What can we expect in cinemas this year as alternatives to the unending stream of remakes and sequels from the US studios?

Well, we can look forward to a bunch of original movies from distinctive directors including the always-watchable Coen brothers, the suddenly prolific Terrence Malick and the usually dependable Steven Soderbergh, Michael Winterbottom, Barry Levinson, Andrew Dominik, John Hillcoat and Walter Salles.

Further enriching the mix is an eclectic array of foreign language fare from filmmakers such as Mexico’s Gerardo Naranio, Iran’s Asghar Farhadi, Norway’s Morten Tyldum, France’s Jean-Marc Vallée and Lebanon’s Nadine Labaki.

All that plus the big screen debut of Kath and Kim.

Looking at the talent involved and the often adventurous storylines, I think 2012 may be a more memorable year for independent films from the US, Europe and elsewhere. And while this is a rare and possibly rash prediction, the Australian line-up could be the strongest and most diverse in many years.

February 2 marks the debut of Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist, a silent black and white movie which some pundits rate as the front runner for best picture Oscar after it won numerous critics awards in the US. “An infinitely charming and incredibly clever homage to the Golden Age of silent film: as authentic and believable as if it were made circa 1927,” enthused Film School Rejects’ Simon Gallagher.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis is based on the life of musician Dave van Ronk, who was part of  the folk music scene that blossomed in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. Oscar Isaac, who appeared in Drive and Sucker Punch, plays the lead role alongside Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund and Coens’ regular John Goodman.

After making just five films in 38 years, Terrence Malick follows The Tree of Life with an untitled drama about a serial philanderer who reconnects with a woman from his home town after his marriage fails, with a fabulous cast headed by Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem and Jessica Chastain.

Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire is an espionage thriller starring Gina Carano of American Gladiators as an undercover operative who’s double-crossed and seeks revenge. Soderbergh sensibly surrounded Gina with an all-star cast of Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas and Channing Tatum.

Based on the Thomas Hardy novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna is a romantic tragedy set in contemporary India involving the son of a wealthy property developer and the daughter of a rickshaw driver, featuring Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto and Riz Ahmed.

The producers of Paranormal Activity hired Barry Levinson to direct and co-write The Bay, a horror movie using supposedly “found footage” about a deadly plague which infects the residents of a quiet seaside town.

 Brad Pitt plays an enforcer who investigates a heist in New Orleans that occurs during a high stakes, mob-organised poker game in Cogan’s Trade, reuniting with Australian director Andrew Dominik with whom he worked in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Dominik cast fellow Aussies Ben Mendelsohn and Bella Heathcote alongside Scoot McNairy, Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini and Sam Shepard.

John Hillcoat is renowned for directing dark dramas The Road and The Proposition and he continues in that vein with Wettest Country, a tale of brotherhood, greed and murder based on the true story of novelist Matt Bondurant’s grandfather and two granduncles. It’s usually a good sign when top-notch actors are attracted to such material, reflected in the cast led by Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain, Gary Oldman, Noah Taylor and Mia Wasikowska.

Walter Salles’ On the Road is inspired by the seminal beatnik novel by Jack Kerouac which follows a young man as he travels the roads and railways of America in the late 1940s, starring Sam Riley, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Garrett Hedlund, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi and Viggo Mortensen.

If you enjoyed writer-director Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, watch out for his Seven Psychopaths, the saga of a novice screenwriter (Colin Farrell) who’s struggling to find inspiration for his latest work and seeks the help of his best friend (Sam Rockwell), an unemployed actor and dog thief. Woody Harrelson plays a psychopathic gangster whose dog is stolen.

After Derek Cianfrance's striking directorial debut Blue Valentine, I’m looking forward to his follow-up, The Place Beyond the Pines, which again stars Ryan Gosling, this time as a motorcycle stuntman who’s forced to contemplate a life of crime to provide for his family, putting him at odds with a former cop turned politician (Bradley Cooper).

Michelle Williams, who was terrific in Blue Valentine, plays a travel writer who’s married to a celebrated cookbook author (Seth Rogen) and has a destructive affair in Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz.

After The Beaver flopped, Mel Gibson will be looking to regain his mojo in How I Spent My Summer Vacation, playing a character named Driver who ends up in a hardcore prison in Mexico where he gets help from an unlikely source: a 10 year-old kid.

Among the upcoming Australian releases, The Kath and Kim Filum is virtually guaranteed to delight fans of the characters created by Jane Turner and Gina Riley as they travel to Italy. Richard E. Grant is the page to the king of a fictional principality with whom Magda Szubanski's Sharon falls head over heels.

Any Questions for Ben? has a promising pedigree as Working Dog’s first feature since The Dish in 2000. Directed by Rob Sitch, it stars Josh Lawson, Christian Clark, Daniel Henshall (Snowtown) and Rachael Taylor in a romantic comedy/ coming-of-age story about a guy in his 20s who starts to question where he is with his life.

Director P.J. Hogan reteams with his Muriel’s Wedding discovery Toni Collette in Mental, a comedy about a philanderer who hires a hitchhiker as a nanny to his five daughters after his wife suffers a nervous breakdown. Liev Schreiber, Anthony LaPaglia, Rebecca Gibney and Kerry Fox co star.
 
Adapted from a stage musical, The Sapphires focuses on four young singers from a remote Aboriginal mission who were offered the chance to entertain the troops in Vietnam in 1968, featuring Jessica Mauboy, Deborah Mailman and Chris O’Dowd.

Colin Firth stars in Jonathan Teplitzky’s The Railway Man, the true story of a British Army officer who was tortured by the Japanese during World War II and 30 years later confronts his tormentors, also featuring Rachel Weisz and War Horse’s Jeremy Irvine.

Tony Krawitz’s Dead Europe looks at a young Greek-Australian whose life spirals out of control when he’s forced to confront his family’s legacy, adapted from a Christos Tsiolkas novel with a cast headed by Ewen Leslie, Marton Csokas and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

The foreign-language crop includes Gerardo Naranio’s Miss Bala, a drama about a woman who dreams of winning a beauty contest in crime-ridden Mexico; Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, the saga of an Iranian middle-class couple who separate and the intrigues that follow when the husband hires a caretaker for his elderly father; and Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters, a thriller about Norway’s most successful headhunter who plans an art heist.

Also noteworthy: Jean-Marc Vallée’s Café de Flore, a drama which tells the parallel stories of a single mother (Vanessa Paradis) who raises her Down syndrome-afflicted son in the 1960s and a modern-day Montreal DJ (Kevin Parent) who juggles relationships with his girlfriend and depressive ex-wife; and Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now?, the tale of  a group of Muslim and Christian women in a small, isolated Lebanese village who band together to devise a plan to defuse mounting inter-religious tensions.



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© The Premium Movie Partnership and Donald Groves 2012