Over the weekend a friend texted me saying he’d just seen Cedar Rapids and enjoyed it, but that now he’d have to wait for Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life in May before he was interested in seeing another film. This, of course, was borne out of the fact 2011 hasn’t delivered many quality films in its first two months. However, I immediately went to the release calendar to see what was set to hit theaters over the next two months to create some sort of argument.
I fired back with my interest in Battle: Los Angeles, told him The Adjustment Bureau is actually quite good thanks to Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, Rango looks fun, I like the premise behind Limitless, though I have little faith in the film, and I am game for anything from the Fast and Furious franchise, but merely as a fun, but brainless, time filler.
There are also the limited releases of Oscar Best Foreign Language hopeful In a Better World, Tom McCarthy’s Win Win, Cannes stand out Certified Copy, Redford’s The Conspirator, Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff and Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre.
Certainly, there are other releases to consider — you can name them all if you like from Sucker Punch to Hanna. I’m not wondering which films are going to be good or be worthwhile, cases can be made for and against everything I’ve mentioned so far. Instead, what stands a strong likelihood of happening is one of these films will inevitably end up with far more acclaim than it deserves, primarily out of critic and audience desire to get behind something so it feels like we aren’t wasting our time and money on an endless stream of junk.
I can’t imagine both March and April will be as bad as the first two months of the year. At the very least I’ve already seen The Adjustment Bureau, In a Better World and Certified Copy and can tell you all three are worth seeing. But will there be a film people seem to latch onto because we finally have a sense we can gather around something and champion it for a little while before the bigger films arrive this summer?
As has already been pointed out, 2011 has something like 27 sequels, which means we aren’t necessarily in for a lot of originality this year. We’re going to have to look deeper, but it’s highly inevitable in a moment where none of us wants to look deeper, and we simply just want to find something to comfort our need for greatness, we will dote on something that’s most likely not necessarily deserving. I just wonder what film that will be as I suspect it will happen.
