FALL MOVIE PREVIEW
70 films for the rest of '07
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FILM WRITER
Friday, August 31, 2007
Top-heavy with comedies and Oscar-bait — topical political dramas and literary adaptations — 2007's fall movie slate is an eclectic jumble of genres, top-lined by major Hollywood actors who seem to time their films for the prime awards season.
Wars — current and past — claim a large presence, as does the typical spread of gangster pictures packed with gun-toting toughs. What looks different is a surprising dearth of family holiday fare, which might be a sign of sobering times.
Mark Fellman
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney can't agree on how to treat their dad in 'The Savages.'
David James
Tom Cruise plays a Republican senator in Robert Redford's topical 'Lions for Lambs.'
Etienne George
MIRAMAX
Julian Schnabel won Best Director at Cannes for 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' with Max Von Sydow and Mathieu Amalric.
Mark and Laura Olmstead
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Marla Olmstead is the artist of 'My Kid Could Paint That.'
Much to see away from the cineplex at local festivals
Film festivals
Fantastic Fest — Monsters, demons, chimeras, killers, swords and sorcerers emerge with a vibrant flourish during the third annual Fantastic Fest, which has assumed international dimensions. It features 'the best in new science fiction, fantasy, horror, animation, crime, Asian, and all around (really cool) cinema,' organizers boast. Hard-to-find genre flicks from around the world, special guests and conversations congregate Sept. 20-27 at the Alamo South (1120 S. Lamar Blvd.). Tickets move fast. Get yours at www.fantasticfest.com. Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival — Celebrating 20 years as one of the nation's largest gay film festivals, AGLIFF, as it's fondly known, brings in scores of features, documentaries and many of their makers to its fun-loving fête. Titles and guests haven't been announced, but expect the best in gay, lesbian and transgender cinema Sept. 28-Oct. 6 around town. www.agliff.org. Austin Film Festival and Screenwriters Conference — Writer-directors Oliver Stone ('Platoon') and John Milius ('Red Dawn') are the guests of honor at this year's hootenany of celebrity screenwriters, actors and directors, taking place Oct. 11-18 across town. In its 14th year, this is one of Austin's biggest annual events, drawing throngs of movie fans and stargazers. About 100 new movies screen in and out of competition. Go to www.austinfilmfestival.com for the latest news. Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival — Running strong in its third year, the festival presents movies that feature characters with disabilities. 'Freaks,' 'Memento' and 'My Left Foot' showed in previous years. This year's lineup is 'Coming Home,' 'The Station Agent' and 'Blindscape' on Oct. 19 and 20 at the Alamo South. A competition for the best student-made 'disability film' is new to the program this year. Details at www.ctdfilmfest.org. 478-3366. Austin Polish Society Film Festival — The Austin Polish Society's second annual Austin Polish Film Festival happens two weekends, Oct. 20 and 21 and Oct. 27 and 28 at the Alamo Lake Creek (13729 Research Blvd.) A VIP reception and Polish film poster exhibit kick off the festivities Oct. 19. Four films will screen: 'Komornik (The Debt Collector),' with director Feliks Falk in attendance; 'Jasminum (Jasmine)'; 'Swiadek Koronny (State Witness)'; and 'Co Slonko Wiazdialo (What the Sun Has Seen).' www.austin polishsociety.org. 233-0068.General screenings
Austin Film Society — AFS' Essential Cinema Series presents 'Blokes 'N' Birds: British Realist Cinema (1958-1965)' Tuesday through Oct. 9 at the Alamo South. Some of the six films include 'Look Back in Anger' (7 p.m. Tuesday), 'Victim' (9:45 p.m. Sept. 18) and 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' (7 p.m. Oct. 9). Free for AFS members; $4 general. In October and November, the Essential Cinema Series presents 'The African Diaspora,' with six films, including 'My Brother's Wedding' (Oct. 16), 'Quilombo' (Oct. 23) and 'Sugar Cane Alley' (Oct. 30). AFS' Documentary Tour screens 'White Light, Black Rain' (Sept. 19), 'Nanking' (Oct. 10) and 'Los Angeles Plays Itself' (Nov. 14) at the Alamo South. www.austinfilm.org. 322-0145. Ransom Center — Marking the recent acquisition of Robert De Niro's archives, the Ransom Center presents a four-film series of the great thespian's work: 'The Godfather II' (Oct. 8); 'Taxi Driver' (Oct. 15); 'The Deer Hunter' (Oct. 22); and 'Mary Shelley's Frankenstein' (Oct. 29). All shows are free and begin at 7 p.m. at the Ransom Center at UT. www.hrc.utexas.edu. The Austin Cinematheque — This University of Texas student-run program screens classics, foreign and independent film landmarks on real celluloid Mondays at the Texas Union Theatre at UT. Past shows have included 'Tokyo Story,' 'Two-Lane Blacktop' and 'The 400 Blows.' Free. Go to www.unioncinematheque.com for the latest.The following compendium is highly selective and exclusive. Not every new fall film could be included due to space constraints — which means there's even more to look forward to — so we carefully cherry-picked.
We elected 70 movies to round out '07. It's not only a nice even figure, but those numbers look good together in print. As always, dates can and will change.
Current events: War, politics and the Middle East
'In the Valley of Elah' (Sept. 14) — In this thriller-mystery starring Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron, "Crash" writer-director Paul Haggis explores how the war in Iraq affects soldiers who have come home. One suspects things aren't so good.
'The Kingdom' (Sept. 28) —Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Gardner, Chris Cooper and (what?) Jason Bateman play FBI agents investigating a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. What they get is a lot of trouble. Action god Michael Mann produces and extremely capable "Friday Night Lights" creator Peter Berg directs the flashy action-thriller.
'Grace is Gone'(Oct. 5) — Stanley's wife has died in Iraq. Now he has to tell his kids. John Cusack turns down the volume as a grieving parent.
'Rendition' (Oct. 19) — When Reese Witherspoon's Egyptian-born husband (Omar Metwally) is held by the U.S. as a terrorist at an outside detention center, she and CIA analyst Jake Gyllenhaal work to correct the injustice in Gavin Hood's political drama.
'Crossing Over' (November) — Sean Penn is a Border Patrol agent and Harrison Ford is an immigration officer in this morally complex portrait of a hot and timely topic.
'Day Zero' (Nov. 2) —Elijah Wood gets drafted when the military reinstates conscription. He has 30 days to report. What will he do?
'Lions for Lambs' (Nov. 9) — This politically charged drama looks at the current war from three angles, one in which Tom Cruise plays a Republican senator. Co-starring and directed by Robert Redford.
LOL: Comedies, romedies and dramedies
'The Brothers Solomon' (Friday) — Will Forte and Will Arnett are goofball brothers who need to have a child in order to earn an inheritance. Expect about two laughs.
'The Hunting Party' (Friday) — A Bosnian war criminal is pursued by journalists for action chortles. Richard Gere stars and Richard Shepard ('The Matador') directs.
'King of California' (Sept. 14) — Michael Douglas is an ex-mental patient with an assertive beard and an urge to find gold he's convinced lies below a Costco store.
'Run, Fatboy, Run'(Sept. 28) — The rather slim Simon Pegg had to pooch out his tummy for the title role of a loser who trains for a marathon to win back his sweetie. Directed by David Schwimmer and co-written by Pegg ('Shaun of the Dead') and Michael Ian Black ('Stella').
'The Heartbreak Kid' (Oct. 5) — The Farrelly brothers attempt to better Elaine May's wry comic masterpiece from 1972 by giving it the R-rated treatment and some plot adjustments. Always put-upon Ben Stiller has lots in common with the original's dourly funny Charles Grodin.
'The Darjeeling Limited' (October) —Three estranged brothers — Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and the film's co-writer Jason Schwartzman — take a spiritual journey across India by train. Wes Anderson directs the wacky picaresque, and fans know what that means.
'Dan in Real Life' (Oct. 26) — Steve Carrell falls for cosmopolitan Frenchie Juliette Binoche! While she's dating his brother! (Cue laugh track.)
'Margot at the Wedding' (Nov. 16) — A family dramedy tracing the fissures in two sisters' cracking relationship. The sisters are Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Noah Baumbach ('The Squid and the Whale') writes, directs.
'Leatherheads' (Dec. 7) — A romantic comedy set in the football arena, starring George Clooney and 'The Office's' John Krasinski, who vie for Renée Zellweger. Clooney directs.
'P.S. I Love You'(Dec. 21) — A weepie comic love story with Hilary Swank, who mourns her late husband, played by Gerard Butler, who slaughtered a million men in '300.'
'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' (Dec. 21) — John C. Reilly plays a Johnny Cash-like singer in this biographical satire. Another Judd Apatow ('Knocked Up,' 'Superbad') production sure to devour the competition.
'The Bucket List' (Dec. 25) — Two old fogies do everything they want to do before they die, even sky-dive. Rob Reiner directs Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.
'The Savages' (December or January) — One of those somber-funny, cute-pouty indies, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as siblings who fight about how to treat their ailing father.
By the book: Literary adaptations
'Silk' (Sept. 14) — An adaptation of Alessandro Barrico's 19th-century romance set in Japan, with Keira Knightley and Michael Pitt.
'The Jane Austen Book Club' (Sept. 21) — A group of friends' rollercoaster loves and losses seem to mirror those in Austen's romances. Robin Swicord adapts Karen Joy Fowler's 2004 novel.
'Feast of Love' (Sept. 28) — Texan Robert Benton directs Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear in this adaptation of Charles Baxter's funny romantic novel.
'Gone Baby Gone'(Oct. 19) — Casey Affleck's big brother — a fellow named Ben — directs him in the screen version of the novel by Dennis Lehane ('Mystic River'), a Boston cop saga.
"The Kite Runner" (Nov. 2) — An epic saga of family and place — ravaged Afghanistan — is at the heart of Khaled Hosseini's staggeringly popular novel, which director Marc Forster has carefully put to film.
'No Country for Old Men' (Nov. 9) — Does it seem strange to you that the Coen brothers adapted a Cormac McCarthy novel? The extremely violent Texas story about a killer (Javier Bardem) and an aging sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) knocked 'em out at Cannes.
'Love in the Time of Cholera' (Nov. 16) — Gabriel García Márquez's 1985 romantic tour de force finally hits the screen, starring Javier Bardem and directed by Mike Newell.
'Beowulf' (Nov. 16) — It's ancient, it's violent, but don't call it boring. Robert Zemeckis employs his strange motion-capture animation ('The Polar Express') for this re-telling written by Neil Gaiman and 'Pulp Fiction's' Roger Avary.
'Stephen King's The Mist' (Nov. 21) — A mysterious plume engulfs a grocery store and the shoppers inside. Now they need to know which is more worrisome: the big cloud or they themselves.
'Atonement' (Dec. 7) — Keira Knightley and James McAvoy animate Ian McEwan's elegant novel about romance, family, sin and redemption.
'There Will Be Blood' (Dec. 26) — Paul Thomas Anderson ('Magnolia') shot his loose take on the 1927 Upton Sinclair novel 'Oil!' in Marfa. It's a father-son story, with Daniel Day-Lewis and lots of gushing black gold.
Everlasting genres
Sci-fi, fantasy and horror
'Hatchet' (Friday) — Adam Green's spoofy homage to '70s American horror flicks. Gut-busting. Literally.
'Dragon Wars' (Sept. 14) — Also known as 'D-War,' this English-language South Korean monster movie has dragons attacking the planet. Geek heaven.
'Saw IV' (Oct. 26) — More. Gore.
'The Golden Compass' (Dec. 7) — A kaleidoscopic fantasy laced with witches, angels and galloping polar bears and characters named Lyra Belacqua and Iorek Byrnison — our head is already spinning. With Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.
'I Am Legend' (Dec. 14) — Remember 'The Omega Man' with Charlton Heston? Now picture it with better writing and directing and acting, more contemporary themes and a guy named Will Smith.
Cellu-life: Biographies
'Into the Wild' (Sept. 21) — Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's best-selling biography — about a young man who sheds everything to commune with the great outdoors and find himself — is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking.
'I'm Not There' (Nov. 21) — Seven actors, including Cate Blanchett, portray the many facets of the enigmatic, frustrating person who is Bob Dylan. Todd Haynes writes and directs.
'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' (Dec. 19) — Julian Schnabel won best director at Cannes for his artful telling of the life of paralyzed French Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby.
'Charlie Wilson's War' (Dec. 25) — Tom Hanks plays the title's real-life Texas politician, who teams with other players to arm the Afghan resistance against the Soviet army in the 1980s. With Julia Roberts. Mike Nichols directs.
'The Great Debaters' (Dec. 25) — In the '30s, English professor Melvin B. Tolson whipped up a black college debate team in East Texas to fighting shape. The results made history. Denzel Washington directs himself as Tolson.
'Persepolis' (Dec. 25) — Looking just like the thick-lined, black-and-white graphic memoir on which it's based, Marjane Satrapi's animated autobiography of growing up Iranian abroad scored the Jury Prize at Cannes.
Be reel: Documentaries
'In the Shadow of the Moon' (Sept. 7) — In this archival-footage-filled doc, veteran astronauts moon over the moon. Buzz Aldrin is among the space veterans who reminisce what it was like walking on the big ball of cheese.
'Lake of Fire' (October) — Controversial director Tony Kaye ('American History X') wants to shake us up with this long, graphic look at the ongoing abortion debate, its players and even a particular medical procedure. Caution.
'My Kid Could Paint That' (October) — The authenticity of gushed-over paintings by a 4-year-old prodigy come into question in this acclaimed doc.
'War/Dance' (Nov. 2) — A trio of children in war-ripped Uganda find desperate hope in an annual music and dance festival in the nation's capital. A feel-gooder.
'Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten' (Nov. 2) — The much-buzzed chronicle of the leader of the Clash makes a smash.
Guys with guns: Criminals and cowboys
'3:10 to Yuma' (Friday) — A rough-and-tumble updating of the great 1957 Glenn Ford western, starring Russell Crowe as the baddest man in the west and Christian Bale as the humble hero hired to hold him. James Mangold ('Walk the Line') directs.
'Shoot 'Em Up' (Friday) — Clive Owen, Hollywood's new noir antihero, protects a newborn baby from Paul Giamatti's violent gangster. We believe bullets are involved.
'Eastern Promises' (Sept. 14) — On the bloody heels of 'A History of Violence,' Canadian auteur David Cronenberg returns to mean men and their weapons. It's about Russian mobsters in London and the evil people do. Written by Steven Knight, who plumbed London's underworld in 'Dirty Pretty Things.'
'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'(Sept. 21) — Brad Pitt as Jesse James. Bang, bang! (Actually, it's a meditative art movie about the legendary thug and his killer that's been through several cuts.)
'We Own the Night' (Oct. 12) — Writer-director James Gray likes guns and the New York streets. He also likes Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg, who co-starred in his 'The Yards.' His topic, again, is family, gangsters and cops.
'American Gangster' (Nov. 2) — Big stars (Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe), a big writer (Steve Zaillian), a big director (Ridley Scott) and a big producer (Brian Grazer) create a big movie about a cop trying to take down a Harlem drug lord.
'Hitman' (Nov. 21) — A genetically engineered assassin has become a target himself in this videogame-based noir. Joysticks not included.
24 heartbeats a second: Thrillers
'The Brave One' (Sept. 14) — Give Jodie Foster a gun and a reason to use it and you get what sounds like a slicker, smarter 'Death Wish.' Directed by Neil Jordan ('The Crying Game').
'Michael Clayton' (Oct. 5) — An adult legal thriller in the mold of the best American '70s thrillers, directed by Tony Gilroy and starring a conscience-torn George Clooney.
'Cassandra's Dream' (Nov. 30) — Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor in a Woody Allen movie? Sure, if it's a dark drama set in London.
'Youth Without Youth' (Dec. 14) — Francis Ford Coppola, back in the director's chair after 10 years, financed this trippy romantic thriller himself. Tim Roth stars.
Reeling backward: Historical pictures
'Lust, Caution' (Sept. 28) — Oscar-winner Ang Lee follows 'Brokeback Mountain' with his first Chinese-language film in years, a steamy spy thriller set in 1940s Shanghai that has earned, and will keep, an NC-17 rating.
'Elizabeth: The Golden Age' (Oct. 12) — Cate Blanchett reprises her Oscar-nominated role as Queen Elizabeth in this sort-of sequel to 1998's 'Elizabeth.' Geoffrey Rush is back as Sir Francis Walsingham, as is director Shekhar Kapur. Clive Owen plays her love interest Sir Walter Raleigh in this royal production.
In the tune of lavish: Musicals
'Across the Universe' (Sept. 14) — A radiant romance strung together by Beatles songs, directed by the visually flamboyant Julie Taymor (Broadway's 'The Lion King').
'Enchanted' (Nov. 21) — Live action and animation mesh when real-life clashes with a Disney animated princess tale.
'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' (Dec. 21) — Before Trey Parker and Matt Stone's 'Cannibal: The Musical!' there was Stephen Sondheim's fun, florid and grisly musical about a butchering barber and some suspiciously tasty meat pies. Tim Burton's the man for the job, with Burton regular Johnny Depp, Burton's partner Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Lip locks and heart stops: Romance
'The Hottest State' (Sept. 21) — Ethan Hawke adapts and directs his own novel about young bohemian love on the road. Hawke will present the film's local premiere Sept. 19 at the Paramount Theatre.
'Lars and the Real Girl' (Oct. 12) — Ryan Gosling, noted as one of his generation's best actors, falls in love with a plastic sex doll, which he keeps in a wheelchair. It's a love story, not a comedy.
'I Could Never Be Your Woman' (Nov. 9) —That's what Michelle Pfeiffer's older woman probably tells the much younger Paul Rudd in this feathery romantic comedy.
Weee!: Kids and family
'Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium' (Nov. 16) — Overblown with ornament and eye-candy, this Willy Wonka-esque fantasy showcases Dustin Hoffman at his hammy best/worst.
'Bee Movie' (Nov. 2) —Jerry Seinfeld has buzz. He plays a bee in this CG comedy.
'Fred Claus' (Nov. 9) —We're just happy Tim Allen's not in it. This has actual funny guys Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti — not typically kid fare — playing Santa and his brother Fred for some sweet sibling rivalry.
'Alvin and the Chipmunks' (Dec. 14) — You have no idea how much helium was used in the making of this motion picture.
