A Peek Through the Hatch: Robert's Most Anticipated Films of 2017

We have left 2016 behind. 2016, a figurative dumpster fire, but almost as if it were some alternate reality where the Grand Canyon was turned into a giant landfill through some sort of federal legislation. That big of a dumpster fire. 2017 is upon us. Let us look ahead and dream. Like last year, superhero films have been excluded and I've only gone "in depth" on my Top 5. Without further ado, here are the 10 upcoming films I'm most looking forward to.

10. Dunkirk (July 21)

'Nuff said: Christopher Nolan's first feature-length film since 2014's Interstellar.

9. War for the Planet of the Apes (July 14)

'Nuff said: Ape shenanigans are always great.

8. The Masterpiece (?)

'Nuff said: Adaptation of "The Disaster Artist", which is a behind the scenes look at The Room.

7. The Girl with All the Gifts (?)

'Nuff said: Fresh zombie flick.

6. Kong: Skull Island (March 10)

'Nuff said: Ape shenanigans are always great.

5. Alien: Covenant (May 19)

Let me get this out of the way: Prometheus sucked. Here's my review. Covenant could be the proper Alien prequel we've been wanting. Plus, while Prometheus did fall short of expectations, it at least left off on an interesting note, and I'm wondering what's become of David the android (Michael Fassbender) and Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace). Oh, and I recently completed the video game Alien: Isolation, and it's seriously renewed my interest in the Alien mythos and franchise.




4. Ghost in the Shell (March 31)

I haven't seen the original but I'm hoping to fix that. Despite the uproar surrounding ScarJo's casting (and that whole weird digital yellow face controversy) I'm definitely excited for this. It looks amazing.




3. Blade Runner 2049 (October 6)

I'm a huge fan of the original Blade Runner. Here's hoping they can recapture that film's look and tone. Harrison Ford's last two revival projects were a miss (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and a hit (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) respectively, so it'll be in interesting to see what this turns out to be.




2. Baby Driver (August 11)

Edgar Wright is one of my favorite directors. It's always hard waiting for one of his projects, and we've been waiting oh so long after he pulled out of Marvel's Ant-Man. But we don't have to wait much longer for Baby Driver, which will be more of a thriller compared to his other films, from what I've heard. Sounds like the trailer and the movie are gonna be awesome.




1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (December 15)

I'm surprised this is my #1 but there ya go. The Star Wars renaissance has been going great and I'm not immune to its spell. That said, The Force Awakens was basically a remake of A New Hope, so I'm hoping this is a truly original film with some unexpected surprises.

Batch o’ Hatch: Pop Culture Mysteries, Real Genius Screening/Popcorn Eating Contest, and to the escape hatch! Turns One

Since you’re probably coming down from an Avengers high, here’s a fresh Batch o’ Hatch to get the blood flowing!

Pop Culture Mysteries

*spoilers for Blade Runner, The Shining, Total Recall, The Thing and other films abound!*

The AV Club posted a great piece on pop culture mysteries last week. A few of the mysteries the site posted are ones I’ve wondered about myself, such as, is Deckard a replicant in Blade Runner and just what exactly happens in Kubrick’s The Shining?

If I were to list some other pop culture head scratchers, I’d probably throw out The Thing (I wrote a whole post about the ending of that movie here) and Total Recall. Was Quaid imagining the whole thing or was he really a secret agent?

I’d love to hear from you guys on this. Are there any pop culture mysteries you’ve always wondered about?

Real Genius Screening/Popcorn Eating Contest

Anybody who’s anybody knows that I love me some fun film-related events. Jacksonville’s own Sun-Ray Cinema is screening Real Genius at midnight on Saturday, June 2nd and they’re having a popcorn eating contest beforehand to boot. The winner gets free popcorn for life. LIFE.

Jerry's House of Popcorn
Real Genius — MOVIECLIPS.com

Some of you younger readers may not know that Val Kilmer used to have quite the svelte figure...

to the escape hatch! Turns One

And finally, I wanted to mention that today is our one year anniversary. One year ago today we posted this announcement and totheescapehatch.blogspot.com was born.

In the past year we’ve gained readers and followers and lost the “.blogspot”.

There are many bloggers and readers out there that we owe thanks to, but I wanted to single out a few. In no particular order:

Ruth from ...let’s be splendid about this...
Alex from And So It Begins...
CT and Jeeg from Nerd Lunch
Pax from Cavalcade of Awesome
Chris from moviesandsongs365
Markus and Sir Phobos from Green People Soup
Pete from I Love That Film
Rodders from The Reviewing Rodders
The Large Association of Movie Blogs

Thanks for making our first year a memorable one! Hopefully you’ll keep coming by. Don’t forget we’re on twitter now - @2theescapehatch.