Just in case you weren’t sure of what you’re going to be doing in the year 2010, Focus Features decided to help out by firming up their movie release schedule—at least just a little bit.
March 12, 2010: Greenberg – Categorized as a “dramedy,” Ben Stiller stars as a New Yorker who moves to L.A. to figure out his life while housesitting for his brother and ends up falling in love with his brother’s assistant. Directed by Noah Baumbach (Fantastic Mr. Fox), the movie also features Jennifer Jason Leigh in the cast and with a story credit.
April 16, 2010: Babies – This documentary by Thomas Balmes will chronicle the lives of either four children who are born in the same year in Namibia, Japan, Mongolia, and San Francisco. Despite my initial tendency to snark, I think I rather like the idea of seeing how children are born and raised in different cultures, social strata, etc. My sense of the macabre comes back into play when I ponder if there will be an Oscar-baiting (or warding-off) scene which will end with a death.
September 1, 2010: The American – Just in case you didn’t have enough George Clooney in your life, he will return to the fall movie screens as an assassin who is almost ready to retire and tries to live like an ordinary person… in the Italian countryside. So, it’s like the The Whole Nine Yards, but less of a slapstick comedy?
November 2010: It’s Kind of a Funny Story – Another dramedy, the Anna Boden Ryan Fleck (Sugar) adaptation of the young adult novel is the story of a depressive New Yorker teen who decides to commit himself and the only psychiatric ward that has space is for adults.
Fall 2009: The Eagle of the Ninth – Set in pre-Arthurian England, a Roman soldier (Channing Tatum) ventures out into the wilds of what is now Scotland to solve the mystery regarding his the disappearance of his father’s entire legion. Sounds like more of a summer blockbuster to me.
Also being released sometime during the year will be director Sophia Coppola’s Somewhere, wherein Stephen Dorff stars as a “bad-boy actor” who gets reunited with his grown daughter (Elle Fanning). In other words it’s The Game Plan, but set in Hollywood and turned indie?
Of these, I think the one I’d like to know more about is Funny Story, and luckily there’s a book version to help me out. Ninth sounds like it could be good, and because I don’t know nearly enough about England before Arthur had a sword lobbed at him by a watery tart, it could be fun to let the movie draw me into its story—and then I’ll research everything later.
Next up for them this year is Pirate Radio, which comes out today.