Happy New Year! (and my 12 wishes for 2014)

Happy New Year, Everybody!

My 12 cinematic wishes for 2014:

"I wish..."

1. Scarlett Johansson gets her first Oscar nomination for her voice-only performance in Spike Jonze's Her;

2. Twelve Years a Slave takes home the Academy Award for Best Picture;

3. Sundance Film Festival 2014 features some independent filmmaking gems;

4. Woody Allen announces his 2015 movie will be a family-drama and casts a big couple of actresses I have in mind (what about a muse reunion + Cate Blanchett?);

5. Christopher Nolan's Interstellar becomes a critical and box-office success;

6. people stop loving Jennifer Lawrence in such a crazy and irrational way (I like her a lot as an actress, she's one of the best by far, but if all this madness is making me start getting tired of her);

7. some Hollywood producer/director announces a big musical movie is going to be made (I kinda miss all the enthusiasm around an upcoming musical, the buzz, the early reports, discussing the differences between movie version and Broadway production...);

8. good "Summer movies" - it's almost impossible to ask for prestige award-worthy movies during May, June, July and August, but we can demand solid and well-made popcorn entertainment from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, How To Train Your Dragon 2, 22 Jump Street or X-Men: Days of the Future Past, Jupiter Ascending, among others...

9. Tim Burton's Big Eyes has the same level of quality of Ed Wood's - it is always nice to see Burton not doing a big-budget fantasy movie, specially when his best work were low-budget productions like Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas or Ed Wood;

10. Natalie Portman's comeback... I never thought I would say this, but I kinda miss her in the big screen (Thor: The Dark World wasn't good enough for me);

11. Ryan Gosling not playing a silent "robot" or some kind of driver, because it's hard to see directors wasting his talent by giving him the same kind of character to play;

12. a great team starts working on The Girl Who Played With Fire (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sequel) and get David Fincher to be behind the camera once again, he did a brilliant job with the first installement, but please, I can't wait for news about this project.

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