Fall Film Preview

2008-09-05
By Sergio Mims

Now that all the superheroes movies, fantasy films and special effects extravaganzas of the summer are receding, it’s now time for adults to come out of hiding and line up for the more mature fare and potential Oscar bait that the studios have lined up for the fall and winter. Here’s a sampling of some of the more interesting stuff coming up in the next few months.

 

SEPTEMBER

The Appaloosa 

Ed Harris stars and directs this western, which has been getting very strong advance buzz ,with Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons and Renee Zellwegger about two friends who are hired to protect a small town from an evil rancher.

The Family That Preys

If there’s one thing you can say about Tyler Perry, love him or hate him, he’s prolific, cranking out two films a year when most directors are happy to do one every three years . In an attempt to expand his audience from the usual fat black chicks without men, Perry’s latest endeavor about two vastly different families who learn to work together features his first integrated cast with Alfre Woodard, Kathy Bates, Sanaa Lathan, Cole Hauser and Robin Givens. In case you’re hoping that this signals a new change in direction for Perry guess again. His next film will be Madea Goes to Jail.

 

The Miracle at St. Anna
The anxiously awaited new film from Spike Lee about the experiences of a group of black soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in Italy during World War II with Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonzo, Omar Benson Miller and Kerry Washington, who at the last minute replaced the originally cast Naomi Campbell thereby saving the cast and crew from any violent tantrums or flying diamond-encrusted cell phones.

Lakeview Terrace

Director Neal LaBute’s thriller with Samuel L. Jackson playing a creepy psycho cop with a secret who terrorizes his happily married next door neighbors Kerry Washington (yet again) and Patrick Wilson.

Blindness
Based on the acclaimed political allegory novel by Jose Saramago, the film deals with an unnamed foreign city which is ravaged by a sudden and mysterious epidemic which renders nearly everyone with blindness except for lead Julienne Moore. With Danny Glover, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga and Gael Garcia Bernal. Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardner) directs.

OCTOBER

The Changeling

Praised as one of the best films of the year when it premiered at the Cannes Film festival in May and for certain destined with several potential major Oscar nominations next year, director Clint Eastwood’s new film is a period drama set in the Los Angeles 1920’s is based on the true story of a single mother (Angelina Jolie) whose kidnapped son sets off a scandal that brings down the entire police force. With John Malkovich.

W

Already making headlines when John Brolin (who plays the lead role of George Bush) and Jeffrey Wright (who plays Colin Powell) were recently arrested in a bar fight in Louisiana while celebrating the end of shooting, always controversial writer and director Oliver Stone claims his film will not be the brutal hatchet job that people expect from him and will be a more sympathetic look at the life and political career of Dubya. With Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, Scott Glenn as Rumsfeld and Thandie Netwon,  who one assumes will be darkened up, in the role of Condi Rice.

The Secret Life of Bees 
Based on the popular novel by Sue Monk Kidd, the period film set in the South in 1964 deals with a guilt-ridden white girl who finds herself taken care of by a household of black women with Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, Sophie Okonedo and Dakota Fanning. Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love and Basketball) directs.

Body of Lies

Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe team up in this action suspense thriller about a journalist coerced by the CIA to track down and kill an Al Qaeda leader in Jordan. Ridley Scott (American Gangster, Blade Runner, Black Hawk Down and Gladiator) directs.

Religulous – Comedian Bill Maher joins with Borat director Les Charles on his comedic and sure to be controversial documentary as Maher travels the world exploring and questioning the world’s religions.

The Express

The Hollywood “true“ story about Ernie Davis, the college football star who became the first black player to win the Heisman trophy in 1961 but who died the following year before even playing professionally. With Rob Brown as Davis, Dennis Quaid and Charles S. Dutton. Gary Felder directs.

NOVEMBER

Quantum of Solace

With Casino Royale  becoming the biggest worldwide grossing James Bond film in the series 45-year history, there’s definitely a lot of life left in 007. Daniel Craig returns as Bond out on a revenge mission to get the men responsible for the death of his lover while of course saving the world from destruction yet again. With Jeffrey Wright, Judi Dench and Mathieu Amalric (Munich, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly) as the villain. Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball) directs, though the major action sequences were handled by Dan Bradley who choreographed and directed the car chases sequences in the Bourne spy movies.

The Road 
The highly anticipated film version of Cormac McCarthy’s horrifying tale set in a post-apocalyptic world about a father and son battling for survival. The Australian director John Hillcoat, who made the Outback western The Proposition, directs with Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron and "The Wire’s" Michael K. Williams.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The next to last of the Potter film franchise with Harry and his cohorts battling for the umpteenth time some evil out to destroy Hogwarts or something like that with Daniel Radcliffe and the rest of the gang. David Yates, who directed the last Potter film The Order of the Phoenix, returns.

The Soloist

Jamie Foxx’s new bid for an Oscar win has him playing  the real life person of a schizophrenic, homeless musician  in Los Angeles who dreams of playing a concert in the Disney Concert Hall with Iron Man himself Robert Downey Jr. as Foxx’s co-star. Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice and Atonement) is the director.

Soul Men

Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac star in this comedy about two estranged, former soul music legends who reluctantly team up for a reunion concert at the Apollo to honor their recently deceased band leader with Isaac Hayes. Directed by Malcolm D Lee (Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Roll Bounce and The Best Man)

DECEMBER

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button After over a decade in development with seemingly every major star and director attached at one time or another , F. Scott Fitzgerald’s strange little short story about a man who’s born old and gets younger as the years go by finally comes to the big screen with Brad Pitt as Button, Cate Blanchett, this year's best supporting actress Oscar winner Tilda Swinton and Hustle and Flow’s Taraji P. Henson taking a turn as Pitt's mother.  David Fincher,  who directed Se7en, The Panic Room and Zodiac, directs.

Seven Pounds 
One of Will Smith's regular  attempts for an Oscar nomination as a guy who survives a suicide attempt only to change the lives of seven strangers while also falling in love in the process. Gabrielle Muccino, who directed Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness, directs Pounds with Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson and Michael Ealy.

Defiance 
Daniel  Craig again, but this time not as James Bond but  as a Jewish resistance fighter in Russia during World War II who leads a large group of Jewish refugees to freedom while blowing up and killing Nazis with Liev Schreiber. Ed Zwick, who directed Denzel  Washington in Glory, The Siege and Courage Under Fire, as well as The Last Samurai and Blood Diamond directs.

The Spirit
The legendary comic book artist Will Eisner’s famous creation from the 1940’s The Spirit, a rookie cop who returns from the dead to battle evildoers, comes to the big screen in a film written and directed by the fanboy’s comic book god, Frank Miller (300 and Sin City). One can hopefully assumes that The Spirit’s stereotyped, mush-mouthed, scared of his own shadow black sidekick from the original comic, Ebony White is not in the film. With Gabriel Macht as the Spirit, Eva  Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson, in yet another film, as the villain The Octopus.

The Day the Earth Stood Still 
The unnecessary "why bother" remake of the beloved 1950’s sci-fi Robert Wise classic with Keanu Reeves in the role of the alien Klaatu who comes to earth to warm mankind of its impending doom Jennifer Connolly, and Will Smith’s son Jaden co-star. Scott Dickerson, who directed the 2005 sleeper hit The Exorcism of Emily Rose, directs.

Gran Torino
For someone is his late 70’s Clint Eastwood can sure knock them out, this time not only directing but starring in his drama about a retiree who forges an unusual friendship with a young Asian teenager after he steal’s Eastwood’s prize classic 1972 Ford Gran Torino.

The Taking of Pelham 123
Tony Scott (Ridley’s younger brother) directs Denzel Washington again for the fourth time (after Crimson Tide, Déjà Vu and Man on Fire) is this contemporary remake of the much loved Walter Matthau 1974 comic thriller about a gang of criminals who take a subway car and its passengers hostage for ransom. This time the film promises to be less humorous with more emphasis on suspense and action with John Travolta as the leader of the bad guys and the Sopranos’ James Gandolfini as the mayor.

Film critic, lecturer and festival consultant Sergio Mims covers all things film from the city that works, Chicago. He is a regular contributor to ebonyjet.com