A new year brings new possibilities and for pop culture fanboys and fangirls, it also means a new slate of movies, television shows and video games to look forward to.
2014 is shaping up to be a fun year. Here’s a brief look ahead:
MOVIES: Superhero and comic book movies are gaining in popularity and coming out more frequently and we’ve moving on from origin movies and sequels to an exploration of the larger Marvel and DC universes.
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This year will bring us “The Amazing Spider Man 2,” the follow up to Marc Webb’s successful and emotionally engaging reboot of the Spidey saga featuring Andrew Garfield in the title role. “Spider Man 2” looks to up the ante, by bringing us Spidey villains we haven’t seen on screen before – the Rhino, Electro – and some old favorites – the Goblin.
We’ll also get two sequels “X-Men: Days of Future Past” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” Both follow up on two really good movies, and look to explore the characters a little more.
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On the non-comic book front, we can look forward to a remake of “Godzilla.” The trailer for this one looks amazing and is sure to wipe the sour taste of Matthew Broderick’s disastrous reboot of the king of monsters.
Michael Bay is back with “Transformers 4: Age of Extinction,” which will feature new lead characters and hopefully less of the juvenile humor that stained the last two sequels.
And if like us you saw “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” and were left hanging on the edge of your seat at the cliffhanger ending, then you’ll appreciate that the final film in the Hobbit trilogy is due out this year.
Finally, martial arts fans who were enthralled with “The Raid” in 2011 can look forward to “The Raid 2: Berandal.” The original “Raid” was original, thrilling and one of the best martial arts movies in years. The new movie takes up exactly where the story left us. We can’t wait.
TELEVISION:
The holidays are over and the new winter season has already kicked off with the return of old favorites and the debut of new shows.
One of our favorite returning shows is “Justified,” FX’s sly, thrilling and totally entertaining saga of maverick Kentucky marshal Raylan Givens and his battles again petty hoodlums and crime families. It’s one of the best hours on TV.
Among the most new interesting new shows are “Helix”, a medical contagion thriller from the Syfy network which debuted Friday. It focuses on scientists from the Centers for Disease Control who travel to a remote research facility to investigate a possible outbreak and race to solve a mystery that threatens mankind.
HBO this Sunday offers "True Detective," an intriguing new crime drama that features big-screen stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as detectives on a years-long for a killer. Knowing HBO’s track record, it should be dark and adult, the perfect bracing, late-night atmosphere for a thriller.
And, of course, the biggest blockbuster new show of all is the Winter Olympics, which will spread out for several nights on NBC, offering the drama, thrills and spills we’ve become accustomed to.
