Think of it as the first leaf turning, a sight that can be melancholy but oh so lovely.
In “Hollywoodland,” Ben Affleck hunches his shoulders and walks back for another take as George Reeves, the guy who played television’s Superman. It was a subtle but perfectly authentic gesture, the sort that leads one to believe if a guy whose career seems to exist solely as tabloid fodder can be transformed, why not the film year?
This summer was a movie lover’s kryptonite, nearly zapping us of hope. Audiences delivered mildly better box office than last year, but studios did not return the favor.
Remember “Poseidon”? Nah. “You, Me and Dupree”? Nope. “The Break-Up”? Neither do we.
Too many summer films were immediately forgettable. We’re not opposed to the empty calories, but the treat’s got to be worth the guilt.
If “Hollywoodland,” opening Friday, is a sign – and we want it to be – fall, while occasionally somber, will also stun and please.
So check out these 12 movies that have us believing this season. With names like Clint Eastwood, Sean Penn, Annette Bening and Anthony Minghella, they also hint at the shape of the awards season to come. So much bounty, and we haven’t even included the Thanksgiving and holiday films.
A dozen films worth viewing
All the King’s Men (Sept. 22)
Starring: Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini, Patricia Clarkson, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins
Writer and director: Steve Zaillian
Reasons to believe: When Zaillian’s version of Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning roman à clef of Louisiana pol Huey Long moved from a 2005 to 2006 release, it gave us a big uneasy feeling. Could the Oscar-winning scribe’s remake, featuring the incendiary Sean Penn as Willie Stark, be that bad? But the news looks good enough to suggest a new Oscar trivia category: roles that won both portrayers Academy Award nominations. Broderick Crawford took home the Oscar for best actor in 1949. Patricia Clarkson is in an even better position to ditto Mercedes McCambridge’s win as Sadie Burke.
The Science of Sleep (Sept. 22)
Starring: Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Alain Chabat
Director: Michel Gondry
Reasons to believe: This is one we’ve already seen, and fans of quirky, moving indie films will love it. Gondry put heart, soul and surrealism into “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”; here he pens his own story about a young artist (Bernal) who shies away from the real world and human relations. Wildly inventive animation scenes bring us inside the remarkable mind of Bernal’s character, yet it’s good old basic acting that makes us cringe at the wounds he suffers from daily life. Gainsbourg brings a grounded sympathy to the unpredictable proceedings.
The Departed (Oct. 6)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen
Director: Martin Scorsese
Reasons to believe: What, not enough tough guys for you? With names like this, who cares about the plot? OK, so you care a little: Scorsese takes on a dark street-story about quadruple-dealing, when a cop infiltrates the Boston mob and a mobster simultaneously infiltrates the police force. Which desperate group finds its mole first makes for a great trailer, and Jack Nicholson watches over all as the local crime boss.
Breaking and Entering (Oct. 6)
Starring: Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn
Director: Anthony Minghella
Reasons to believe: Minghella has proven himself one of the world’s greatest working directors with sprawling dramas like “Cold Mountain,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “The English Patient.” Now he takes on a tighter story, writing and directing a triangle affair. Jude Law plays an architect in London in a steady relationship with Robin Wright Penn. When he looks into a burglary at his office, he winds up in a love clinch with a Bosnian refugee (Binoche.) The pedigrees going into this film bark Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.
Marie Antoinette (Oct. 20)
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn
Writer and director: Sofia Coppola
Reasons to believe: If the French booed the movie’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, then Coppola must be doing something rightly unnerving. And allegorical to boot. In her follow-up to “Lost in Translation,” the writer-director takes inventive liberties with the royal court at Versailles, depicting the young monarch as a butterfly flitting around her palatial digs in Converse and bopping to punk music. Jason Schwartzman plays Louis XVI and Judy Davis plays the queen’s lady in waiting.
Flags of Our Fathers (Oct. 20)
Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Paul Walker, Jamie Bell
Director: Clint Eastwood
Reasons to believe: Joe Rosenthal’s photo of six men raising the flag at Iwo Jima remains so iconic that 56 years later firefighters imitated it as they hoisted Old Glory on the rubble of the World Trade Center. Now James Bradley’s book about those men and that battle has been adapted by William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis. Eastwood is a muscular yet comforting presence behind the camera. He’s able to elude jingoistic impulses even as he appreciates stories about our complex relationship to violence (“Mystic River”).
Babel (Oct. 27)
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Reasons to believe: Few filmmaking teams this side of the avant-garde push narrative conventions quite the way director Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga do. Before there was “Crash,” they were plying their mash-up trade in “21 Grams” and “Amores Perros.” Yet their boldness never threatens their tender regard. This movie’s Old Testament title signals epic ambitions. But this movie, which unfurls on three continents in four languages, is about connection as much as it is dislocation. Pitt and Blanchett play American tourists in Morocco. Other characters include two Moroccan goatherders, a Mexican nanny and a mute Japanese schoolgirl.
Stranger Than Fiction (Nov. 10)
Starring: Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman
Director: Marc Forster
Reasons to believe: Only a few brilliant comics have successfully made the transition to serious leading men. Tom Hanks still reigns supreme in that small category. Robin Williams, not so much; the jury’s still out on Jim Carrey, who alternates great turns like “The Truman Show” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” with drivel like “The Majestic.” Will Ferrell, you’re the next one to give it a shot. Marc Forster of “Monster’s Ball” and “Finding Neverland” guides Ferrell through a surreal story of a man who finds his life being narrated by a woman from inside his head. Turns out he’s part of a novel in progress, and must try to get out of the story. Can Ricky Bobby make that last killer turn to marquee status, and bring it on home?
A Good Year (Nov. 10)
Starring: Russell Crowe, Albert Finney, Abbie Cornish, Marion Cotillard, Freddie Highmore
Director: Ridley Scott
Reasons to believe: Well, it took Tom Cruise years to do what Russell Crowe did in no time flat: alienate moviegoers’ affections. But onscreen, Crowe remains supremely gifted. Here he plays Max Skinner, a London investment banker planning to sell the vineyard he’s inherited from a beloved uncle (Albert Finney). Undertaking what the studio calls an “adult coming-of-age comedy” sounds like a good move. An even better one? That Crowe reteamed with his “Gladiator” director Ridley Scott. Add to this pairing the wee, but in no way small, matter of Highmore. The “Finding Neverland” scene-stealer plays Max as a once-hopeful lad.
Casino Royale (Nov. 17)
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Judi Dench
Director: Martin Campbell (“GoldenEye”)
Reasons to believe: It will take more than Halle Berry in an orange bikini to keep the James Bond franchise rolling, and the audacious choice of Daniel Craig as the new Bond may just be the right bet. Craig isn’t nearly as smooth as former Bonds Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery, yet he offers an everyman-only-better style that could freshen the franchise. Producers promise a “darker” vision of Bond’s secret-agent life, and no goofy villains to fuel Mike Myers’ comedy sketches.
Fast Food Nation (Nov. 17)
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, Cataline Sandino Moreno
Director: Richard Linklater
Reasons to believe: Linklater has the kind of wide-ranging mind (“School of Rock,” “Before Sunset,” “A Scanner Darkly”) that could do justice to the Eric Schlosser nonfiction best seller about the sorry state of our food chain. Schlosser and Linklater fictionalized the story together, focusing on a meatpacking plant and the characters who populate it.
Happy Feet (Nov. 17)
Starring: the voice talent of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman
Director: George Miller
Reasons to believe: Penguins are back! Sure, that’s one reason. And these Emperors of Antarctica aren’t just marching to their DNA-drumbeat. Young Mumble (Wood) is a tap-dancing phenom – and an outcast. Still, the real reason to have higher hopes for this animated feature is director Miller, who brought a pig named Babe out of the sty and into our lives.
Three Colorado indie film series
The past couple of years, indies often were the balm for the multiplex blues. But with a few exceptions this year (The David Lynch series at Starz, “Little Miss Sunshine”), even the alternative wasn’t good enough.
You are now permitted to think of this lack not as a drought but as an accidental layaway plan. Because now, dear moviegoer, you are facing a flood of worthwhile efforts. In fact, you’ll have to choose between the good new movie – from a studio, no less – and the even better retrospective of remarkable work. Here are three upcoming series bound to thrill and frustrate your best-laid plans:
A Road Map to the Soul – The Complete Kieslowski (Oct. 1-24): Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski died 10 years ago, but he left a body of work moviegoers can spend a lifetime returning to. In addition to his tremendous Three Colors trilogy – “Blue,” “White” and “Red” – the Denver Film Society will screen “The Double Life of Veronique.” In addition to seldom-screened early works (his student shorts, documentaries), they’ll show “The Decalogue,” his ambitious rumination on the Ten Commandments made for Polish TV. Go to denverfilm.org for more information or call 303-820-3456.
Viva Pedro (Sept. 15-Oct. 5): In advance of Pedro Almodóvar’s “Volver,” Sony Pictures Classics was savvy enough to put together a traveling series of the Spanish director’s finest. Among the eight movies that prove him the maestro of neo-melodrama are “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” “All About My Mother,” “Talk to Her,” “Matador” and “Bad Education.” At the Mayan Theatre; 303-352-1992)
Modernism and the Movies: Denver Art Museum Film Curator Thomas Delapa programmed this fall’s series ever mindful of the bold addition of the Frederic C. Hamilton Building. After all, the directors featured in “Modernism and the Movies” created cinema-shattering forms. Some of the must-see movies in the seven-week series: Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona,” Jacques Demy’s “Lola,” Jean-Luc Godard’s “Pierrot le Fou” and Michelangelo Antonioni’s “L’Avventura.” The series kicks off Sept. 12 and continues Tuesdays at 7 p.m. at the Starz FilmCenter, Ninth Street and Auraria Parkway. Go to denverartmuseum.com for more information or call 303-820-3456.
Plenty to anticipate for documentary fans
Yes, the documentaries are moving into their serious season too. If Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” wasn’t enough to make you swear off nonfiction, then you’ve got some angry docs to look forward to this fall.
One trailer people can’t seem to make heads or tails of is “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” (Sept. 29), all full of bluster about an alleged government conspiracy to silence the famous Beatle during his anti-war phase. We’ve heard a lot about Lennon, but not so much on the persecution side. But Lennon remains an icon to millions, and fans will lap up every new detail of his shortened life.
“This Film Is Not Yet Rated” is a crusade by filmmaker Kirby Dick to expose how the Motion Picture Association of America decides between categories like “R” and “NC-17” when handling risqué movies. There’s plenty of material for a good rant – no one seems to understand how much sex or violence is too much for the ratings board. Yet the documentary has already taken some criticism for focusing too much on “NC-17” and not enough on the category that drives most parents nuts, “PG-13.” Get someone to explain the ratings for teenagers, and you’ll have a hit documentary on your hands.
Fans of Michael Apted’s “7 Up” series have a new chapter to enjoy on Oct. 6 – yes, it’s been seven years since “42 Up.” Apted started following an “average” set of British kids at age 7, in 1964, and has revisited them ever since at the intervals of seven. After “49 Up,” they get their AARP cards. | Michael Booth
Take 2: an intriguing mix of adaptations
Something about autumn and settling in before a smoky fire puts movie people to making adaptations of books – not to mention new versions of previous films.
The most intriguing adaptations are mentioned elsewhere on these preview pages – “All the King’s Men,” which qualifies as both book and movie re-do; “Fast Food Nation”; “Flags of Our Fathers”; and “Running With Scissors.”
But there are plenty more, starting with “The Black Dahlia” on Sept. 15. Brian DePalma directs the unhappiest tale of writer James Ellroy’s Los Angeles noir series (which included “L.A. Confidential”). A starlet is brutally murdered, and a lookalike of the victim comes into play. Hilary Swank goes glam for a role, and the cast also includes Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart and Scarlett Johansson.
One of the summer’s more enticing trailers showcased the filmed version of the novel “The Last King of Scotland.” Confusing title, yes: The story is about Uganda. Forest Whitaker stretches his nice-guy persona as dictator Idi Amin; James McAvoy plays a Scottish doctor attracted by Amin’s charisma and repulsed by his mass murders. | Michael Booth
Tiny comedy slate holds a few treats
With so many laudable “serious” movies aimed at adults this fall, the comedy slate looks fairly thin. There’s no obvious “Talladega Nights” in the bunch.
But we’ll always have Christopher Guest, and he skewers a new medium – film! – in his “For Your Consideration” on Nov. 17. The movie, with many among Guest’s regulars that made “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind” so wonderful, follows the making of a small indie film that blows up big.
Speaking of “Talladega Nights,” those who didn’t get enough of Sacha Baron Cohen’s silly French accent can revel in his silly Kazakh accent in “Borat” (Nov. 3). If you don’t laugh at the trailer, featuring Cohen in the world’s worst male bathing suit, don’t bother going.
More reliable, but still raising a few doubts, is “Flushed Away,” from the studio that gave us Wallace & Gromit. This time we get computer animation, not brilliant clay-mations. A pet mouse gets flushed into London’s rough sewer-world. Potty humor abounds. | Michael Booth
