The problem with most seasonal movie previews is their annoying tendency to cram every random title into a finite amount of space, thereby doing injustice to the films most worthy of a discriminating moviegoers’ attention. Certainly anyone who genuinely cares about movies as an art form doesn’t give a flying fuck that Saw VI is set to open on October 23, or that somebody had the really terrible idea to remake Joe Ruben’s 1987 cult classic The Stepfather (Oct. 16) starring Dylan Walsh from Nip/Tuck in the Terry O’Quinn role.
And unless you have rugrats in the house, CGI toons like Cloudy
With a Chance of Meatballs (Sept. 18), Astro Boy (Oct. 23)
and Planet 51 (Nov. 20) probably won’t send your heart a-racing
either. And don’t even get me started on A Christmas Carol (Nov.
6), Robert Zemeckis’ latest performance-capture horror show. Those dead
eyes that Jim Carrey’s Ebenezer Scrooge sports in the Disney film’s
trailer are already giving me the willies. Of course, kid flicks by
grown-up auteurs like Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson are another matter
entirely. So think of the following as a baker’s dozen films to look
forward to this season. Hopefully, some of them will make your must-see
list too.
The 19th-century romance of poet John Keats (Ben Whislaw) and Fanny
Brawne (Abbie Cornish) is the subject of Bright Star (Sept. 25),
Oscar-winning director Jane Campion’s first film since 2003’s unfairly
maligned In the Cut. A return to the New Zealand helmer’s
sexually charged corset dramas like The Piano and The
Portrait of a Lady, it even charmed the notoriously persnickety
Cannes press corps.
Muckraking documentary filmmaker Michael Moore tackles the global
financial crisis in his latest nonfiction fusillade with Capitalism:
A Love Story (Oct. 2). Look for Wall Street fat cats to take it on
the chin just like G.W. Bush did in Fahrenheit 9/11.
Along with longtime writing partner Matthew Robinson, Ricky Gervais
co-wrote and directed The Invention of Lying (Oct. 2), a surreal
comedy about the only person alive (Gervais) who’s capable of fibbing.
The delicious supporting cast (including Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey and
Jason Bateman) is reason enough to be pumped. (Oct. 2.)
Drew Barrymore’s directing debut, Whip It (Oct. 2), stars
Ellen Page (Juno) as a high-school misfit who blossoms after
becoming a roller-derby skater. Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden plays
Page’s understandably flummoxed mom. Kansas City Bomber 2 this
ain’t.
Where the Wild Things Are (Oct. 16), Maurice Sendak’s 1963
children’s classic, finally makes it to the big screen in Spike Jonze’s
(Being John Malkovich) CGI-lite live-action adaptation. Jonze’s
indie cred helped him cast a bunch of cool actors (Catherine Keener,
Mark Ruffalo, James Gandolfini) not normally associated with family
entertainment.
Two other notable October releases without definite Cleveland dates:
Antichrist, Lars von Trier’s horror/art flick, which freaked
them out at this year’s Cannes Film Festival; and A Serious Man, the 14th film by national treasures Joel and Ethan Coen.
Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) goes mainstream with The
Box (Nov. 6), an adaptation of fantasy writer Richard Matheson’s
creepy 1970 short story “Button, Button.” Cameron Diaz and James
Marsden play a financially strapped couple whose money woes magically
disappear after pressing a button on a wooden box. Frank Langella is
the Mephistopheles who helps make their dreams come true.
Frequent George Clooney collaborator Grant Heslov makes his
directing debut with The Men Who Stare at Goats (Nov. 6),
a fact-based, pitch-black comedy about an American military unit
investigating psychic phenomena for use in combat. Clooney, Jeff
Bridges and Kevin Spacey head up the impressive cast.
Don’t let the Oprah or Tyler Perry imprimatur scare you off,
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (Nov. 20), a
magical realist-inflected urban melodrama about a put-upon Harlem teen
(Gabourney Sidibe) won both the Grand Jury and Audience awards at
Sundance this January. As the girl’s unstable mother, plus-sized sitcom
diva Mo’Nique gives a performance that’s already generating beaucoup
Oscar talk. So is the film itself.
George Clooney and Meryl Streep provide the voices for Mr. and Mrs.
Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox (Nov. 25), fabulist extraordinaire Wes
Anderson’s stop-motion-animated film based on Roald Dahl’s 1970
children’s novel. The early buzz has been, no pun intended, fantastic
indeed.
The early reviews haven’t been kind, and its release was delayed for
an entire year, but it will still be interesting to see what Australian
visionary John Hillcoat (The Proposition) does with The
Road (Nov. 25), Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic best seller.
Viggo Mortensen plays “The Man.”
Director Rob Marshall’s Oscar-winning Chicago was over-hyped,
but Nine (Nov. 25), a Marshall-helmed adaptation of the
1982 Broadway musical inspired by Fellini’s 8 1/2 is intriguing.
For starters, just check out that groovy cast: Daniel Day-Lewis,
Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Sophia
Loren. Can you say “wow”?
This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2009.