Harvey Milk is not the only figure getting the big-screen treatment in the coming weeks. As good as Sean Penn is playing the lead, there are other performers who will be vying for kudos during this award season.
Some inhabit the story of real-life characters. Others promise to breathe real-life drama into their reel-life characters. headed to the big-screen this holiday season. Here are some of the compelling characters — real and imagined — headed your way in time to qualify for Oscars.
Real deals
Etta James in “Cadillac Records” (Dec. 5): Beyonce Knowles dons the wig and the earthy attitude of the rock, blues and Grammy Hall of Famer who hit it out of the park with “At Last.” The Dreamgirl is just one of the draws in writer-director Darnell Martin’s story about the rise of Chess Records. Oscar-winner Adrien Brody stars as Leonard Chess. The underutilized Jeffrey Wright plays Muddy Waters. Mos Def steps up as Chuck Berry.
The 37th president of the United States in “Frost/Nixon” (Dec. 12): Frank Langella’s “portrayal of Nixon is one of those made-for-the-stage studies in controlled excess in which larger-than-life seems truer-to-life than merely life-size ever could. No screen, big or small, could accommodate such showy grandeur.” Director Ron Howard hopes this New York Times appraisal doesn’t hold true as he brings Peter Morgan’s play about the interviews British talk-show host David Frost conducted with Nixon after his resignation to the big screen. A good hedge: Langella reprising his Tony-winning turn.
Marley in “Marley and Me” (Dec. 25): A dog’s beloved companion writes a story about him. The wagging tale becomes a script. The screenplay becomes a movie, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as the proud caretakers of an unruly yellow Lab.
Col. Claus von Stauffenberg in “Valkyrie” (Dec. 26): Tom Cruise plays one of the leading figures in the German Resistance to Adolf Hitler and Nazism in director Bryan Singer’s thriller about the plot to assassinate Hitler. The movie reunites the director with “The Usual Suspects” scribe Christopher McQuarrie.
Reel characters
Lady Sarah Ashley in “Australia” (Nov. 26): Aussie Nicole Kidman plays an English woman who heads down under when her husband refuses to get rid of his his ranch. He hopes to break a beef monopoly by selling his herd to the military. Instead, he meets his end. She meets a driver, played by Hugh Jackman. The big- country, big-canvas movie, set on the eve of World War II, reteams Kidman and director Baz Luhrmann (“Moulin Rouge”).
Ben Thomas in “Seven Pounds” (Dec. 19): Death and the tax man are the subject of this drama, starring Will Smith as a troubled IRS agent who seeks redemption by changing the lives of seven strangers. Rosario Dawson plays a woman with a heart ailment. Woody Harrelson plays a blind telemarketer. If Thomas has his way, his gifts will keep on giving.
Sister Aloysius in “Doubt” (Dec. 19): Meryl Streep heads this season’s cast to beat in John Patrick Shanley’s adaptation of his phenomenal, philosophical play. Streep is a nun hell- bent on destroying well-liked Father Brendan (Philip Seymour Hoffman) for transgressions that may or may not have occurred. Local gal made very, very good Amy Adams is Sister James.
Benjamin Button in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Dec. 25): The title character in this adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short fable ages backward. The movie follow Benjamin’s beginning as an old infant in 1920s in New Orleans and follows him into the 21st century. Cate Blanchett also stars in David Fincher’s first PG-13 foray, which reunites Pitt with his “Se7en” director.
A calendar of indies and also-rans
Mark your calendars for more multiplex and indie fare.
Nov. 26: The film festival vibe continues at the Starz FilmCenter with Lance Hammer’s rightly heralded indie, “Ballast,” about an estranged family forced to deal with one another because of a suicide. A restored 35mm print of Jean- Luc Godard’s early wonder, “Vivre Sa Vie,” also opens. . . . Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon can no longer avoid visiting home(s) for the holiday in “Four Christmases.”… Family dysfunction arrives en francais in “A Christmas Tale,” which stars the incomparable Catherine Deneuve as a family matriarch facing a medical crisis. . . . Jason Statham is back as Frank Martin in “Transporter 3”; his passenger is the kidnapped daughter of a Ukrainian official.
Dec. 5: Recent Starz Denver Film Festival Cassavetes Award recipient Bill Pullman joins a talented ensemble for “Nobel Son,” a dramedy about the kidnapping of a Nobel Prize-winner’s resentful offspring. . . . The “Punisher: War Zone” tease: “He’s back.” The rub: The guy who played him in the original isn’t. . . . One of the finest documentaries of the year, Gonzalo Arijon’s “Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains,” tells the story of the plane crash that left the Uruguay rugby team to fend for itself in the Andes.
Dec. 12: Christmas comedy “Nothing Like the Holidays” finds the Rodriguez kids of Chicago getting a lump of coal from their folks (played by Alfred Molina and Elizabeth Peña) who announce they’re getting a divorce. . . . Onscreen, Keanu Reeves sometimes seems like he’s from another planet. In “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” a reimagining of the 1951 sci-fi flick, he is. And the ETs are none to pleased with humankind. Jennifer Connelly gives us, and the film, hope. . . . The human version of a classic, aging muscle car, Clint Eastwood stars in and directed “Gran Torino.” He plays a cranky Korean War vet trying to help a young Hmong neighbor. . . .
Dec. 19: He’s not a man, he’s a mouse, and that’s just swell for the animated feature “The Tale of Despereaux,” starring the voice talents of Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Tracey Ullman among others. . . . Consider “Yes Man” the opposite (and not) of Jim Carrey’s hit “Liar, Liar.” Here, he’s a deeply negative guy who decides he can’t say “no.” Literally.
Dec. 25: Adam Sandler is mostly nice and only a smidge naughty in “Bedtime Stories,” a family comedy about an uncle whose yarns to his niece and nephew start to come true.
