Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
Leonardo DiCaprio stars conman in Steven Spielberg's Catph me if you Can released next month
FIL
What’s gonna be good, what’s gonna be big, what’s coming from Hollywood, from around the world and from back home in Scotland and the rest of the UK. Words: Miles Fielder
ilm of the year? Hard to pick
one. harder to know what“
wow audiences rather than woe them. But. writing at the butt end of 2002. I'll pick The Hulk (18 Jul). an adaptation of the Marvel comic that mixes Jekyll and Hyde with Superman in the tragic story of mild mannered scientist Bruce Banner (played by Chopper star Eric Bana - no relation) who turns into a green behemoth with unlimited strength when he gets angry. Why's it likely to be so great? Because it's been filmed by the learn that brought you Crouching Tiger. Hidden Dragon: director Ang Lee and writer James Schamus. These guys do no wrong.
The Hu/k's not the only Superhero movie. either. Mr Jenny Lopez. Ben Affleck. pulls on the red lycra to play the blind martial arts master and man without fear. Daredewl (14 Feb). X—Men 2 (date tbc) returns to the story of the mutant heroes. and if it's as good as the first film. it might be a good year for comic adaptations.
Once again. expect plenty of sequels and remakes from Hollywood. After Analyze This comes
Scottish hopes pinned on The Last Great Wilderness
Analyze That (28 Feb). Drew. Cameron and Lucy are back in Charlie '3 Angels: Full Throttle (4 Jul). Then there's Lara Croft and the Cradle of Life: Tomb Raider 2 (22 Aug). Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney making like Russian auteurs in a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's cerebral 1972 science
fiction thriller. Solaris (17 Jan) and Arnie
Schwarzenegger attempting to reanimate his dying career with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (1 Aug). We are. however. excited about the next instalment of the cyberpunk saga. The Matrix: Reloaded (date tbc). and The Lord of the Rings' final chapter (boo-hoe). The Return of the King (Dec).
What about original films coming out of America? Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman follow up their brilliant Being John Malkovich with Adaptation (Feb). a comic account of the efforts of sereenwriter Kaufman (played by Nicholas Cage) to adapt Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief. Kaufman has also penned Human Nature (date tbc). which stars ex-ex- Mrs Cage Patricia Arquette in a story about a woman in love with a man in love with another woman. all three of whom have designs on a y0ung man raised as an ape.
Alexander Payne. who made the very
fine satire Election, is back with About Schmidt (24 Jan). a drama about an old codger who's wasted his life that might win star Jack Nicholson an Oscar. George Clooney makes his directing debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
(date tbc). in which the Cloonster plays
a gay FBI agent. and then returns in the Coen brothers' next film. the comedy thriller Intolerable Cruelty (6 Jun).
Todd Haynes pays homage to Douglas Sirk-style melodrama in Far from Heaven (Mar). Bebecca Miller — daughter of Arthur. husband of Daniel Day Lewis — adapts her own book about three women reaching crisis points in their lives. Personal Velocity (28 Mar). PT Anderson (Magnolia) takes a shot at making Adam Sandler look good in Punch Drunk Love (7 Feb). And George Clooney returns again to play a wheelchair-bound safe cracker in the offbeat comedy Welcome to Col/inwood (21 Feb).
From elsewhere around the globe comes Dark Water (Mar). another chiller from Japanese director Hideo Nakata. whose earlier film. Ring, has been plagiarised by Hollywood (as The Ring — see for yourself 21 Feb). For gentle comedy. Dutch-style. check out El/ing (14 Mar). and for more Asian madness see the musical/horror/ animated comedy The Happiness of the Katakuris (Feb). The rape revenge drama Irreversible (31 Jan) comes loaded with a strong warning abOut its expliCit content. but it's also a fine piece of Cinema. Japdn (21 Feb) continues Mexico's reign of world cinema supremacy. while Roman
Catherine Zeta- Jonesin Chicago (this month)
Polanski gets to grips with his childhood in the Warsaw ghetto in Palme d‘Or-winning The Pianist (24 Jan).
And how about the UK? It could be a good year with Stephen Daldry following up Billy Elliot by directing an unrecognisable Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (14 Feb). Peter Mullan exposing abuse in an Irish convent in the award-winning The Magdalene Sisters (23 Feb). Alex Cox updating Thomas Middleton's Jacobean drama A Revengers Tragedy (14 Feb) to a futuristic Liverpool and DaVid Cronenberg coming to East End London to tell the stery of roving lunatic Spider (17 Jan).
There are a few interesting Scottish debuts. too: Richard Jobson's Edinburgh-set semi- autobiographical drama 16 Years of Alcohol (Aug) and young David Mackenzie. scoring first with The Last Great Wilderness (Mar) and then with an adaptation of Scots beat writer Alexander Trocchi‘s novel YOung Adam (date tbc). which stars Tilda Swinton and Ewan McGregor.
And for news of Quentin Tarantino see the books preview over the page.