By both commercial and critical standards, 2007 will be a great year for films.
The year kicks off with a standard selection of Egyptian comedies and a couple of action films which coincided with Eid Al-Adha. Nothing in the Egyptian cinematic calendar looks encouraging thus far except for the Hala Khalil s Cut & Paste , already given the thumbs up from The Daily Star Egypt staff.
Various independent films will be screened some time this year including Hide & Seek and Special Relations, but both are to be avoided.
Egyptian heartthrob Ahmed El Sakka re-teams with Mona Zaki for the Tamer Habib s scripted Taymour we Shafika and young filmmaker Amir Ramsis rebounds from his critically slammed The End of The World (due in mid-January) with An Account Report to be released in the summer.
Actress Nabeela Ebied makes her comeback with the musical None but That! directed by Khaled El Hagar and Ahmed Adam returns with another silly project in the shape of Good Morning Lying.
Scriptwriter Mohamed Hefzy releases El Tourbini, a remake of The Rain Man that s destined to cement his name among the most inconsequential writers of our time.
As for the comedy blockbusters; Hani Ramzy leaves politics behind and stars with the Lebanese band The Four Cats in A Cop and Four Cats, while Mohamed Heneidi will try to save his fading stardom with Antara Bin Shadad and of course, Egypt s box-office champion Mohamed Saad, and his symbol of cultural deterioration, reunites with the El Sobky production for, you guessed it, another Limby film entitled El Limby & Juliet.
The only two films that many critics will be closely watching are renowned filmmaker Mohamed Khan s Masr El-Gedida Apartment starring Khaled Abol El Naga and Ghada Adel and Yousef Chahine s politically charged Is it Chaos?
The number of promising foreign films is staggering and exciting. The year will start off with the Oscar contenders headed by Alejandro González Iñárritu s Babel, a sprawling film about failure of communication that takes place in five different continents starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.
Clint Eastwood delivers a double WW2 film combo with Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, while Alfonso Cuarón presents his bleak view of the near future in Children of Men starring Clive Owen and Julianne Moore.
Sylvester Stallone reprises his Rocky role for one last time in well received Rocky Balboa, while Guillermo del Toro ( Blade 2 , Hellboy ) directs Pan s Labyrinth, a fantastical story of a girl finding magic in a fascist Franco ruled Spain.
Helen Mirren is a shoe-in for next year s Oscar best actress award for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen .
Bill Condon s musical Dreamgirls starring Beyoncé Knowles, Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, is guaranteed to satisfy all the genre s fans and watch out for the new version of W. Somerset Maugham s The Painted Veil starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton in a story about love, infidelity and salvation.
2007 will be another big year for comic book adoptions and sequels; Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four 2, Beowulf, Sin City 2 and 300 . It s Spidey s last spin with Spider-Man 3 that might end up topping the 2007 s box-office.
Spidey will be facing a serious challenge to this year s box-office champion. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World s End will mark the end of one of the most successful franchises in history.
Other big sequels to be released in 2007 include Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Live Free or Die Hard, Ocean s 13, The Bourne Ultimatum, Evan Almighty starring Steve Carell, Rush Hour 3, Shrek 3 and 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to the British horror smash 28 Days Later .
For horror film fans, 2007 is filled with plenty of them as usual. The one film all horror enthusiasts will be waiting to see is Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez s Grind House starring Kurt Russell and Rosario Dawson.
Fantasy lovers are to keep an eye on The Golden Compass, a blockbuster that s been described as the new Lord of the Rings starring Nicole Kidman and Dakota Fanning.
Many an established film auteur will make a long, overdue return in 2007. Indie fans are counting the days for the release of Paul Thomas Anderson s ( Magnolia , Boogie Nights ) There Will Be Blood about greed, family and religion in the turn-of-the-century Texas starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
Layer Cake s director Matthew Vaughn unveils his sophomore film with Stardust starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, Vadim Perelman s follow-up to House of Sand and Fog is The Giver starring Jeff Bridges, David Finsher ( Seven, Fight Club ) finally unleashes his The Chronicles, a true story about the notorious Zodiac San Francisco serial killer.
Ridley Scott gets another chance to redeem himself after the terrible A Good Year with American Gangsters starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.
For art film aficionados, there s no other film to get excited about more than Kar Wai Wong s first American film My Blueberry Nights led by an all-star cast that features singer Norah Jones, Natalie Portman, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz.
Three of the greatest French filmmakers are also set to release new films this year. Alain Resnais Private Fears in Public Places is already touted as a contender for next year s best film honor while Eric Rohmer s Les amours d Astree et de Celadon , Jacques Rivette s Hands Off the Axe are set to make waves in the festivals circuit.
Finally, there s a couple of German film that, if the hype s true, might provide general film lovers with a real treat. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck s The Life of Others, about a secret service agent stalking a celebrity couple in Eastern Germany, is said to be the best film German film since Run Lola Run.
The second one is Perfume, the most expensive German film in history starring Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman. The film has out-grossed every European film this year and is on overhaul Amélie.
All in all, Happy New Year, keep watching good films and pray the lord to deliver us from El Limby.
