my God:  "Footloose", horror classic "The Thing", vampire classic "Fright Night", The Three Musketeers", "The Muppets", and "Conan the Barbarian".  We got another "Transformers" coming, my God.  There's a Justin Beiber movie!  Have we not entered the End Times, or what?  And even the studio which I've always relied upon to make the best or second best film of the year, Pixar, is making a sequel to their only bad movie, "Cars 2", meaning I don't even get that much this year.  I think I might cry.

Yes things look bleak, they do.  But, in actually a lot of work, I was able to find a couple of movies I am legitimately excited for.  Of course, I've been wrong before ("The Wolfman") and I'll be wrong again.  I may inadvertently recommend what will be the Worst Film of 2011, who knows?  And I know this list is a little short compared the hundreds of films that are released in a single year.  But that doesn't matter!  Honestly, I'm sure I'll find plenty of movies to see beyond this list.  2011 just started.  Things might look bleak now, but by April I'm sure I'll have seen at least one movie I like:

Evangelion Rebuild 2.0:  You Can (Not) Advance (January 21st):  I'm sorry to say that there really will not be any way I can go see this one in theatres.  It is being released in American theatres in New York, but its the week I go back to college from Christmas Break... can't really travel then.  So I'll simply have to wait until the DVD comes out March 29th for the sequel to the new "Evangelion" four-part film adaptation.  And now things get seriously hard-core if the trailer is to be believed.  The first film was more or less a direct adaptation of the first five episodes, now this remake branches off in its own direction, introducing a new girl with glasses and what appears to be several dark twists.  Most of the characters appear covered in blood at some point or another in that trailer.  My only real issue with this one is whether or not it will be English dubbed.  I will be very angry if they don't dub this!

Red Riding Hood (March 11th):  For whatever reason this film is being advertised as "Twilight 4", with Amanda Seyfried as the girl stuck between a love triangle between supernatural hotties.  Actually Amanda Seyfried stars in what I believe might be a straight horror film with the werewolf eating people left and right.  The whole Twilight thing is hopefully a marketing ploy, made worse by the film hiring the actor who played Charlie in the hilariously noxious vampire love films.  Of course the trailer gives a definite sexual overtone to the folk tale but that can be a good thing for horror.  Perhaps its 2011's "Black Swan"... probably not.  Ultimately eroticizing Little Red Riding Hood is nothing new, it was done before in the 1984 disturbing fantasy film "The Company of Wolves".  I mean, Leonardo Dicaprio is producing this one, it couldn't be Twilight, could it?  Really this one depends on its rating.  If its R, I'm there, anything less and it all really depends.

Sucker Punch (March 25th):  In the trailer I spotted strippers, samurai robots, mobsters, B-52s, chicks with swords, and dragons.  And this isn't an anime... somehow.  Director Zack Snyder describes it as "Alice and Wonderland with machine guns" and that's isn't exactly making me worry.  This one is too weird not to miss.  Of course Zack Snyder's last films were the very ambitious and still not very good "Watchmen", and that silly owl film nobody saw.  Oh well, the guy does have talent, and I'd like to see what he can do with his own original story.  And there are strippers fighting samurai robots, that too.

Pirates of the Caribbean:  On Stranger Tides (May 20th):  Can the Pirates franchise survive a fourth film?  Almost certainly not.  I mean, without Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, the franchise basically has to stick directly to Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow as the hero, and I don't know if he's up to being the lead.  However, I still got a good feeling for God Knows Why.  Maybe I'm not as smart as I think and am still nothing but a tool of corporate manipulation.  Maybe its Ian McShane playing Black Beard.  Hopefully they can keep up the fun from the last three movies.  Crazy double-crossing magical adventure plots here I come.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (July 15th):  Even if the first part was mostly a lovely English camping trip, it was still an okay film.  And I've been waiting something like ten years to find out how the Harry Potter story ends, I simply cannot miss this one.  Also from what I've heard most of this film is a gigantic action climax with nearly every character fighting it out in Hogwarts, that can't miss!  This series has about 200 characters, so they're all jumping into one ridiculous ring for an ultimate struggle between good and evil.  Why couldn't we just skip to that instead of having a vacation movie first?

Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (November 18th):  I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS AWFUL MOVIE!  "Breaking Dawn" was the book so awful that even Twilight fans hate it.  I'm so ready for this one, I'm going to read the book first.  Bella gives birth to a vampire baby, Jacob falls in love with that baby, this cannot be anything other than a ridiculous comedy or a David Cronenberg nightmare.  Either way I win.  This movie just cannot fail, no matter what.  Worst thing that can happen is that they shove all the good stuff in the second part like Harry Potter did.  And there's so much terrible to be had they couldn't fit it into a single movie.  Oh yeah!  Midnight show - I'm there.

Sherlock Holmes 2 (December 16th):  The last Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law double "House"-esque detective action film was properly awesome!  And now there's a sequel.  There is literally no limit to how far this franchise can go, considering how many Sherlock Holmes stories there have been.  Usually I look at sequels with a very cynical eye, but I honestly think this movie will be better than the first one.

In my first version of this post, I missed one film that I actually think might be pretty interesting:

Rango (March 4th):  Johnny Depp stars in this computer animated western film.  He's a small chameleon who wanders into a hard Wild West town dressed in the same shirt that Johnny Depp's Hunter S. Thompson wore in the bizarre freaky drug comedy (you try to categorize that movie) "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".  Plus the Rango character's head is oddly similar to "Fear and Loathing"'s extremely memorable poster.  So the nerdy little Rango has to become the sheriff and save the town in a plot that you've probably seen already in plenty of cartoons.  But more importantly, look at the landscapes in the background!  Its incredible!  Industrial Light & Magic, AKA "the Star Wars guys" have really done an amazing job from what I've seen.  This is sadly the only animated feature this entire year that has actually caught my eye so far.

Here's to 2011!