The High Five: January

In the next few days, I'll be writing up a list of my most anticipated movies of 2015.  There are lots of movies to look forward to but, unsurprisingly, not so many in the month of January.  As usual, there aren't many exciting wide releases coming out next month, but there are a lot of great movies expanding.  So, if you're living somewhere that isn't New York or Los Angeles, you should get geared up for Selma, Inherent Vice, Red Army, The Duke of Burgundy, and Mommy.  If you've already checked those ones off your list, these five hold promise.

1. Appropriate Behavior (January 16) - After the amazing year in queer cinema that was 2014, I'm hoping that the new year brings an even bigger bounty of selections.  Appropriate Behavior should get things off to a nice start.  Desiree Akhavan's debut feature won raves at Sundance, and it's finally getting a theatrical release almost a year later.  The film focuses on a Persian-American girl named Shirin (Akhavan), who hides her bisexuality from her family.  After her brother gets engaged, Shirin goes on a sexual odyssey as a sort of personal rebellion, all the while trying to figure out what went wrong with her ex-girlfriend, Maxine (Rebecca Henderson).  That the film won comparisons to Girls only makes me the more anxious to see it, and bisexuality is rarely explored onscreen, so this could prove a standout example of how to handle the often misunderstood orientation.

2. Paddington (January 16) - Based on the beloved children's book character, Paddington wisely moved out of the hectic Christmas season to get a roomier January release date, where hopefully it can find a bigger audience.  The film has already released overseas, where it has won massive acclaim, even featuring on a few year-end lists.  Here's a movie I never thought I'd be looking forward to, but two things happened to change my thinking over the course of the year.  First, Colin Firth stepped aside as the voice of the lovable brown bear to make way for Ben Whishaw (who seems like a perfect choice).  Second, I saw the trailer, featuring a hilarious series of events building to a comic set piece sending Paddington riding a bathtub down the stairs.  I was won over.  The positive notices are just icing on the anticipatory cake.

3. Predestination (January 9) - I regret to have missed the recent LA press screening of Predestination, but having done so makes filling this list out all the easier.  Ethan Hawke is generally at his best whilst not dabbling in genre fare, but this looks to be the exception.  This Australian sci-fi got nominated for a boatload of awards down in Oz and even won a couple at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.  The synopsis - Hawke plays a Temporal Agent tasked with traveling through time to prevent future killers from committing their crimes - sounds reminiscent of Looper and Minority Report, which certainly bodes well.  It sounds like the perfect palate cleanser after ingesting heaps of stodgy awards bait.

4. Blackhat (January 16) - It seems like January 16 is my big movie day this month.  Michael Mann's latest looks like a slick thriller, and its hacking-centric plot is incredibly timely.  Chris Hemsworth (AKA the talented brother) stars as a recently released convict enlisted to help bring down a cybercrime network.  He's always a treat on the big screen, even when not wielding a giant hammer.  Plus, Viola Davis is along for the ride in a supporting role, so the film's got that going for it, too.  It's been six years since Mann's last movie - the undersung gangster picture Public Enemies - so hopefully Blackhat proves worth the wait.

5. Cake (January 23) - If you had asked me a year ago to name an actress who would never be nominated for an Oscar, Jennifer Aniston would've been at the top of my list.  She's a perfectly fine comedic actress whose film career has been populated by mostly forgettable turns in mostly forgettable movies, with only Horrible Bosses and We're the Millers really standing out in the parade of mediocrity.  Yet here we are faced with Cake, a movie that, by most accounts, isn't as good as its leading performance, one that has netted SAG and Golden Globe nominations for Aniston.  I recently saw the trailer, and was promptly blown away by a peek at Aniston's turn.  It's always a pleasure to see familiar actresses branch out into new territory, and while I doubt her work is as good as the dozens of performances that aren't even blips on the Oscar radar, I'm glad for a former Friend to be trying something different.

Other Notable Releases: The Search For General Tso (January 5), Beloved Sisters (January 9), Taken 3 (January 9), Diving Normal (January 10), Human Capital (January 14), The Wedding Ringer (January 16), Son of a Gun (January 16), Still Life (January 16), Veronika Decides to Die (January 23), Strange Magic (January 23), Mortdecai (January 23), The Humbling (January 23), Timbuktu (January 28)