Editorials > FilmWad Fall Preview

After looking long and hard into the abyss, David Morgan and myself scoured the rest of the films scheduled for this fall and present what we believe will be the best…starting this Friday, of course.

-John 

September 21st

The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
Dir: Andrew Dominik
Cast: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Mary-Louise Parker, Sam Shepard, Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel, Pat Healey.
The title pretty much explains what you need to know.  Robert Ford (Affleck) joins Jesse James’s (Pitt) gang as an admirer of the great outlaw, but gradually grows to resent the man and plot his death.  The accolades are already starting to pour in for this one.  Brad Pitt took home a best actor award at the Venice Film Festival last week.  Zhang Yimou (Hero) who presided over the jury in particular praised Pitt’s performance as an “important departure from his customary Hollywood roles.”  It’s funny, there was a time when playing a Western gunslinger couldn’t be more Hollywood.
-David Morgan

Resident Evil: Extinction
Dir:Russell Mulcahy
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Oded Fehr
The third and final adaptation of the Resident Evil series, Extinction takes place eight years after the destruction of Raccoon City in Apocalypse. The T-Virus has spread throughout the country and Milla Jovovich roams the deserts a~la Mad Max, killing the “monsters” (never referred to as zombies, mind you) and ushering a new group of humans to Alaska where it may be safe. Working on a script from Paul “Hey, I made Mortal Kombat” Anderson, Mulcahy finally brings back the original boss from the first RE game—not to mention a rather odd subplot about cloning Milla Jovovich over and over.
-John Lichman

Into the Wild
Dir: Sean Penn
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Zach Galifianakis, Marcia Gay Harden, Hal Holbrook, William Hurt, Catherine Keener, Jena Malone, Kristen Stewart.
Hirsch plays Christopher McCandless in the true story of how a young graduate from Emory University abandoned all of his possessions to live in the wilderness of Alaska.  The film tells the story of McCandless’s hitchhiking journey north and the characters he meets along the way.  Reviews thus far have been mostly positive, and the trailer makes it seem like what would happen if someone made Grizzly Man, Castaway, and My Own Private Idaho into one movie.
-DM

September 28th

The Darjeeling Limited
Dir: Wes Anderson
Cast: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Natalie Portman.
Three estranged brothers (Wilson, Brody, Schwartzman) set off on a journey across India in order to reacquaint themselves and hopefully reignite familial fondness.  Wes Anderson tends to be a fairly divisive director.  For every person who loves his odd characters, dry humor, and symmetrical aesthetic style, there’s someone else who will tell you he’s pretentious, unfunny, and just being quirky for quirky’s sake.  At this early stage, most reviews have been negative.  Some of the highest praise it’s received so far is that it’s just like Anderson’s other movies, for better or worse.  Also, a warning: If you’re going to see Murray, Huston, or Portman, you should know that these are reportedly just cameos.
-DM

The Kingdom
Dir: Peter Berg
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner
Based on the 2003 bombings at an American embassy in Saudi Arabia, an FBI team is sent to investigate but ultimately becomes hindered by local forces and rival agencies.
Despite being pushed back for better awards consideration and going through multiple trailers to streamline the plot synopsis into 25 seconds, The Kingdom may help Berg live down The Rundown and Very Bad Things.  
-JL

Lust, Caution
Dir: Ang Lee
Cast: Wei Tang, Joan Chen, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Lee-Hom Wang.
Tang plays a young woman in World War II-era Shanghai who gets involved with a prominent political figure played by Tony Leung.  The woman soon becomes caught in a web of intrigue and sex (Does “web of sex” make sense?).  Lee’s film has received a lot of attention as of late, partially due to its explicit depictions of sex which have earned it an NC-17 rating in the US, and have led to extensive censorship for the film’s Chinese release.  On the other hand, Lust, Caution took home the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and has been praised by most critics that have had a chance to see it.  Comparisons have been made to Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris as well as Lee’s own Brokeback Mountain, presumably because of the graphic sex of the former and the secrecy of an affair in the latter.
-DM

October 5th

Grace is Gone
Dir: James C.Strouse
Cast: John Cusack, Alessandro Nivola, Mary-Kay Place, Shelan O’Keefe, Gracie Bednarczyk
Cusack plays a widower whose wife is killed in Iraq.  Upon learning of his loss, he takes his daughters on a road trip to try to get to know them better.  For whatever reason, the theme of this fall seems to be “get in a vehicle, go someplace new, and you’ll figure your life and relationships out.”  We see it in Into the Wild, The Darjeeling Limited, and now Grace is Gone.  Cusack looks strangely at home playing a depressed, middle-aged, middle-class man and the film has won acclaim including the Audience Award at the Sundance film festival.  Obviously the War in Iraq is the hot topic now that it’s award season, and unless this film proves it has something special, it will most likely be eclipsed by all of the other filmic forays into understanding the lives of soldiers and their loved ones (In the Valley of Elah, Redacted, Lions for Lambs, etc.).
-DM

October 12th

Sleuth
Dir: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Michael Caine, Jude Law
Sleuth was originally a play by British playwright Anthony Shaffer and was famously adapted for the screen by Hollywood screenwriter-director Joseph Mankiewicz (All About Eve) in 1972.  In that version, Michael Caine played the young hairdresser who had been sleeping with a wealthy old mystery writer’s (Laurence Olivier) wife.  The writer engages the hairdresser in a battle of wits with deadly possibilities.  Now Michael Caine has been promoted to the role of the cuckolded old writer and Jude Law plays a young actor who has stolen his wife.  Initial reviews of the remake have been mixed, and naturally quite a bit of the criticism has focused on what’s been changed and what’s been left the same.  As is often the case with remaking classics, Sleuth has its fair share of obstacles in front of it, but come award season, it may earn a nod or two.  The original is one of the few movies for which the entire cast received Oscar nominations (no wins).
-DM

We Own The Night
Dir: James Gray
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Robert Duvall
In theory, this should be great. It reunites Wahlberg, Phoenix and director James Gray who all worked on the amazing-yet-unseen The Yards. But the marketing is such a direct rip-off of The Departed that it could wind up hurting this classic crime drama more than help it. But here’s to watching Phoenix at his drug-addled best against Wahlberg.
-JL

Michael Clayton
Dir: Tony Gilroy
Cast: George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson
A twist on his usual character, Clooney comes in as an industry fixer after the main attorney brokering a class-action lawsuit breaks down and has a change of heart. It reads like classic melodrama with a tortured, once great man comes to terms with the ethical choices he must make—just like any film with George Clooney that isn’t made by the Coen Brothers or David Soderbergh.
-JL

October 19th

30 Days of Night
Dir: David Slade
Cast: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George
Based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, an Alaskan town is under siege by a group of vampires where the sun won’t rise for a month. Listen, this film can’t fail if it is even partially true to the source material and is sure to prove that when you work from the right material, even the oldest creature feature can be frightening. (We’re looking at you Skinwalkers.)
-JL

October 26th

Run Fatboy Run
Dir: David Schwimmer
Writers: Michael Ian Black, Simon Pegg
Cast: Simon Pegg, Dylan Moran, Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria, Stephen Merchant.
Simon Pegg plays a slacker who leaves his beautiful girlfriend (Thandie Newton) at the altar only to discover some years later that he made a mistake.  Upon this discovery, he attempts to get into shape to show her that he’s a better man for her than her American businessman boyfriend (Hank Azaria).  It sounds very much like a standard, disposable romantic comedy, and quite a few reviews have said that about it.  But given the pedigree of acting and writing talent involved, it deserves at least a moment’s attention.   So if this sucks, well, we can all scapegoat first-time feature film director David Schwimmer and feel good about it.
-DM

The Signal
Dir: David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry
Cast: Chad McKnight, A.J. Bowen, Claire Bronson
The most buzzed-about horror film of the year is getting a limited release thanks to Magnolia. A strange signal comes through every cell phone, TV and radio that changes some people into crazed killers while others are left to wonder whether they are killers and just can’t tell the difference. Overall, each director, moving from splatter-horror to thriller, splits the film into three different “transmissions.” Many have claimed similarity to Stephen King’s short story “The Cell,” but who cares? Between the “Perfect Day” cover and the hand-held shooting style, it has the possibility to be the next 28 Days Later.
-JL

November 2nd

American Gangster
Dir: Ridley Scott
Writer: Steven Zaillian
Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Cuba Gooding Jr., Josh Brolin, RZA, Carla Gugino, Chiwetel Eijofor, Norman Reedus, Armand Assante, Common, KaDee Strickland, Jon Polito.
Washington plays Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas in this “based-on-a-true-story” drama and Russell Crowe plays the detective who’s determined to bring him down.  This film is obviously Oscar bait.  Its two stars are Oscar winners, the director’s been nominated three times, and it’s based on a true, gritty story about heroin being smuggled in the coffins of Vietnam War casualties.  It’s a prestige film if anything is.  But it looks like the good kind of prestige film (i.e. the entertaining kind).  The trailer looks great albeit it has some instances of over-acting on the part of Washington (“They tried. To kill. My WIFE.”).
-DM

November 9th

Lions for Lambs
Dir: Robert Redford
Cast: Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, Peter Berg, Michael Pena, Derek Luke.
Three overlapping stories depict the political climate in the United States and the Middle East.  The first involves Redford’s college professor character trying to reach out to his disaffected student and tell him the story of two former students who enlisted for the war shortly after they graduated.  The second plotline follows these two former students (Pena and Luke) as they find themselves caught behind enemy lines.  The third plotline focuses on a reporter (Streep) getting an exclusive story about the War on Terror from a hawkish U.S. congressman (Cruise).  As of yet, the film has not been screened publicly but the trailer (along with who is in the director’s seat) seems to suggest that it’s an attack on the current foreign policy with Cruise’s character being something of a stand-in for any congressperson who still favors a U.S. military presence in the Middle East.  As such, Cruise’s character comes off as something of a one-dimensional windbag whom savvy journalist Meryl Streep constantly gets the better of, but perhaps the film will flesh him out a bit more.  How Cruise became involved in this project is anyone’s guess, as it’s the first “important” film he’s done in nearly twenty years.
-DM

November 16th

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
Dir: Zach Helm (also writer)
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman, Zach Mills.
Hoffman plays the title character, a 243 year-old magical toy store owner who bequeaths his business to his young employee Molly Maloney (Portman).  The store does not take this transfer of power well, and accountant Jason Bateman shows up and acts skeptical.  Director Helm was the writer of the above average Will Ferrell comedy Stranger than Fiction, and seems to apply a similar sense of humor to this project, multiplying the strangeness tenfold.  This hardly looks like it will be award-fodder, but its G-rating should earn it some big bucks with children and parents in the same way that Elf did a couple of years ago or Night at the Museum did last Christmas.
-DM

Beowulf
Dir: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie, Crispin Glover
Further blurring the lines of film and animation, Zemeckis’ Beowulf stands to be the break-out lit adaptation of the year. Working on what will surely be a faithful adaption of the poem from Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery, the live-action motion capture that brought out the infamous “soulless eyes” of The Polar Express has been fine-tuned into one of the more explosive and intriguing trailers ever made. Gaiman and Avery should be able to fine-tune the epic into a good film, especially when there’s no hint of “realism” in this post-modern masterpiece.
-JL    

Love in the Time of Cholera
Dir: Mike Newell
Cast: Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt, Giovanna Mezzogiorno
A heart-broken young man spends his life devoted to love as he hopes to forget the only girl he ever wished to have. A bit sappy? Sure, but Gabriel García Márquez’ classic novel deserves the best treatment after so many literary classics were butchered by a film adaptation. At least Kenneth Branagh’s not doing this.
-JL

I’m Not There
Dir: Todd Haynes
Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger,Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Frnaklin and Benz Antoine
In the best stunt-casting ever, this Bob Dylan biopic follows the multiple genres and courses taken by the man who made 4th Street positively something all right. So far, the Haynes bio has received nothing but praise, love and adoration, not to mention cameos/collaborations from indie-darlings Steven Malkimus, Jeff Tweedy, Cat Power and an awesome duet from Once’s Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. While the mixing of Dylan between various actors has received a lot of praise, Cate Blanchett is the break-out role for various reasons.
-JL

November 21st

No Country For Old Men
Dir: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Stephen Root, Beth Grant.
A hunter (Brolin) finds some money, drugs, and bodies in Texas.  A psychopath (Bardem) stalks him while a sheriff (Jones) tries to protect him.  Naturally as it’s the Coen Brothers, it’s a bit more involved than that.  After they faltered in their near-perfect batting average with mediocre efforts Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, people started to wonder if these two still had it.  As if to shut those naysayers up, acclaim for No Country has been practically unanimous.  The film was up for the Palm d’Or at Cannes and critics are heaping all kinds of praise onto it.  Though there haven’t been many clear frontrunners yet in the Oscar race, this sounds like the kind of film we can all get behind.
-DM

November 21st

Hitman
Dir: Xavier Gens
Cast: Timophy Olyphant, Dougray Scott
Before we can enjoy Joust: The Movie,  we have to settle for the Hitman adaptation. Agent 47 (Olyphant) is a genetically engineered assassin who becomes embroiled in a political takeover, on-the-run across Europe as he tries to find out framed him. There’s also an off-beat reference to Leon: The Professional in the form of a little girl who makes him question his job.  Most likely a throw-away action film, the fact that Olyphant, who constantly impresses with his past roles in Deadwood and The Girl Next Door, jumped into this means 1) this film may not be that bad, 2) this could be the box-office attention he needs to get actual roles, or 3) he really wanted to buy an iPhone. We’ll have to wait to be sure.
-JL

December 14th

I Am Legend
Dir: Francis Lawrence
Cast: Will Smith
The best part about this movie comes from an outdoor set I walked by one day, where a painted Green Lantern one-sheet hangs in the window. That aside, Legend is the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s story of the same name where a virus infects and possibly kills most of New York City. Robert Neville (Smith) is left behind to work on a cure and find out if he really is alone.  The post-apocalypse shots of Midtown look impressive and Smith is known to deliver when given a glossy action backdrop to pose, strut and shout one-liners against.  But most striking may be the creature effects glimpsed briefly during filming last fall in the West Village, which could be described as a burn victim meeting the zombie image we all know and love.
-JL

Juno
Dir: Jason Reitman
Writer: Diablo Cody
Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Olivia Thirlby, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Rainn Wilson.
Reitman’s sophomore effort (his first feature being the clever and successful Thank You For Smoking) concerns a sixteen year-old girl named Juno (Page), who has to decide what to do about her unplanned pregnancy.  Michael Cera plays Juno’s best friend and the baby’s father, while Bateman and Garner play the barren couple who want to adopt the unborn child.  Very good rumors and reviews have been going around about this film and in particular the dialogue written by newcomer Diablo Cody.  People have been calling it what they wished Napoleon Dynamite/Little Miss Sunshine/Ghost World could have been.
-DM

December 21st

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Dir: Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen.
Based on the Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim, Depp plays Benjamin Barker, a man banished from London in the 19th century, who sneaks back into his city under the pseudonym Sweeney Todd.  Once returned, he opens a barber shop above Mrs. Lovett’s meat pie shop and the two form a close bond as he murders everyone who’s ever wronged him.  If you’re trying to find the simplest way to explain this film to someone, Burton characterizes it as a “horror musical.”  That along with the cast and filmmaker should get them into the seats.
-DM

December 26th

There Will Be Blood
Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O’Connor, Ciaran Hinds, Paul F. Tompkins.
Based on Upton Sinclair’s novel “Oil!” the film follows the career of a greedy Texas oilman and the people he exploits.  Day-Lewis plays the prospector Plainview, while Dano plays Eli Sunday, a young religious healer who finds himself at odds with Plainview.  This is PT Anderson’s first film in five years, the longest break he’s ever taken, and it’s also his first film that could be characterized as lacking in star-power (with all due respect to Mr. Day-Lewis).  While probably very few people will see this film, it looks beautiful from the trailer, and Day-Lewis tends not to just pick any old film to act in (this is only his fourth film in the past ten years).
-DM