2013 Least Anticipated Movies (Page #14)

In 1994, Korean-American teenager, Hyun Jae, went to a bar in New Mexico where a handsome young man posing as a firefighter offered her a ride home. She was abducted and smuggled into Las Vegas where she was imprisoned as a sex slave for two years. During her captivity, Hyun Jae (dubbed Eden by her captors) ensured her own survival by steadily carving out power and influence within the very organization that imprisoned her. Inspired by the complex and harrowing true story of human trafficking survivor Chong Kim, Eden peers into the darkest corners of America and attempts to discover the humanity within.

Inside Llewyn Davis follows a week in the life of a young folk singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.

Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is at a crossroads. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New York Winter, he is struggling to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles – some of them of his own making. Living at the mercy of both friends and strangers, scaring up what work he can find, Llewyn’s misadventures take him from the basket houses of the village to an empty Chicago club – on an odyssey to audition for music mogul Bud Grossman – and back again.

Tells the story of a Syrian expatriate (Alexander Siddig) whose journalist daughter goes missing in Damascus. He returns to his homeland to find her and calls on a former flame (Marisa Tomei) to help him, as well as an embassy official (Joshua Jackson) who may have an agenda of his own.

A 21st century Jack the Ripper set in the present day, MANIAC is a reboot of the cult film considered by many to be the most suspenseful slasher movie ever made. Frank (Elijah Wood, in a tour de force performance) is the withdrawn owner of a mannequin store, but his life changes when young artist Anna appears asking for his help with her new exhibition. As their friendship develops and Frank’s obsession escalates and the number of victims increases, it becomes clear that Frank is far more dangerous than he seems. With a pulsating electronic score by Rob, the film is an intimate, visually daring, psychologically complex and profoundly horrific trip into the downward spiraling nightmare of a killer and his victims.

Former Mayor Ed Koch is the quintessential New Yorker. Still ferocious, charismatic, and hilariously blunt, the now 88-year-old Koch ruled New York from 1978 to 1989—a down-and-dirty decade of grit, graffiti, near-bankruptcy and rampant crime. First-time filmmaker (and former Wall Street Journal reporter) Neil Barsky has crafted a revealing portrait of this intensely private man, his legacy as a political titan, and the town he helped transform. His three terms included a fiercely competitive 1977 election; the burgeoning AIDS epidemic; landmark housing initiatives; and an irreparable municipal corruption scandal. Through candid interviews and rare archival footage, Koch thrillingly chronicles the personal and political toll of running the world’s most wondrous city.

Follows the real life rock-n-roll fairy tale story of Filipino Arnel Pineda, who was plucked from YouTube to become the front man for iconic American rock band, Journey, thereby becoming the latest performer to go from the Internet to real life celebrity. Having already overcome a life full of painful obstacles and now saddled with the immense pressures of leading a world renowned band and replacing a legendary singer, the film follows Arnel on this personal journey.

Years after a cruel kids’ prank during a birthday party for 8-year-old Tommy (Tommy Knight, Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures) left hired clown Richard “Stitches” Grindle (Ross Noble) dead on the kitchen floor, the childhood friends gather to plan a birthday bash to end all bashes. But they haven’t counted on the degenerate jester rising from the grave to seek vengeance on the children who mocked him and caused his grisly, untimely end.

Now Tommy and his teenage friends are on the run from an undead jokester who’s ready to use every trick in the book (and many that aren’t) to exact his revenge. Dead Meat writer-director Conor McMahon delivers a delirious slasher epic, a hilariously twisted and blood-soaked tale of one very bad clown with a talent for making balloon animals – but with one very hideous difference.

A documentary about the exile of Futaba’s residents, the region housing the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Since the 1960s, Futaba had been promised prosperity with tax breaks and major subsidies to compensate for the presence of the power plant. The town’s people have now lost their homeland. Through their agonies and frustrations, the film questions the real cost of capitalism and nuclear energy.

The day after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11, 2011, Futaba locals heard the hydrogen explosion at Reactor Number 1 and were showered with nuclear fallout. In response, the Japanese government designated the whole town as an “exclusion zone” and 1,400 of the town’s residents fled to an abandoned high school 250 kilometers away. The entire community, including the Town Hall office, was moved into the four-story building, making the residents nuclear refugees.

The film portrays the evacuees as the nuclear disaster situation changes over time. One of them is Ichiro Nakai, a farmer who lost his wife, his home, and his rice fields in the massive tsunami. Doing his best to cope with the monotony of life at the evacuation center, he struggles to wipe away the haunting memories and start a new life with his son. The two finally get an official permit to enter the exclusion zone to visit their hometown. There, they see that their worst fears have become reality...

A sketch comedy movie starring Adrien Brody as "Flirty Harry," a tough, no nonsense cop with a soft middle and a flair for fashion; Rob Schneider in a dual role as both a sleazy, horny psychologist and a curmudgeonly porn critic alongside his enthusiastic counterpart Michelle Rodriguez; Lindsay Lohan living out her fantasy of taking an ultimate revenge on the salivating paparazzi who haunt her, and Ari Shaffir as "The Amazing Racist," whose hilariously offensive hidden-camera encounters with members of different ethnic and minority groups push everyone's buttons.

If a political candidate is personally flawed, but stands to make a positive difference in millions of lives, would you help him win? That question looms over the life of “true believer” Paul Turner (Rob Lowe), a savvy strategist sharply maneuvering politicians out of scandal and into public office. With the help of a bright young assistant (Jamie Chung) and a seedy operative (Richard Schiff), Turner spins every news cycle and a shrewd reporter (Julie Bowen) on behalf of his clients: a philandering Kentucky governor (Eric McCormick), a blackmailed California senator (David Harbour), and an idealistic doctor turned gubernatorial candidate (Carrie-Anne Moss). When the ugly side of Turner’s work begins to haunt him, he learns that even in the bloodiest of battles, sometimes you have to fight clean.

A sexual examination of Abby (Robin Weigert), a forty something married wealthy, lesbian housewife who, after suffering a blow to the head from getting smacked by her son’s baseball—walks around every corner of her suburban life to confront a mounting desire for something else. She takes on a new project and purchases a pied-à-terre in Manhattan. Walking around the city streets reminds Abby what it feels like to be sexy, and her pent-up libido shakes off its inhibitions. Her newfound desire though is not a take-home item, so Abby inaugurates a double life as a high end escort.

In the 30 years since The Shining's film release, a considerable cult of Shining devotees has emerged, fans who claim to have decoded the film’s secret messages addressing everything from the genocide of Native Americans to a range of government conspiracies. Rodney Ascher’s Room 237 fuses fact and fiction through interviews with cultists and scholars, creating a kaleidoscopic deconstruction of Kubrick’s still-controversial classic.

Leigh (Kristen Bell) is almost 30, and living a seemingly perfect life in New York. But when her career and love life both come crashing down, she flees to her suburban hometown and regresses right back into teenage life and behavior. She moves into her old room with her parents, hangs around with friends who never left town, and reclaims her high school job as a condo-complex lifeguard. But as Leigh enjoys shirking adult life and responsibilities and enters into an illicit affair, she begins a chain reaction that affects those closest to her.

Mother and daughter vampires arrive in a small British town revealing their secret. A teenager dying of leukemia struggles with his mortality, causing the teen vampire to struggle with her own immortality.

A ruthless criminal gang takes a young couple hostage and goes to ground in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. When the captive girl is killed, the tables are unexpectedly turned. The gang finds themselves outsmarted by an urbane and seasoned killer determined to ensure that no one lives.

Golshifteh Farahani plays a soft-spoken woman in an unnamed, war-torn Middle Eastern country. As war rages around her, her husband lies in a coma and she is forced to send her two children to live with her aunt, she struggles to keep her husband alive. After falling into a relationship with a young soldier, she begins a secret dialogue with her ailing husband as a means of freeing herself.

A group of African men leave Senegal in a pirogue captained by a local fisherman to undertake the treacherous crossing of the Atlantic to Spain where they believe better lives and prospects are waiting for them.