admin @ Sun, 2006-09-03 11:00
Whether your tastes run highbrow or lowbrow or (like mine) all over the map, this fall's selections should offer at least one or two titles to satisfy. Here's the dozen I'm looking forward to the most. If there's a connective tissue here, it's the very able list of directors offering up new films this season: Both veteran auteurs (including Martin Scorsese, Stephen Frears, Brian De Palma and Clint Eastwood) and gifted younger filmmakers (including Christopher Nolan, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Todd Field). All that, and another go-round of Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O getting gored by bulls and giving themselves tattoos.
It's been a long time since Brian De Palma scored a commercial hit (1996's Mission: Impossible), and even longer since he's made a genuinely great thriller (1987's The Untouchables). But with a résumé that includes such classics as Dressed To Kill, Carrie and Casualties of War, the director can never entirely be written off. And here's the project that might just prove to be De Palma's long overdue comeback, an adaptation of James Ellroy's 1987 novel about a police investigation into the murder of a beautiful young woman in 1940s Hollywood. (Ellroy loosely based his book on a real-life, unsolved murder known as "The Black Dahlia" case.) Blood, sex and deceit are De Palma's strong suits. Our only reservation: The movie stars Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson, two performers who would win the gold and silver medals, respectively, in the "Hot, But Wooden" Olympics.
Surely the most eagerly anticipated movie of the fall is Martin Scorsese's star-studded crime thriller, based on the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs, about urban gang wars and widespread police corruption. The plot is too wildly complicated to summarize, but with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson in the leads (along with Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen in supporting parts) this seems destined to become one of the director's biggest commercial hits. Still, we probably shouldn't get our hopes too high: Early rumor has it that -- despite all the A-list talent assembled -- Warner Bros. honchos regard the film more as popcorn entertainment than a potential Oscar winner.
Even if you're not an obsessive royals watcher, this one still sounds delectably tawdry: a drama about Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren), Prince Philip (James Crowell) and Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) and their actions (or lack thereof) in the days following the death of Princess Diana. The good news is that it's directed by Stephen Frears, who has proven himself a master at tawdry tales of the upper-class (see also Dangerous Liaisons and Prick Up Your Ears). The even better news: Early viewers say that Mirren is an absolute lock for a Best Actress Oscar nomination.
If you haven't yet plugged into the considerable charms of comic novelist Tom Perrotta (Joe College, Election), then stop reading this newspaper and go out and buy one of his books. Little Children was Perrotta's most recent and most accomplished effort, a delicate comedy of manners set among a group of unhappily married suburban parents, who are also contending with a pedophile who has recently moved into their neighborhood. On paper, this adaptation sounds so promising it's almost bound to be a disappointment: The cast includes Oscar regulars Jennifer Connelly and Kate Winslet, along with Patrick Wilson (Angels in America) and Jackie Earle Haley (remember him from The Bad News Bears?); and the director is Todd Field, making his first film since 2001's superb In the Bedroom. If the trailer is any indication, he's tamped down the comic elements and turned the story into a seamy melodrama.
Following the back-to-back triumphs of Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood can pretty much do no wrong in Hollywood's eyes. His latest project is a hugely ambitious one: two films, shot back-to-back, looking at the battle of Iwo Jima, first from the American perspective, and then (in Letters From Iwo Jima, due for release next year) from the Japanese perspective. With a screenplay by Paul Haggis (Crash) and William Broyles Jr. (Cast Away), and an impressive ensemble cast including Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot), Barry Pepper (25th Hour) and Ryan Phillippe (Reese Witherspoon's husband), Flags is already being regarded, sight unseen, as a front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar. One slight concern: The last time Eastwood ventured into military-themed melodrama, in 1986's Heartbreak Ridge, he put audiences to sleep.
Yeah, we're all a little tired of animated creatures and their wacky misadventures, too. But who can possibly resist those animated creatures when they also have British accents? Flushed Away, a collaboration between DreamWorks Animation (Shrek, Madagascar) and Aardman Animations (Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit), tells the Prince and The Pauper-ish story of a pet mouse who lives in the lap of London luxury, until he's flushed down the toilet by a crass sewer rat who wants to take his place. The fast-paced trailer is more entertaining than most of the movies currently in theaters. And with the likes of Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen lending their voices, it's at least bound to be better than Shark Tale, right?
A gun is fired, and it has an immediate and unexpected impact on a group of strangers all across the globe, including Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal. It should come as no surprise that this is the latest jigsaw-puzzle movie from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the talented Mexican director of 21 Grams and Amores Perros; or that -- as with the director's previous efforts -- a lot of people are saying it's a masterpiece. (Inarritu picked up the Best Director prize at Cannes.) Those of us who still aren't completely sold on the filmmaker will be watching very closely: Is he truly worth all the hype that's built up around him -- or is he just a one-trick pony who never met a time frame he couldn't jumble?
It had to be filmed under the cloak of another title because the producers didn't want to draw any attention from McDonald's, Burger King and their greasy ilk. It features, among many other stomach-churning moments, a visit to a slaughterhouse, where we watch a cow's insides spill onto the floor in gruesome close-up. Oh, and it's arguably the toughest, boldest, most politically minded movie from Austin-based director Richard Linklater, whose previous efforts (The School of Rock, Before Sunset) never would have prepared you for this one. Fast Food Nation is actually a fictionalized version of Eric Schlosser's 2002 nonfiction bestseller about the American fast-food industry. Linklater (who co-wrote the screenplay with Schlosser) has crafted a complicated, compelling narrative, with more than a dozen characters, all of whom are somehow connected to the burger-and-fries trade. The terrific cast includes Greg Kinnear, Bruce Willis, Ethan Hawke Catalina Sandino Moreno and Avril Lavigne, among many others.
No, the phrase "From director Emilio Estevez" doesn't exactly get the heart pumping (unless, of course, you're a great fan of Estevez's previous directorial master classes, Wisdom, Men at Work and The War at Home). But this one sounds undeniably intriguing, a fictional drama that takes place against the backdrop of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination, in which we meet 22 people (played by the likes of Elijah Wood, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Lindsay Lohan and Helen Hunt) who were at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night of the incident. It might very well be one of those liberal-do-gooder, celebrity vanity projects. (Remember Tim Robbins' The Cradle Will Rock?) But note that it was given a competition slot at the prestigious Venice Film Festival and that Internet buzz suggests that Estevez might just wind up with a Best Director Oscar nomination.
The plot sounds like pure Hollywood nonsense, something about an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent (Denzel Washington) who must prevent a woman's murder by traveling back in time. But Washington and director Tony Scott, who previously collaborated on Crimson Tide and Man on Fire, have a strong track record transforming shopworn hokum into gripping action movies. Besides, every Thanksgiving season needs at least one total no-brainer bit of fun, and this one looks like it might fit the bill nicely. The cast also includes Val Kilmer, James Caviezel and Elle Fanning (Dakota's younger sister).
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