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Friday, March 29, 2024
Moonrise Kingdom
(L to R) Bill Murray as Mr. Bishop, Tilda Swinton as Social Services, Bruce Willis as Captain Sharp, Edward Norton as Scout Master Ward, and Frances McDormand as Mrs. Bishop in Wes Anderson’s MOONRISE KINGDOM, a Focus Features release. Credit: Focus Features

Appreciating the past, looking to the future

The end is nigh. In only two excruciatingly short weeks I’ll be graduating from the Badger state’s finest institution of higher learning, finally earning that elusive descriptor of “real adult”—or more likely just “that depressed guy who drinks at the Union all day and pretends he’s still a student here, drowning his delusions in pint after pint of Spotted Cow.”

We have come to the conclusion of my two-year tenure as The Daily Cardinal’s film columnist, and I can honestly say it was one of my most cherished aspects of my last four years in Madison.

My time at the Cardinal gave me a podium from which to profess my movie nerd inner-dialogue and an audience that would listen and even talk back. It gave me a valid excuse to attend both the Sundance Film Festival and South By Southwest, resulting in some of the most memorable weeks of my life.

And perhaps most importantly, it kept me thinking. Never stop thinking about the movies you see, the books you read or the TV shows you watch. Don’t just let them wash over you, because when you learn something from them, when you discern intriguing new ideas or internalize some new way of thinking about life, that’s when entertainment changes from being something to pass the time into meaningful art that has the power to change our perspective and offer real benefits to our lives.

I concluded this column last year with a list of my five favorite movies of all time. But enough about me. While I may be leaving you, you’ll have plenty of worthy distractions to quell your thirst for nerdy cinema discourse, as the lineup of movies to be released in 2012 is quite possibly the most enticing I’ve seen in years. So together let’s gander at the succulent cinematic offerings that await us in the year ahead.

“Moonrise Kingdom” (May 25)

It’s Wes Anderson, now set in the 1960s. What more can be said? While Anderson’s particular brand of stylish auteur filmmaking can be very hit-or-miss with viewers, if you usually love him, “Moonrise Kingdom” looks to be no exception. Edward Norton and Bruce Willis now join the typical Anderson faces like Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in this story of two young lovers who flee their small town together, eliciting a manhunt lead by Boy Scout troop leader Willis.

“Prometheus” (June 8)

In his 1979 sci-fi masterpiece “Alien,” director Ridley Scott revived and reinterpreted the genre of gothic horror in a way few had done since Edgar Allan Poe. He molded the genre to not just a new era in time but a new artistic medium as well. “Prometheus” promises a return for Scott to the fictional universe he first brought to life in “Alien,” even if the classic creature doesn’t make an appearance in the same fashion we remember it. Any of the numerous trailers and clips released thus far will surely wet your appetite, and judging by Internet buzz, “Prometheus” is certainly one of the most highly anticipated releases of the year.

“Looper” (September 28)

Over winter break I read the script for writer/director Rian Johnson’s (“Brick,” “The Brothers Bloom”) stylized sci-fi neo-noir project “Looper,” but by the end I wished I hadn’t. The story is so well executed, original, intriguing and overall terrific that I wish I could see the film for the first time without already knowing what’s to come. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the titular Looper, a futuristic mob-employed hit man who one day fails to finish off his target (Bruce Willis). As a future version of himself, he must correct his mistake or die trying—it feels like it could be the “Inception” of 2012.

“Gravity” (November 21)

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Starring that silver fox George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as the only two actors on screen for the vast majority of the film, “Gravity” follows the intensely realistic struggle for survival of two astronauts stranded in space after an orbital accident destroys their space station and kills off the rest of their colleagues.

Written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón (the man behind some of the most impressive single-take cinematography I’ve ever seen in his brilliant dystopic sci-fi masterpiece “Children of Men”), “Gravity” seems poised to dazzle film geeks yet again with its reportedly seventeen-minute continuous opening shot through the inky expanses of space.

“Django Unchained” (December 25)

While Will Smith may have dropped off this latest Quentin Tarantino project, plenty of big names still abide, including Tarantino-standby Samuel L. Jackson and recent Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz.

They are now joined by Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Sacha Baron Cohen, RZA and many other newcomers to the Tarantino cavalcade. With “Django Unchained,” Tarantino has set out to create an American “southern” to explore the dark specter of slavery in our nation’s past with his unique style of reference-laden filmgeekery. It’ll be an excellent, if a bit odd, Christmas present for film lovers everywhere.

As I bid my final adieus, I’d like to say thanks. Thanks to Jacqueline O’Reilly, my friend and first editor, who got me started on this wonderful path despite having no prior journalistic experience, as well as all my exceedingly helpful editors thereafter.

Thanks to all my friends who have come to the movies with me and kept the discussion going long after the credits finished rolling.

Thanks to my mom for catalyzing my cinematic obsession early in life by taking me to innumerable Friday afternoon showings, back when you had to buy a newspaper to check the times.

And thanks to every single one of my readers, because you gave me a damn good excuse to continue indulging my nerdy side for the last two years. Keep on watching good movies.

Say your final goodbyes and send your thanks to David at dcottrell@wisc.edu.

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