Fanboys Anonymous

Welcome to another edition of 6 Flicks Picks, wherein I list all of the upcoming films that are scheduled to be released in the United States for the month which is about to begin and break down which ones I'll be watching in theaters, which ones I'll wait to rent at home, and which ones I'll be skipping out on entirely. After going through the list, I'll choose which six films stand out to me as the ones I want to see the most, even if there are more or less than six that interest me.

Note: The list below is based primarily off the expanded nationwide USA release dates on IMDB as well as some other random outlets if possible, so some information may be different. If I am missing some of the limited releases or the dates conflict in some fashion, please let me know in the comments below and any adjustments and corrections will be made!

Without further ado, another new month means another new set of films, so what's coming soon to theaters in January 2016?



The Forest

Synopsis: An unexplained horror occurs in a Japanese forest.

Will I watch? = No

The Revenant

Synopsis: In the 1820s, a frontiersman named Hugh Glass sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.

Will I watch? = Yes

Anomalisa

Synopsis: A man crippled by the mundanity of his life experiences something out of the ordinary.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Wazir

Synopsis: 'Wazir' is a tale of two unlikely friends, a wheelchair-bound chess grandmaster and a brave ATS officer. Brought together by grief and a strange twist of fate, the two men decide to help each other win the biggest games of their lives. But there's a mysterious, dangerous opponent lurking in the shadows, who is all set to checkmate them.

Will I watch? = No

Anesthesia

Synopsis: Multiple lives intersect in the aftermath of the violent mugging of a Columbia University philosophy professor.

Will I watch? = Maybe

The Masked Saint

Synopsis:"The Masked Saint" is based on a true story about one pastor's mission to help his community by risking his identity and returns to his former life as a wrestler. The triumphant story follows one man's journey and struggle between helping others and the consequences he faces doing this.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Yosemite

Synopsis: It's the fall of 1985. The intertwining tales of three 5th grade friends, Chris, Joe and Ted, unfold in the suburban paradise of Palo Alto, as the threat of a mountain lion looms over the community.

Will I watch? = No


Ride Along 2

Synopsis: As his wedding day approaches, Ben heads to Miami with his soon-to-be brother-in-law James to bring down a drug dealer who's supplying the dealers of Atlanta with product.

Will I watch? = Maybe

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Synopsis: An American Ambassador is killed during an attack at a U.S. compound in Libya as a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Norm of the North

Synopsis: Displaced from their Arctic home, a polar bear named Norm and his three lemming friends wind up in New York City, where Norm becomes the mascot of a corporation he soon learns is tied to the fate of his homeland.

Will I watch? = No

Band of Robbers

Synopsis: Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are grown men, still searching for the hidden treasure that has eluded them since childhood.

Will I watch? = Maybe

The Benefactor

Synopsis: A philanthropist meddles in the lives of newly-married couples in an attempt to relive his past.

Will I watch? = Maybe


Dirty Grandpa

Synopsis: Right before his wedding, an uptight guy is tricked into driving his grandfather, a perverted former Army general, to Florida for spring break.

Will I watch? = Maybe

The 5th Wave

Synopsis: Four waves of increasingly deadly alien attacks have left most of Earth decimated. Cassie is on the run, desperately trying to save her younger brother.

Will I watch? = Yes

The Boy

Synopsis: An American nanny is shocked that her new English family's boy is actually a life-sized doll. After violating a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive.

Will I watch? = No

Ip Man 3

Synopsis: When a band of brutal gangsters led by a crooked property developer make a play to take over the city, Master Ip is forced to take a stand.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Synchronicity

Synopsis: From the creators of The Signal (Sundance 2007) comes Synchronicity, a mind-bending 'Sci-fi Noir' in the tradition of Dark City, Blade Runner, and Alphaville. When physicist Jim Beale invents a machine that can fold space-time, a rare Dahlia appears from the future. He must now find the flower's identical match in the present to prove his machine works. Jim soon discovers that the Dahlia lies in the hands of a mysterious girl, who seduces him into revealing his secrets. Convinced that he's fallen prey to a femme fatale trying to steal his invention, Jim travels back in time to stop her betrayal before it happens. But once in the past, Jim uncovers a surprising truth about the machine, the girl, and his own reality.

Will I watch? = Maybe

Mojave

Synopsis: A suicidal artist goes into the desert, where he finds his doppelgänger, a homicidal drifter.

Will I watch? = No

Aferim!

Synopsis: Set in early 19th century Wallachia, when a local policeman, Costandin, is hired by Iordache, a boyar (local noble), to find Carfin, a Gypsy slave who had run away from the boyar's estate after having an affair with his wife, Sultana. Costandin sets out to find the fugitive, beginning a journey full of adventures. Gypsy slavery lasted from the 14th century up until the middle of the 19th century, a situation which is very little known and almost nonexistent in the public debate today, although its impact continues to influence Romania's social life.

Will I watch? = No

Exposed

Synopsis: After witnessing a miracle, a young Latina woman experiences strange things as a police detective searches for the truth behind his partner's death.

Will I watch? = Maybe


The Finest Hours

Synopsis: The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.

Will I watch? = No

Kung Fu Panda 3

Synopsis: Continuing his "legendary adventures of awesomeness", Po must face two hugely epic, but different threats: one supernatural and the other a little closer to his home.

Will I watch? = No

Fifty Shades of Black

Synopsis: A parody of the popular film/novel 50 Shades of Gray.

Will I watch? = No

Lights Out

Synopsis: A woman is haunted by a creature that only appears when the lights go out. A feature adaptation of the 2013 short film, "Lights Out" by David Sandberg.

Will I watch? = No

Jane Got a Gun

Synopsis: A woman asks her ex-lover for help in order to save her outlaw husband from a gang out to kill him.

Will I watch? = Maybe


January can be a slow month due to weather conditions and the fact that nobody wants to put up a fight against Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but there are still 11 movies that I would check out, with the following being at the top of the list:

6. Band of Robbers — The premise seems interesting, Eric Christian Olsen is a massively underutilized star, and after checking out many of these trailers, this was one of the few that I didn't just wish would end sooner than it did. This strikes me as more of a download than a theater viewing, but in the confines of this segment, it gets bumped up.

5. Synchronicity — It likens itself to Dark City and Blade Runner. To most people, that would be great, but I was actually bored with those movies, which might be a bad sign. I wouldn't be surprised if this fell victim to the indie curse of being more ambitious than its execution could pull off. The pitch of the idea of the film has me intrigued, yet I can imagine being disappointed with the final product.

4. Anesthesia — I enjoy movies about intersecting lives and how the world around us might just be smaller than we really think. That is, of course, if those movies are good. At the very least, I like the idea behind those types of films, so this had me interested just by reading the synopsis.

3. Dirty Grandpa — This movie could be the utter shits, but it could also be pretty damn funny. Robert De Niro has a wide range of being anything from awesome to terrible, so I don't know where this will end up. Zac Efron is pretty reliable, Aubrey Plaza is hot, and I'm game to check this out.

2. The 5th Wave — As far as the young adult genre goes, this trailer didn't strike me as much as some other things did, like The Maze Runner or The Hunger Games or even Divergent (boy did that end up being disappointing overall), but I still think it might be worth investing the time to watch. Reviews are going to play a big factor into whether or not I see this sooner or later, but unless it has a terrible score, I'm fairly certain I'll be giving it a chance.

1. The Revenant — This is either going to be awesome or a massively overrated piece of crap that I have to argue with people about all the time. Here's hoping it's more of the former and less of the latter. I don't want to sit through another The Tree of Life. Yes, I know Alejandro González Iñárritu didn't do that movie, but that's my go-to movie to use as a comparison when I think something might be along the same spectrum. Despite liking Birdman, I wasn't as impressed as most people were, so I don't know where I stand when it comes to this, but at the very least, it's caught my attention quite a bit.