Three weeks ago, I was sitting in a café (“café” being the euphemism of choice for those of us who frequent any of the popular high-street coffee chains, but would rather people didn’t know it) when I fell under the spell of the couple at the next table. Not only were they bickering — always prime eavesdropping material — but the contentious subject was movies. He wanted to see Avatar that evening, while she was adamant that paying to watch a film that she knew in advance would be pure tedium was not on the cards for that Friday night, or any other.
I did my utmost to appear absorbed in my reading, and to refrain from rushing to the defence of this sane-headed woman. Just as well, really, because the entire fabric of their relationship was starting to unravel. “Whenever you choose the film, it turns out to be crap,” she argued, which would have given her the upper hand, had he not immediately produced his trump card: “You’re the one who made us see Save the Last Dance.” Oof! That’s gotta hurt.
Now we’re on the other side of Christmas, I find myself wondering if they made it through. The odds weren’t good; when the topic moved on to films they were looking forward to in 2010, he cited Iron Man 2 and the forthcoming remake of Clash of the Titans, while she sought silent consolation in her cappuccino. As I started coming over all superior towards my fellow coffee-consumer, I wondered if my own Must-See list for the coming year was any more radical than his. The answer: not really.
Most of the films I’m excited about are safe bets in their own way. For example, I can’t wait for The Killer Inside Me because the idea of Michael Winterbottom directing Casey Affleck in a Jim Thompson adaptation sounds like dynamite (and because someone who caught an early cut assured me that it’s impressively nasty).
Scott Pilgrim v the World has me hooked already because I adore the director (Edgar Wright) and the source material (Bryan Lee O’Malley’s witty graphic novels about a lovestruck bassist who must overcome his new girlfriend’s evil exes). And I like the look of Gentlemen Broncos, a florid comic fantasy about a science-fiction writer who plagiarises the work of a fan; I’m hoping it will return the writer-director Jared Hess to the heights of his debut, Napoleon Dynamite, after the disappointment of Nacho Libre.
I also hear great things about the new films from Claire Denis (White Material) and Lucrecia Martel (The Headless Woman). And I’m eager to see Chris Morris’s first film, the jihad comedy Four Lions. But then, who isn’t?
More than any of these partly known quantities, though, it is the surprises that get me buzzing: the films I haven’t heard of, by directors whose names don’t ring a bell, but which will in all likelihood change my life. The idea that they are out there somewhere is like the promise of an undiscovered colour. Or, at the very least, a new flavour of ice cream.
Ryan Gilbey blogs for Cultural Capital every Tuesday. He is also the New Statesman’s film critic.
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