The fall Oscar prestige season is in full swing and a bunch of films will be competing for both your dollars and the consideration of a certain Academy. But awards are whateves, so without further adieu, the second part to our Fall Film Preview. This pretty much concludes the films you need to keep your eye on between now and the end of December.
Margot At The Wedding (dir. Noah Baumbach. Nicole Kidman, Jack Black)
Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to the very-excellent “The Squid In The Whale,” follows an uptight ice-queen (perfectly cast with Kidman) who objects to her sister (Jennifer Jason-Leigh) marrying a schlub of a loser (Jack Black) and family dysfunction ensues. Problem is the film is getting extremely mediocre reviews so far. Well, at least the soundtrack is fantastic. We have a softspot for this filmmaker so we reserve the right to not judge yet until we’ve seen it.
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There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Daniel Day-Lewis)
After a long-awaited five year absence, Paul Thomas Anderson takes a decidedly unhip left turn with the 1920’s oil drama “There Will Be Blood.” Based on the Upton Sinclair Novel, “Oil!,” PTA’s return features Daniel Day-Lewis as a ravenous and misanthropic oil baron who gives not a flying fuck about all humanity, save for his young son. Paul Dano co-stars as a young priest (the only other “name” actor) trying to dispel Day Lewis’ greedy scrooge from ruining their California town. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood scores, but expect bleak drama and file under: not for fans who count, “Punch Drunk Love,” “Eternal Sunshine” and “I Heart Huckabees” as their favorite films.
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The Savages (dir. Tamara Jenkins. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney)
Two estranged and stunted family members (Hoffman, Linney) reevaluate their wandering asshole adult lives and face real-life reality when their father has a stroke and has to be placed in a home for the elderly. The film seems to signal the full-on return of Tamara Jenkins, who hasn’t really been heard of critically since 1998’s underrated “Slums of Beverly Hills” (her 2004 film went nowhere). With a cast as impeccable as the two leads and a trailer that is bitingly funny as this one, it might be hard to go wrong with this one. Plus “I’m Not There” soundtrack supervisors Randall Poster and Jim Dunbar picked the music for this film (its trailer includes Pinback’s Rob Crowe and Spoon for starters)
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Lars and the Real Girl (dir. Craig Gillespie. Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer)
Ryan Gosling (“Half Nelson”) stars as Lars, a delusional young man with a fair amount of romantic and need issues who strikes up a fairly unconventional relationship with a blow-up doll he finds on the Interweb. Sounds sort of retarded, but the cast also features indie-regular Patricia Clarkson and Paul Schneider and looks emotional, funny and sympathetic without devolving into base freak tactics. Looks solid, right? Be careful, director Craig Gillsepie is also the same guy who directed the recently-savaged by critics comedy, “Mr. Woodcock” starring Billy-Bob Thorton. Let’s hope that was a work for hire.
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Funny Games (dir. Michael Haneke. Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt)
Austrian director Michael Haneke is a master of the psychotic mindfuck and messing with his audience (go run and see “Caché,” and “The Piano Teacher,” but be forewarned they are brutal), but he already made this excruciating film about two psychotic boys who take a family hostage back in 1997. Somehow, Hollywood (dollars likely) convinced him to remake and cannibalize his own work only with American name brand recognizable actors. The trailer looks just gratuitous and idiotic and Haneke somehow has a knack to take extremely brutalizing subjects and somehow inject a layer of honesty to them. Well find out later in December we guess.
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Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (dir. Sidney Lumet. Ethan Hawke, Phillip-Seymour Hoffman)
The film stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a coke-addled loser and Ethan Hawke as his impressionable and gullible little brother and the two of them try and shave off their amounting debts. What do these geniuses do to solve their financial woes? They knock off their parent’s jewel store cause no one’s going to get hurt, right? Right? Obviously, things get worse from there, and without spoiling things too much loved ones die. Of note, for perverts on the Internet like this guy, Marisa Tomei gets naked in this film.
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Paranoid Park (dir. Gus Van Sant)
Gus Van Sant hit up myspace for his almost completely-unknown cast about a skatekid who accidentally kills a security guard and tries to keep it quiet from his unsuspecting teachers and classmates. The story is based on the Portland young adult novel by Blake Nelson. The film won the extra-special 60th anniversary prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
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American Gangster (dir. Ridley Scott. Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe)
’70s cop versus drug dealer movie starring two heavyweight actors. Ridley Scott’s been hit and miss in recent years, but this one has a lot of hopes attached to it, both critical and commercial (not that that means anything). The trailer looks cliched to all hell, but we’ve been known to be wrong. Hank Shocklee of Public Enemy producing fame is apparently making music for the film. Public Enemy’s newest album features a song called, “American Gangster” that we can assume we’ll hear somewhere in the film. Common and T.I. also make acting and musical contributions. Oh yeah, and Jay-Z did a whole album inspired by the movie.
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Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (dir. Julian Temple)
Julian Temple (the man behind The Sex Pistols doc “The Filth & The Fury“) doesn’t do a disservice here to his late Clash buddy Joe Strummer in the fair and balanced ‘Future Is Unwritten.’ The film is neither a love-letter to Strummer, nor is it the toppling of a sacred cow, but rather a reflective look back at the punk rock icon warts and all. Or as Temple describes it: “not a hero-worship film.” The film features glowing testimonials with such Strummer disciples as Martin Scorsese (he says “Raging Bulls” was directly influenced by the Clash), Bono, Bobby Gillespie, John Cooper Clarke, Don Letts, John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, Jim Jarmusch, Steve Jones and Johnny Depp who’s difficult to take seriously while still in full ‘Pirates’ make-up and ratty goatee.
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Youth Without Youth (dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara)
Frances Ford decade belated return to the world of film improbably about about a septuagenarian linguistics teacher (Tim Roth) who gets struck by lightning and becomes physically young – but retains his wisdom, memories and experiences. While that seem hokey, the film is supposed to tackle lofty subjects of “time and interior consciousness.” Matt Damon has a small cameo and co-starring is Alexandra Maria Lara, who plays Annik Honoré in Anton Corbijn’s Joy Division film, “Control.”)
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Redacted (dir. Brian DePalma)
Brian DePalma might be one of the most polarizing directors of the last 20 years, but almost everyone seems onboard for his Iraq war film, “Redacted.” The film received a standing ovation at the recent Venice Film Festival and DePalma walked away with the best director prize. About to be steeped in controversy in the next few months from conservative pundits and those that view the film as “anti-soldier,” the film is a docudrama based on the real-life Mahmudiyah killings, the real-life rape, murder, and burning of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in March 2006 by U.S. soldiers, who also killed her parents and younger sister. For the first time in his career, DePalma’s going to be polarizing for more than just his odd, revered and loathed aesthetic choices.
Italian News TV piece
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly” (dir. Julian Schnabel)
Julian Schnabel (“When Night Falls”) tries to wring drama and pathos out of a paralyzed French writer who authors a novel solely from blinking and succeeds winningly with evocative and gorgeous painterly tones. A shoe-in for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and already one of the year’s most powerful, emotional and effecting, the film stars “Munich” actors Mathieu Amalric and Marie-Josée Croze plus Schanbel’s hot trophy wife Olatz Lopez Garmendia and onetime model and Roman Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner. “See our full review [ed. we haven’t written it yet]. Oh yeah, Schnabel said Cannes’ top prize was supposed to go to “Diving Bell’, but politics apparently robbed him.
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Other Films Not Worth Exerting The Effort Of A Paragraph
Other films to look for (our typing hands are tired, links are generally trailers when applicable): Jake Paltrow’s “The Good Night” starring Penelope Cruz, Simon Pegg and big sis, Gwyneth; “Dan In Real Life” with Steven Carrell and the always amazing Juliette Binoche; “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” a costume drama sequel where nothing gets blown up starring Cate Blanchett as the Queen again; “Wristcutters: A Love Story,” Patrick Fugit (the kid from “Almost Famous”) and Shannyn Sossamon star as successful suciders that life on in limbo (with Tom Waits!); “Rendition” we have a crush on Reese Witherspoon; “Fred Claus” – Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti could be funny; “Cassandra’s Dreams” – Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor try and prove Woody Allen’s serious comeback wasn’t a fluke; “Leatherheads” – George Clooney likes tough subjects, this time it’s a screwball comedy about roaring ’20s-era football; “Sweeney Todd” – Tim Burton and Johnny Depp reteam for the murderous musical. Sounds wretched; “Persepolis” – won the Jury prize at this years Cannes festival is an animated black and white movie based on a graphic novel memoir experience of growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution (it’s not fun for an Iron Maiden fan). Fun for the whole family to be sure.