Grab your sweater and head into the air-conditioning for a British-invasion fall.
Most films of the fall barrage seem to boast at least one, and sometimes two or three, of a half-dozen or so actors: Helena Bonham Carter, Nicholas Cage, Johnny Depp, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton-why, Ben Kingsley alone must be responsible for roughly 73 percent of this fall's cinematic fodder. It's clear proof that the British invasion continues, as more than half of the hardest-working actors hail from the tiny island which once ruled the world. Does Sir Ben have a dastardly plan to create a second British Empire, with himself as the Grand High Epopt of Dramaturgy? Are Bonham Carter, Fiennes and Swinton his accomplices in global appropriation? Will Hollywood someday be annexed by Shepperton Studios, and big-deal LA producers be sent to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to understudy for
Measure for Measure
? Who knows; but come to think of it, all that would make a great movie starring-naturally-Ben Kingsley.
SEPTEMBER 2
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A Sound of Thunder
Originally a Ray Bradbury short story that scared the bejeezus out of us when we read it under the cover with our flashlights, this potent little parable about the folly of man messing around with nature may be right on target. Far, far in the future, when time travel is a reality, one enterprising shyster (Ben Kingsley, chewing up the scenery in this adaptation by Peter Hyams) decides to make a buck taking people back to the Age of Reptiles to poach some
really
large game. Anyone who's seen
Jurassic Park
knows what a bad idea this is-why can't people use time travel for something sensible, like evading income tax penalties? Sure enough, when guide Edward Burns (
The Brothers McMullen
) escorts one rowdy group back, they disobey the rules and-well, we won't spoil it for you. But you know that reverently cited, dumbed-down truism of chaos theory-that if a butterfly flaps its wings in New Jersey, there'll be a hurricane in Japan? Well, if you ever have the (mis)fortune to time-travel, just please: Don't…touch…
anything
.
SEPTEMBER 16
Everything Is Illuminated
Nervous fans of Jonathan Safran Foer's runaway first novel will be relieved to know that Liev Schreiber's last name means "writer" in German. Not only is the actor's script for
Everything Is Illuminated
his first, but he's also sitting in the director's chair for the first time. Still, experience on such films as, um,
The Sum of All Fears
should count for something-and so should the genius decision to cast Elijah Wood, formerly a traumatized hobbit (and panty thief in
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
) as, well, Jonathan Safran Foer, who travels to the Ukraine to find the mysterious woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Eugene Hutz gamely steps in as Alex, the "translator" who not be speek de Englitch so gut ("that is just his seeing-eye bitch"). And if that's not enough, the song at the end of the trailer (Devotchka's "How It Ends") will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck-it's practically a subliminal message to stand in line all night outside the theater.
The Libertine
Johnny Depp is back where he belongs, in period costume, possibly the only man in Hollywood who could get away with blackening his teeth and still looking fabulous (if in a kind of unsavory way). As
The Libertine
, he's John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, a 17th century poet you can now find in the Norton Anthology of Literature-but at the time of his writing, you could find him more easily in a pub or in another bard's bed, until he finally died of advanced dissipation. It's rumored Depp will lock lips with a same-sex colleague or two-probably not King Charles II (John Malkovich, who portrayed the Earl in the original stage play). There'll even be a Pogue on hand (Shane MacGowan) as a competitor versifier. Rhyming, boozing, teeth-decaying fun, with a knife-twist of pure black tragedy.
Just Like Heaven
The pitch practically writes itself: "It's
Ghost
, only funny…it's
City of Angels
crossed with Terry Schiavo…really, you're gonna love it." Frankly we wouldn't find much of interest in this love story between a relocated San Franciscan (Mark Ruffalo) and his unexpected, etherial housemate (Reese Witherspoon, playing a comatose woman hovering in limbo between life and death)-but the fact is that as Santa Feans we're obliged to go see this because it has
The Tao of Steve
's Donal Logue in it (as well as deadpan Jon Heder-
Napoleon Dynamite
, but without the red Afro).
Proof
In the history of film, attempts to depict mathematicians at work have been as successful as the portrayal of poets writing-all we usually get are some crumpled-up balls of paper strewn everyone, and the actor either a) clutching his/her brow despondently or b) in a frenzy of inspiration, scribbling as fast as wrist tendons will permit. Never do they surf the Internet, reorganize their sock drawers, or wander aimlessly around the house in boxers humming show tunes. John Madden (
Shakespeare in Love
, guilty of the above-mentioned brow-clutching and scribbling) nonetheless essays the feat with
Proof
, which he in fact directed on the London stage-and with Gwyneth Paltrow again in the starring role, as a depressed math student who must give up her studies in order to care for her equally
non compos mentis
mathematician father (Anthony Hopkins).
Proof
also stars Jake Gyllenhaal as her grad-student paramour; could net another Oscar for Apple's mom.
SEPTEMBER
23
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The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
Julianne Moore reprises her classic 1950s housewife (cf.
Far from Heaven
,
The Hours
) in this narrative of women's liberation. Poor Evelyn, mother of 10 (yep) and wife to a man who can't seem to make ends meet (Woody Harrellson, whose horn-rimmed glasses and goofy haircut imply that he's
acting
, here), turns in desperation to writing jingles for contests-and then wins, repeatedly, keeping her family in washing machines, automobiles, and lifetime supplies of cream of celery soup. Look for newbie director Jane Anderson to recreate such authentic period details as television aerials and jello salad with marshmallows, shredded coconut and fruit cup. Moore has become as reliable as Greenwich Mean Time; when she gazes lovingly into her envious, shamed husband's eyes and says tenderly, "I don't need you to make me feel happy," she's one woman; when she follows it up with, "I just need you to leave me alone when I am," she's steely and entirely different.
Flightplan
If you've been to a movie theater since June, you already know from the trailer that recently widowed Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster, last seen in David Fincher's 2002
Panic Room
) boards a non-stop flight to Berlin with her small daughter, goes to the loo midway through and returns to her seat to find said daughter gone. One would imagine there aren't too many places the tot could be hiding at 40,000 feet, and fortunately it just so happens that Kyle designed the plane. Gosh, that's lucky. But the cabin crew seems to be in solicitous denial, telling Kyle they saw no one with her and have no record of her daughter's ticket. About the same time they start to question Ms. Jodie's sanity, we're almost beginning to wonder ourselves, as she runs back and forth, pale and breathless, yelling at the flight attendants. "Please, you're upsetting the other passengers!" one reprimands her; the scathing look on her face tells us just how much she cares. Sean Bean (
Fellowship of the Ring
) plays the airplane captain and Peter Sarsgaard (
Garden State
) is an air marshal. At least it'll earn enough to carry Jodie a few more years before she has to make another thriller.
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
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Burton hearkens back to the ghastly glory days of
The Nightmare before Christmas
with another stop-motion feature, this time having cast Johnny Depp, Emily Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Albert Finney, Richard E Grant, Joanna Lumley and Christopher Lee as inhabitants of a 19th century middle-European village-both above and below ground. When Victor (Depp) is abruptly abducted to the underworld where he's told his new wife is the worm-eaten
Corpse Bride
(Bonham Carter, or Mrs. Tim Burton to Inland Revenue), he finds the Land of the Dead to be surprisingly more entertaining than the so-called Land of the Living. But he's got to get back to his mourning fiancé Victoria (
Breaking the Waves
' Watson) without hurting his new friends' feelings. Expect
Corpse Bride
to be unequivocally creepy in a late Victorian, Baudelairian sort of way-maybe not one for the kiddies.
SEPTEMBER
30
Oliver Twist
Only two things really need to be said: Roman Polanski directs, using an insanely expensive outdoor replica of London; and Ben Kingsley plays Fagin. You know where you need to be.
Lord of War
Writer-director Andrew Niccol's gift so far has been for dislocating his characters in false utopias, environments that seem shimmeringly perfect until the misfit hero reveals their ugly utilitarianism: the tragically neglected
Gattaca
(Ethan Hawke, Jude Law) and, of course, more successfully,
The Truman Show
(Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney). Now Niccol's breaking his own mold with a political thriller that may step on a few toes of the School of the Americas variety. Nicholas Cage and Jared Leto play a pair of Ukranian brothers who go from small-scale gunrunning to major global arms deals; Ethan Hawke is the Interpol agent trying to bring them down. Apparently Niccol had to piece together funding himself because he couldn't find a studio willing to associate itself with the touchy issue of American arms being illegally trafficked to the Evil Empire. My, just imagine that.
A History of Violence
This entry falls squarely under the "Hollywood Makes Strange Bedfellows" heading, the odd bedfellows in this case being director David Cronenberg (
Crash
,
Dead Ringers
) and actor Viggo Mortensen (last seen in
Hildago
, but probably most seen as greasy-haired but sensitive Aragorn in the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy). Costarring Ed Harris and Maria Bello,
Violence
shows the consequences of a media circus surrounding a small-town vigilante who committed a murder in self-defense. Truly, Mortensen has rarely made the most out of his intelligent screen presence (
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
, anyone?)-but if there's a director eccentric enough to pull a great performance out of the guy, it's Cronenberg.
OCTOBER 7
Wallace and Gromit:
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
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Finally Britain's beloved cheese-addicted inventor and his silent but expressive dog have their own feature-length film. Nick Park, better known to Yanks for the surprise crossover hit
Chicken Run
, has been making Wallace and Gromit shorts (
The Wrong Trousers
,
A Close Shave
and
A Grand Day Out
) since 1989; the years spent perfecting his detail-obsessed claymation haven't been wasted. With the vocal talents of Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, and Peter Sallis continuing to give voice to the Rube Goldberg-ian Wallace, the 94-minute film should stand repeated viewings à la
The Triplets of Belleville
.
OCTOBER
14
North Country
Fresh off the success of
Whale Rider
, Niki Caro had her pick of scripts; she chose this story of a single mother (
Monster
's Charlize Theron) who moves back to her Minnesota hometown to start over. Her best friend (Frances McDormand), one of the few women miners in town, talks her into applying for a job in the mines. She's prepared for the work to be hard and dangerous, but not for her male coworkers to behave like ill-mannered bonobos. When she not only stands up for herself but also emboldens the other women to do so (think Sally Field carrying a big sign reading "UNION"), she risks the disapproval of her community, children and parents (
In the Bedroom
's Sissy Spacek and Richard Jenkins from
Six Feet Under
)-and of course her job. If Caro's actresses don't get some nominations out of this, it'll be nobody's fault but Hollywood's.
Elizabethtown
When writer-director-producer Cameron Crowe decides on a project, there are at least five reasons to think it'll be successful:
Almost Famous
,
Jerry Maguire
,
Singles
,
Say Anything
,
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
. (We'll leave
Vanilla Sky
out of it for now.) Orlando Bloom, looking much more ordinary and less pretty-boy than we've previously seen, travels reluctantly to Kentucky for his patriarchal father's memorial service, meeting airline hostess Kirsten Dunst along the way. Also starring Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon, it's
Six Feet Under
meets
Garden State
, and should have its finger neatly on the pulse of the Zeitgeist.
OCTOBER
21
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Domino
Ever since
La Femme Nikita
, to say nothing of Ripley in a sweaty, filthy tanktop, audiences have been getting off on the sight of frail women toting around huge phallic weapons and saying witty things just before they blow away the bad guys (or things with many tentacles, or both). Oddly it's only now that
women
are being drawn to these films, and we predict that's what'll happen with
Domino
, the latest venture of Tony Scott (
Enemy of the State
). Keira Knightley (
Bend It Like Beckham
) plays real-life Ford model turned bounty hunter Domino Harvey, and totes around the huge phallic weapons, etc. Not much else in Scott's wildly shot film will be true to life (for instance, Harvey was an out lesbian), but you can't have everything. With co-stars like Christopher Walken and Mickey Rourke, and dialogue from
Donnie Darko
's writer Richard Kelly, it's bound to be better than watching Keira in yet another adaptation of
Pride and Prejudice
, coming out later this month.
OCTOBER
28
The Weather Man
Chicago weatherman David Spritz (Nicholas Cage, with a mop of hair far too plenteous to be real) at last gets his chance to audition for a national morning show. But his dad (Michael Caine), kids and ex-wife (Hope Davis) are dead-set against his moving to New York. Apparently the message is that life, like weather, can't be predicted or controlled. This otherwise average-looking Paramount offering stands out because of director Gore Verbinski, known chiefly for three achievements:
Pirates of the Caribbean
,
Mousehunt
(beloved by insomniac film critics everywhere) and, perhaps not least, the Budweiser bullfrogs. If nothing else, it should be entertaining to see what Verbinski does with a script that doesn't have frogs, mice or pirates in it.
