September Preview

September Preview

Autumn has crept up on us, so as the nights get darker and the air gets colder you can take take refuge in the cinema and check out some of September's new releases. Now with added trailers!

To Rome With Love

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Greta Gerwig, Alec Badwin

Release Date: September 14th

Following his incredibly touching 2011 movie Midnight In Paris, Woody Allen returns to the directing chair for a brand new romantic comedy To Rome With Love. Narrated by Alec Baldwin, the movie follows the concurrent yet unrelated stories of several people spending time in Rome. The story is told in four seperate tales - a worker who wakes up to find himself a celebrity, an architect who takes a trip back to the street he lived on as a student, a young couple on their honeymoon, and a funeral director with a talent for singing in the shower.

To Rome With Love will mark Woody Allen's first movie appearance since 2006's Scoop, while the chemistry between young superstars Jesse Eisenberg and Ellen Page is sure to entertain. If the film is anywhere near as heart-warming and artistically pleasing as Midnight In Paris, it'll be a modern classic.

See it if you liked: Midnight In Paris (2011), Juno (2007), The Truman Show (1998)

The Sweeney

Director: Nick Love

Cast: Ray Winstone, Ben "Plan B" Drew, Damian Lewis, Hayley Atwell

Release Date: September 12th

Shut it you shlaaag. Based on the 1970's TV show, The Sweeney throws Ray Winstone and Ben Drew into the deepest crime rings in London. To catch the criminals, they have to act like criminals - but how much collateral damage can they leave in their wake before their bosses decide it's time to pull the plug?

 See it if you liked: Hot Fuzz (2007),  The Departed (2006), The Bad Lieutenant (2009)

Anna Karenina

Director: Joe Wright

Cast: Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kelly Macdonald

Release Date: September 7th

Set in late-19th-century Russia high-society, the aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. Forced into a marriage in which there is no love, Anna tries to seek a better life for herself only to find a more complicated one.

Anna Karenina is the third collaboration between director Joe Wright and Keira Knightley, who previously worked together on Pride and Prejudice and Atonement. One for the ladies, then.

See it if you liked: Atonement (2007), Pride and Prejudice (2005), Romeo and Juliet (1996)

Premium Rush



Director: David Koepp
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon, Jamie Chung
Release Date: 14th September

Time for rush hour. The hype surrounding Premium Rush has been minimal, however if the trailers are anything to go by it should be an intriguing, exciting film in the style of Jason Statham's 'Transporter' movies. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Wilee, a New York bike messenger who picks up an envelope from Columbia University. Bobby (Michael Shannon), a corrupt cop, tries to steal the envelope, prompting Wilee to take a sneak peek at its contents. Discovering the importance of the package, Wilee avoids cops and crooks alike as he weaves his way through the fast and furious traffic of New York city to get it delivered.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's status as an actor has improved dramatically following his brilliant roles in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, so if anything will carry this film it's him. While the premise of the movie is a little cheesy, Premium Rush looks like an hour and a half of fast and furious fun given weight with excellent realistic stunts.

See it if you liked: Transporter (2002), Drive Angry (2011), Safe House (2012)

ParaNorman



Director: Sam Fell
Cast: Kodi Smit-Mcphee, Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, John Goodman
Release Date: 14th September

From the studio behind 2009's creepy stop-motion animation Coraline comes ParaNorman, a story of a young boy who can speak with the dead. Unfortunately, he is ridiculed by his peers who don't believe him and his family are constantly embarrassed by what they believe to be very tall tales. That is until he accidentally raises an army of the dead who inform him of the peril his town is about to fall under due to a witch's ancient curse.

One for the kids, however the voice cast is very good indeed. Kodi Smit-Mcphee is most known for his brilliant performance alongside Viggo Mortensen in The Road, as well as a starring role in Martin Scorsese's Hugo, so it's good to see him progress into new acting territory.

See it if you liked: Coraline (2009), Fantastic Mr Fox (2009), The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists. (2012)

Lawless



Director: John Hillcoat
Cast: Tom Hardy, Shia LeBouf, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce
Release Date: 7th September

During the prohibition era in America, the Bondurant brothers - Forrest, Howard and Jack  - run a successful liquor bootlegging business in Virginia using their bar as a front for their illegal activities. The general consensus is their small town is that the Bondurant brothers are indestructible and unstoppable - that is until Special Agent Charlie Rakes arrives from Chicago with plans to shake things up and put an end to the bootlegging. Yet, when the law becomes corrupt, the Bondurant brothers become outlaws fighting to save the people they love.

Featuring one of the best ensemble casts this year and starring man of the moment Tom Hardy, Lawless is a movie that should not be missed.

See it if you liked: The Godfather (1972), The Untouchables (1987), True Grit (2010)

Dredd


Director: Pete Travis
Cast: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey
Release Date: 7th September

In a violent future the world is a wasteland, victim to an unspecified fallout. Somewhere off an eastern coast lies Mega City One - a vast metropolis home to streets ruled by druglords and criminals. The only thing fighting for order amongst the deadly chaos is the urban police force known as 'Judges', who possess the combined power of Judge, Jury and Executioner. Dredd is the ultimate judge, challenged with scouring the city of its latest drug-fuelled trend - a new substance by the name of "Slo-mo" that has its users experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed. When Dredd captures one of her clan's inner circle, crimelord Ma-Ma wages a brutal war against the Judges. With the gory body count climbing and no way out, Dredd and Anderson confront the odds and engage in a relentlessly bloody battle for their survival.

Dredd 3D looks to be a darkly gory comic-book adaptation, with Karl Urban giving us a much more subdued, mysterious Dredd than we have seen previously.

See it if you liked: The Raid (2011), Attack The Block (2011), The Matrix (1999)

Looper


Director: Rian Johnson
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt
Release Date: 28th September

In the year 2047, a 25 year old killer named Joseph Simmons works for the mafia as a "Looper". Loopers kill and dispose of targets sent back in time from the future, acting as foot soldiers and paid on the terms that all of their targets must never escape. When Joseph recognizes his latest target as a future version of himself, his older self escapes after incapacitating him. The resulting failure of his job causes his employers to come after him, forcing him to fight for his life as he hunts his older self to kill him and "close the loop".

  
Looper is shaping up to be 2012's most original, exciting movie. The paradoxical situation of a man (quoting the posters here) hunted by his future and haunted by his past is incredibly intriguing, and where most action movies have a good vs. evil theme with a fairly predictable ending, Looper is the standout film of the year which demands to be taken seriously.

See it if you liked: Inception (2010), The Matrix (1999), The Butterfly Effect (2004)

September is a fantastic month for movies, so check back to Movies Under The Microscope for reviews of all of these films.

Still to come this week: full reviews of Total Recall, Lawless and Dredd 3D.