11 Things We're Looking Forward to the Most in 2011

So, fuck 2010. We're living in the future now. It's 2011. We've only got four years to prepare for hydrated pizza, bionic implants in bullies and 3-D Sequels to 80s movies (hey, they got that one right!). So, needless to say, 2011 is going to be a very hip year. Actually the term now I believe is "Fly." It'll be so fly that the G6 is going to look like a fucking crop duster. Anyway, for the sake of gimmicks, here's 11 Things We're Most Looking Forward to in 2011:

#11: Battle: Los Angeles (03/11/11) - I already rambled a bit about this back here, and there is a decent chance for a misfire based on a trailer that shows none of its leading actor (Aaron Eckhart),little of its typecast leading actress (Michelle Rodriguez...as a Tough Hispanic Army Chick! Whoa!) and surging, manipulative cool moments placed together through good editing rather than anything really new or cool. But dammit, we want this to be cool...and that's the point here.

#10: Drive Angry (02/25/11) - Hell yeah, insane Cage movies! Amber Heard, the Cage escapes from Hell, all in Glourious Extra Dimensions! That is, one extra dimension from normal movies. You know, the one we live in. Anyway, this seems all sorts of crazy, which is really the best kind of films Cage can do. Shit like Season of the Witch (2011) that opens this week tends to take its idiotic shit too seriously. Drive Angry can do some damage. Or be terrible, who cares, this is a wishlist. Here's the trailer.

#9: The Thing (10/14/11) - while the idea of a prequel to John Carpenter's original The Thing (1982) seems retarded on paper, this may not be that terrible. The early production stills have seemed promising as is a feeling that the film will employ more practical effects than its contemporaries, part of what made the original (also a remake by the way) so terrifying. Will it be able to capture the claustrophobic paranoia so well? The problem with any prequel or sequel really is that even as good as they might replicate the tone of their original, it substitutes imitation over innovation. So, balls. But Mary Elizabeth Winstead is hot, so despite the Antarctic Setting, there's that.

#8: Cowboys & Aliens (07/29/11) - An incredible cast, a director who doesn't have to fill his film with Avengers Easter Eggs and what looks to be a solid treatment of a ridiculous premise, everyone is excited for this film. When you think Cowboy, you of course think Daniel Craig, and Harrison Ford looks like he's really eager to chew on this role after some decent if not middling hero roles and then of course, some standard rape. If all holds out this could be a nice hit this summer.

#7: Sucker Punch (03/25/11) - The Jailbait event of the Season! You can smell a Zack Snyder flick from miles away these days. Incredible visuals, dark subject matter, pushing boundaries of taste, themes and CGI. Then again, there's Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010). Yeah, what the fuck? Anyway, I'm as excited for this as I've been for any Snyder film, which I know now to take a couple grains of salt into the theater. The only question left with Zack is really whether or not Superman be raping Lois slow-mo?

#6: Harry Pothead and the Deathly Swallows, Fart II (07/15/11) - It's all coming down to this one, folks. Will this Harry Potter be good enough to be nominated for something other than Art Direction or Original Score at the Oscars? Or will it win...anything? This is really a moment unlike any other in our cinematic history, the conclusion of a decade long foretold journey with these characters, every arc is wrapped up here. While the books have been alright, the movies are clearly much better. This should be a huge event if the First Part that came out this November is an indication of our very wet appetites. These are exciting times. Especially because by 2013 ABC Family will be able to run full Marathons during its Harry Potter Weekends every other week. Finally!

#5: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (07/01/11) - Speaking of iconic franchises concluding next July, finally we'll get the ending to the epic Transformers Saga. I actually like how Bay has mostly made each of these films decently self-contained, which certainly helps people jump in to the story just about anywhere. While the title is absolutely stupid (apparently we can just take words out of album titles now and slap them on something completely different, nevermind the vagueness which actually seems like it's describing something integral). This looks really, really dumb actually. I'm down for some explosions and important speeches though, which Bay does very well. Man that trailer is bad. It's like, why this conspiracy crap? No one cares about that, it doesn't make any sense. How did they reverse engineer cell phones from Megatron? Ugh. I gave Revenge of the Fallen (2009) a very thorough examination when it came out though, looking forward to holding Dark of the Moon to the same standards. I just hope this is cool.

#4: Year of the Portman - Calling this as Natalie Portman's year. She's got three high profile pictures coming out and could be riding an Academy Award, or at least tons of critical kudos for Black Swan (2010) heading into it. A lot of these films could definitely be pretty shitty though. She starts with No Strings Attached (01/21/11) alongside Ashton Kutcher, who is famous for making as many good movies in his career as Dane Cook. The Red Band Trailer, though (which was released in a 45-minute interval on the web and then disappeared everywhere, I cannot find this bastard) was somehow both very funny and ridiculously sexy. She's then got Medieval Stoner Flick Your Highness (04/08/11), which has a chance of at least starring two Academy Award nominees (herself and Franco), if not winners. Which is staggering. This is also a toss-up for me, I don't think it looks funny at all, but apparently everyone else does. Finally, the chick's in Thor (05/06/11), which I'll get into more later. With admittedly a lot of speculation, this could be a great year for Natalie. If she releases any more Lonely Island Rap Singles, it's a lock.

#3: Detox by Dr. Dre (February?, 2011) - Supposedly Dre is dropping Detox this year, though we've all thought the same thing for about the last six years. Regardless, our hopes and dreams believe this is coming and when it does it's almost sure to be incredible. The released track "Kush" is pretty decent and though Dre has only release two solo albums in the past twenty years they're both incredible. The Chronic (1992) is still a landmark rap album and 2001 (1999) is a classic. The level of time put into Detox and frequent delays have increased angry hype, Dre's track record is spectacular, though it's easier to not fuck up two albums rather than ten. It looks good for Detox coming out this year although there's no release date for such a big album coming up next month supposedly. Here's to hoping it lives up to is long and storied production.

#2: The Return of Parks and Recreation (01/20/11) - In just a few weeks now we'll get back one of the best shows of the past few years, NBC's Parks and Rec, starring Amy Poehler. I can't believe this was shelved for half a season to make room for Outsourced (which had three spectacular jokes over the past half-season). I guess NBC was in this weird position to either grow its line-up of old unwatched but critically loved sitcoms or try to innovate new unwatched but critically loved sitcoms. Hey, that's a tough choice. But Parks and Rec is an incredible show and it'll be good to be back in our Thursday Lives.

#1: THOR (05/06/11) - Alright, let's chat a bit about next summer. The Summer of 2010 was full of fucking terrible movies. Now, is this because of a downturn for Comic Book Properties? I mean, outside of Iron Man 2 we didn't have shit. That's not true because 2009 was incredible mostly off flicks like The Hangover, District 9 and Inglourious Basterds. So no, 2010 just sucked. We're set to have a ridiculous number of Comic Book Flicks in 2011 though. Most of these look terrible. I've seen nothing interesting from Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), mostly because that character isn't all that thrilling. I mean, what are any memorable Captain America storylines? Civil War and that's it. He's got all the powers of Batman but none of the psychosis. I'm smelling a lovely Captain America rant soon, but I'll try to stay on track here.

Green Lantern (2011). One of the worst trailers I've ever seen, and I'm a huge fan! I love Green Lantern comics, some of the Blackest Night arcs have been the best on the shelves in years, but this movie looks so fucking bad. And how have we gotten to the point where all these Fan Made Trailers are far superior? Dammit! We've also got X-Men: First Class, which we've seen nothing about. How are we supposed to get hyped up here, guys?! But then there's Thor. Fucking Thor.



For a while I was wavering back and forth being excited for this, but as of this moment I've landed in the excited column. Thor's a fucking badass and this film is all about that. He's a renegade god, great plastic armour and he's swinging Mjolner around like a boss. It seems like it's probably going to be another 2-hour advertisement for The Avengers (2012), but we're going to have fun along the way. I think this could be the year of Thor, and it'll definitely win the Superhero Derby this Summer, though I'd imagine it loses to Potter and Transformers for the year's box office title.

Honourable Mention: In the Category of "Could Be Cool Shit" we've got: Super 8, Source Code, Unknown, The Green Hornet, The Hangover, Part II and a new Pirates movie for some reason in that order. That's about it, folks. This could be a very exciting year if all the aforementioned things prove to be as cool as I want them to be, the reverse edge of the sword of course being that we'll all be double-disappointed if they suck. Well, pass the beer.