| Date | |
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| Author | DCM |
| Categories | cinema |
For people who love cinema as we do, 2014 so far has been a stunner. The awards season films have been the strongest for many years, with The Wolf of Wall Street, 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle wowing audiences throughout January and they continue well into February with Her and Dallas Buyers Club. For family audiences, one of the best animated films in recent times in The LEGO Movie is set to charm millions for the next few months and Mr Peabody and Sherman are providing able support.
As it’s Valentine’s Day, it seems as good a time as any to look at the films over the next few months that are perfect for the hopeless romantic in all of us. On March 21, British acting royalty, Kate Winslet returns in Labor Day. Queen Winslet stars opposite Josh Brolin in a tale of a single mother who forms a romantic bond with a mysterious wounded man who she offers shelter. Director Jason Reitman is the man behind Juno, Up In The Air and Young Adult, so expectations for this one are suitably high. Winslet also returns in April in Divergent. Limitless director, Neil Burger adapts this young adult fiction novel that looks like a potential new Hunger Games. Shailene Woodley and Theo James play the romantic leads.
Daniel Radcliffe once again proves that Harry Potter is a distant memory in hip comedy, The F Word. He stars with Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks) as a man who struggles with his deepening connection to a woman who is in a relationship. Girls’ Adam Driver increases the levels of hipness even further. Jon Favreau has found a good deal of success in recent years behind the camera on blockbusters such as Iron Man but Chef sees him undertake a change of pace and step back in front of the camera too. He stars as a chef who starts up a food truck in an effort to rekindle his love of food, while piecing back together his estranged family. Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr and Dustin Hoffman feature in the terrific cast. Finally, in June Shailene Woodley returns in The Fault In Our Stars as Hazel, a teenager battling cancer who forms a relationship with Gus (Ansel Englort). Time magazine called the book it’s based on ‘damn near genius’ so expect tears to be well and truly jerked in late-June.
If love most definitely isn’t in the air and you’d prefer to see Liam Neeson breaking some ne’er-do-well’s limbs then there’s plenty of choice for action lovers too. Neeson himself is back in action in late-February and this time he’s Taken to the skies in Non-Stop. There’s also a sequel to homoerotic action-epic, 300 and Godzilla makes a long awaited return to the big screen in a dark and gritty tale that features a striking cast (Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche and Elizabeth Olsen).
Superhero fans are going to be more than satisfied as Captain America, Spider-Man and the X-Men all return for their biggest adventures yet. Tom Cruise is back in sci-fi mode in Edge of Tomorrow, which appears to be Source Code meets Elysium and looks as spectacular as that sounds. The Transformers are back in Age of Extinction and this time Mark Wahlberg takes over from Shia LaBeouf, which is a great swap as far as I can tell. Future dystopias are the order of the day in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and both promise to be two of the biggest films of the year, with The Hunger Games only likely to be beaten by the final film in The Hobbit trilogy: There and Back Again.
Perhaps the most exciting of all 2014’s action prospects arrives in mid-April with The Raid 2. The first Raid was a huge shot-in-the-arm to the action genre delivering jaw-dropping spectacle that raised the bar for on-screen fighting. It was brutal and balletic and the sequel looks to deliver more of the same.
Whether you’re into melting hearts or breaking limbs, 2014 delivers on all fronts and the fantastic start to 2014 is all set to continue. Check out a special edition of our film schedule below, highlighting all of these movies.
