Getting our hopes up: The A.V. Club’s 14 most anticipated releases of 2021
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After the year we’ve all had, it feels like courting disaster to pin any hopes on a wide release that wasn’t manufactured by Pfizer or Moderna. Looking back at what The A.V. Club published when we were still looking forward to 2020, we could’ve just republished some of it wholesale. But credit where it’s due: All but one of the movies in this image managed to see the light of day last year, so maybe our picks aren’t doomed to keep sliding down the calendar pages toward 2022. And if they do? Well, we’ve grown adept at waiting—though movie theaters, record stores, and concert venues don’t have that luxury, so please wear a mask, stop traveling, get vaccinated when and if you can, and maybe we can add “Seeing one another face to face” to this itinerary of everything we want to watch, listen to, play, and read in 2021.
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60 Comments
That’s a fuckin’ lie –> Erased by Kinja.com. Jimmie Spammerfella is an asshole. Fact.
Kirby’s “Eternals” series was so (gloriously) odd. My guess is they’ll stay closer to the Neil Gaiman/John Romita Jr. version, and maybe throw in some bits of the epic story from Thor #300 (or save that for a sequel?). It’s the one I’m most looking forward to from the list above, so fingers crossed they can keep the Kirby weirdness and make it all work!
They were able to pull off that Kirby weirdness in Thor Ragnarok so we’ll see how it translate to Eternals. That is if they do decide to use Kirby’s aesthetics to make it work for a more serious movie?
I guess “detailed” is about the best you can say about the characterization in the Foundation series…
I think “weak” is a better fit. I don’t remember any details of Foundation’s characters at all, frankly.
How DARE you say that about Hober Mallow
I think C. S. Lewis’s prose is like a walk through green and distant hills. In contrast, Asimov is like a crowded outer lane on a drive to the airport.
I vaguely remember an Old Jewish Guy who turned out to be the Mastermind behind The Foundation, which read like Asimov inserting an older version of himself into the narrative….
I raised an eyebrow at that too. I tried to read Foundation a couple of years ago. I finally gave up about 3/4 of the way through. “Detailed”? Maaaaybe if you count the number of unnecessary words and paragraphs used as detailed. Rich, personable, developed, memorable? Definitely not. All boring men with boring concerns. All written the same. And by the time I’d finally get a handle on who was who, there’d be a time jump and everyone would be different. The best thing about Foundation was the initial concept of a society built upon 100% accurate predictive statistics. I DO think there is a lot of potential to improve upon it so I am interested to see how it does.
It came out nearly 70 years ago. I expect the characters will have a lot more depth and more natural dialog in the show.
I’m mixed about Foundation. On the one hand, David “She-Hulk is a Porn Star only the Hulk can Fuck!” Goyer is the showrunner. On the other hand Jared Harris is in it and he’s always great.
Foundation is definitely the one I’m most looking forward to, particular for Lee Pace and my main man Jared Harris
Jared Harris is always great. The only thing I worry about with saying that too much is him getting sucked into the world of prestige Oscar bait films and never doing anything cool ever again. We already lost Colin Firth.
I just started watching The Expanse, and was thrilled when he showed up.
You know Colin Firth did Kingsman AFTER King’s Speech, right? (not that Kingsman is all that great, but at least it shows his willingness to get silly despite winning an Oscar for one of the most middlebrow Oscar bait-y movies in existence.)
At least Goyer isn’t…ya know…running the actual She-Hulk show!
Looking forward to The French Dispatch. I’m way behind on the Hitman games – I really enjoyed the first one (that is, of the “soft reboot” ones, I haven’t played any of the old ones), but I never finished it. It’s the kind of game that has the problem, such as it is, with so much fun stuff to do that it seems like you have to set aside a lot of time to fully get to grips with them, and I just keep drifting away and doing something less massive like brainlessly shooting tanks in World of Tanks.Also, I’m gonna be the guy who pisses and moans about the slideshows today: it’s nice that you’ve put the little note there telling us that we can get rid of the slideshow format by shrinking the browser window, but am I the only one who finds that a little bit… presumptuous? I mean, okay, having to make my browser window a bit smaller is the definition of a first world problem, it’s not a huge thing to do I’ll readily concede that. But at the same time, you guys are the content providers, so it seems a little bit weird for you to be telling the reader that they should be the ones inconveniencing themselves, even if slightly, to accommodate your apparently unpopular and janky website feature. Rather than, well, replacing it with something that would makes the reading experience better and more hassle-free for them.
I mean, the ownership struggles of this site are well documented. The authors who are suggesting shrinking the window aren’t the ones that are choosing to use the format.
True enough, but it still rubs me the wrong way.
I’m personally most excited for Horizon Zero Dawn Forbidden West, just because how much I loved the first part and am truly excited to see how they build on that.
Please no more slideshows
Léa Seydoux was in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
And Shock G once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.
Also Blue is the Warmest Color.
Lol, I mention that because the article mentions Seydoux as a newcomer to Wes Anderson movies.
I’ve gotten my hopes up too much for the horror film, Antlers. That first teaser (those are the only ones I ever watch any more) got under my skin.
I’m most excited for Cyberpunk 2027 to get its full release in 2021, heard mixed things about the beta build they put out in December.
Wandavision for me!Also does the Foundation have any queer characters? I didn’t even know about it until right now, and I’m excited, but hoping for some good ol queer time in a scifi like that.
I don’t recall the original series having any, but the characterization is so thin, I am sure they can include such details, as well as genderswap some characters. The characters are generic, bland, presumably white guys other than the Mule.
I’m sure they’ll insert some. Probably some people of color, too, couple of women.
Also does the Foundation have any queer characters?
Just barely.
The only reason all the leads aren’t White Christian Men is because the writer is a White Jewish Man. Dr. A was…less than great when it came to populating his books with people not like himself and his friends — which I guess Samuel L. Delaney must not have been, really.Sad to realize that Heinlein’s work was more multicultural than Asimov’s….
I’m 50 pages into an advance copy of the Ishiguro and it’s like so much “prestige” science fiction: cliched, conceptually half-baked and stylistically overwrought. Klara is the typical pop culture android, a bright but naive mix of Pinocchio and the Little Mermaid with a pinch of the toy on the store shelf waiting to be loved. I’m hoping the book gets better but I’m not optimistic.
Yeah you know, when I read the synopsis I thought, this guy just ripped off off AI or Ex Machina or Alita… Sounds as rote as they come.
I can’t say that a YA animated Trek series is of any interest to me, but I’m strangely annoyed by the idea that Starfleet would leave a “derelict ship” lying around somewhere. That just isn’t their style.
In unification part 1 (the 2 parter where picard goes to romulus to find spock) one of the plot points is not only do they have shipyards of derelict ships, but someone manages to make off with 2 of them without the staff of the shipyard even noticing
Those ships were stolen from a wrecking yard, as I recall. The only actual “Starfleet derelict” I can think of is The Pegasus. In that case the ship was believed destroyed, so it’s somewhat understandable that Starfleet didn’t try to recover it promptly.
Strange how I can only stomach Adrien Brody in Wes Anderson movies
Did I read that right? Hannibal is getting rebooted by Alex Kurtzmann!?Come on! 2020 was supposed to be the bad year! Leave this shit in the last one, please. I don’t need this.
Can’t wait to fall asleep during another Wes Anderson movie. Try as I may I never understand what people see in them. You do you though.
Throw out your hands
Stick out your tush
Hands on your hips
Give them a push
You’ll be surprised
You’re doing the French Dispatch!
VOILA!
(I can’t be the only one for whom that was the first thought when seeing the title.)
Alright, cut!WROOOOOOOOONG!
I’m ashamed to say I didn’t think of it at all until you said it, EdKed.And now that you have, I really want to see that movie.
I Googled Rebecca Breeds because I’ve never heard of her. Found a picture of her posing for this new show from an article published in February 2020.WTF, CBS?
That Kazuo Ishiguro book sounds like it’s covering some extremely well-trodden ground.
Having a hard time getting excited for a Clarice Starling TV series, particularly one that isn’t allowed to reference Lecter directly. I mean, it could be great, but the combination of the extremely sour ending Harris gave the character in Hannibal and the many times the character has been ripped off (the worst was one season when Criminal Minds wasn’t meeting their blond character quota, so they literally did the beginning of Silence of the Lambs, pulling their notClarice Starling character off her morning run to report to the head of the Serial Killer division) it just doesn’t feel promising. And that’s without the internal countdown until the show introduces Manimal Hector, the cultured super-genius serial killer who’s totally not Hannibal Lecter…
Does Manimal Hechtor wear 80s fashions and turn into a hawk or a cat though?And will he be replaced by super genius madman Manuel Lecturer in S2?
And will he be replaced by super genius madman Manuel Lecturer in S2?I think this show is going to have enough troubles without controversies over foreign serial killers coming to take American serial killers’ jobs, and serial killer romancing our white American FBI women.
I remember being VERY into “Manimal” for a hot minute as a kid (which is as long as the show lasted.) However, I could tell even at a young age they were doing the “Battlestar Galactica” cheap-o route by reusing the same stock footage every episode.
Lazy fuckers.
It certainly seems like it’s just going to be “Generic Serial Killer Procedural, With a Character Who Has The Same Name as This Other Character From a Movie You People Like.”
No Dune? lol… okay.
Patricia doesn’t tweet super often, but damn is it a fun weird ride when she does, worth the follow
[Note to desktop users: If you’d like to view this story in a scrolling layout, you can narrow your browser window.]Or, I don’t know, you could just stop making slideshow articles.
The last of Del Rey’s albums I got into was 2012’s Born to Die. really should check this one out and discover some 2021 Del Rey.
CBS is only making “Clarice” purely out of spite because they lost a bidding war to the rights for Red Dragon and therefore Hannibal Lecter to Gaumont (who produced Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series). So rather than sell the rights to the one novel they do own (Silence of the Lambs) to Gaumont, they are making a show that can only use characters first introduced in The Silence of the Lambs – Clarice, Barney, Ardelia? From the trailer, we’ll be seeing Buffalo Bill in flashbacks too it seems. Am I forgetting anyone? Maybe the Senator could make an appearance? The showrunners, writers, and actors could of course take CBS’ motives and still polish them into gold (Kurtzman is very hit or miss), but not a lot of encouraging signs about this one.
How anyone could look forward to anything by Wes Anderson baffles me. His work gives the words “twee” and “precious” oceans of new meaning.
I’m excited for “The Green Knight” honestly 🙂
What self-respecting “Star Trek” fan is excited about the return of Captain Janeway?
Patricia Lockwood has thee coolest last name
I dunno about Eternals. Could be Guardians of the Galaxy good. Or New Mutants bad.