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Happy New Year!

January is named for Janus, the 2-faced Roman god who could look forward and backward at the same time. So in honor of this first month of the New Year (and Janus), it seems appropriate to look back a bit at 2009, as well as forward into 2010.

There is a fever pitch for looking back in the buildup to the movie awards shows. The award season starts with the Golden Globes on January 17 and ends March 7 with the Academy Awards.

The 10 films nominated for Golden Globes are - for drama: “Avatar,” “The Hurt Locker,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Precious,” “Up in the Air”; - for comedy or musical: “(500) Days of Summer,” “The Hangover,” “It's Complicated,” “Julie & Julia” and “Nine.” This year, for the first time, there will be 10 Oscar nominations for Best Picture. The five Golden Globe dramas stand a good chance of Oscar nominations, but only “(500) Days of Summer” and “Julie & Julia” have a chance at an Academy Award nomination (the Academy is not a fan of comedy). 2009 was an exceptionally good year for animated films and three animated films could be nominated: Pixar’s “Up,” Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” and “Coraline.” “An Education” and “The Lovely Bones” are 2 other films likely to be nominated for one of the 10 Best Picture Oscars.

Looking at the films coming to the 2010 Sundance Film Festival (January 21-31 in Park City, Utah) provides a clue to some of the interesting films that will play in theaters later this year. There will be more than 100 feature-length films presented at Sundance. Eight films to pay special attention to are the films selected for the Sundance Film Festival USA program. Those films are:

• “The Company Men,” filmed on location in North Boston and starring Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper.
• “Daddy Longlegs” by the director/screenwriters brother pair Benny and Josh Safdie.
• “Jack Goes Boating,” a film directed by and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.”
• “Teenage Paparazzo,” a film set in LA that explores the effects of celebrity on culture.
• “The Runaways,” starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and Tatum O'Neal.
• “The Extra Man,” about a down-and-out playwright who takes a young aspiring writer under his wing.
• Jeff Daniels is featured in “Howl,” a nonfiction drama about the young Allen Ginsberg, starring James Franco, David Strathairn, Jon Hamm and Mary-Louise Parker.
• A screwball family comedy, “Cyrus,” starring John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill. You can see “Cyrus” for one night only at the Michigan Theater, Thursday, January 28 at 7:30. Tickets, available via Ticketmaster, are selling very quickly.

Films for the here and now

Opening Friday at the State and Showcase is “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.” Directed by Terry Gilliam, the visually inventive and always clever former member of the “Monty Python” troupe, this film fantasy stars Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole and, sadly, Heath Ledger in his final film role. If you liked “Time Bandits,” “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” or “Brazil,” you are sure to enjoy Gilliam’s latest fantastical film extravaganza.

“Youth in Revolt” was partially filmed in Ann Arbor (remember the spectacular car crash on Ashley Street?). It stars Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Ray Liotta, Jean Smart and Steve Buscemi. Cera plays a nerdy teen trying to lose his virginity. The critics love this film: “The collision of adolescent hormones and parental folly, hardly new cinematic territory, gets a bracing absurdist slant in ‘Youth in Revolt,’” writes The Hollywood Reporter.

“Daybreakers” stars Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill. It's set in the year 2017, when a plague has transformed almost every human into a vampire. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the vampires plot their survival; while Ethan Hawke’s character, a very human scientist, works with sympathetic vampires on a way to save humans. Early reviews are good: “A darkly stylish horror film that's unusually solid for a January release,” says Time Out New York.

“Leap Year” stars Amy Adams. Her character has spent 4 years waiting for her boyfriend’s wedding proposal. During his business trip to Dublin, she opts to act on Leap Day, an Irish tradition that encourages women to propose to men on February 29. A rerouted plane trip, however, lands her at the door of a Welsh innkeeper who might offer a diversion of his own. No early reviews, but the buzz on this film is not very good.

Special screenings
The University of Michigan’s Center for Korean Studies presents North Korea in Films: “Repatriation,” on Saturday, January 9 at 2 p.m., for free at the Michigan Theater.

The Michigan Theater Family Friendly Film series features “The Great Muppet Caper” on Sunday, January 10 at 1:30. Kids under 12 are free. Happy New Year and see you at the movies!

Russ Collins is executive director of the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. Tune in to the audio version of “Cinema Chat” on WEMU radio (89.1-FM) each Thursday at 7:40 AM and 5:40 PM, or listen to it online at WEMU's web site.