Our crystal ball for fall movie trends is actually a snow globe, which
we consult every year at the Toronto International Film Festival.
That’s where many of the more glamorous year-end releases are
previewed for the world’s critics. Last year, the festival was
the coming-out party for the eventual Academy Award winner for best
picture, the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old
Men.” The Coens were back in Canada last week with their new spy
comedy “Burn After Reading,” just one of more than 300
features in the festival. It’s too early to predict whether any
of them will be Oscar’s date for this year’s homecoming
dance but, based on what we’ve seen, we can ascertain the
following trends in fall film fashions. Dim the lights!
In “Burn After Reading” (opened Friday), John Malkovich is
a malcontent midlevel CIA agent whose tell-all memoir falls into the
feckless hands of health-club employee Brad Pitt.
“Nothing but the Truth” (Dec. 19) is a lightly
fictionalized version of the Valerie Plame case. Kate Beckinsale plays
a reporter who goes to jail rather than reveal the source who leaked
the identity of the spy played by Vera Farmiga.
Jean-Claude Van Damme kicks his laughingstock status upside the head
in “JCVD” (TBD) in which “The Muscles from
Brussels” plays himself, a washed-up action hero who is thrust
into the middle of a real-life hostage situation.
Mickey Rourke is generating Oscar buzz for his poignant performance as
a has-been grappler in “The Wrestler” (TBD), which won the
grand prize at recently concluded Venice Film Festival.
The latter film also marks a comeback for director Darren Aronofsky
(“Pi”), whose time-travel fantasy “The Fountain” was
laughed out of Toronto two years ago.
(Another director who appears to have been resurrected is Jonathan
Demme, the Oscar winner for 1991’s “Silence of the
Lambs.” Since his poorly received remake of “The
Manchurian Candidate” in 2004, Demme has made only a couple
documentaries, but the recovery drama “Rachel Getting
Married” (Oct. 24) has sparked awards buzz for himself and star
Anne Hathaway.)
Two new movies with similar sounding names in the title introduce us
to couples who are clearly made for each other but are wary of taking
the leap. In “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist”
(Oct. 3), Michael Cera (“Juno”) and Kat Dennings are teens who meet
and bond on a nightlong search for their favorite band’s secret
gig in New York City.
Far racier is Kevin Smith’s new comedy “Zack and Miri make
a Porno” (Oct. 31), in which Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks play
penniless roommates who consider filming a sex video to raise some
quick cash.
Two upcoming releases feature sculptures with magical properties. In
Spike Lee’s World War II drama “The Miracle of St.
Anna” (Sept. 26), an American GI believes that the marble head
he finds in Florence and lugs onto the battlefield will protect him
from harm.
In “The Secret Life of Bees” (Oct. 17), a fist-raised
statue of a Black Madonna that is scavenged from a shipwreck provides
spiritual sustenance to beekeeper Queen Latifah.
Strife in the Middle East was covered last year in several Hollywood
dramas, most of which fizzled at the box office. Only two are coming
in the months ahead, and neither directly addresses the political
underpinnings of the war.
“The Hurt Locker” (TBD), the long-awaited return of action
auteur Kathryn Bigelow (“Point Break”), is a thriller about a bomb-
disposal unit in Iraq.
In “The Lucky Ones” (Sept. 26), Tim Robbins, Rachel
McAdams and Michael Pena are furloughed soldiers on a cross-country
road trip, with a significant stop in St. Louis.
It seems that every year, at least one star has multiple movies on the
calendar. This season it’s Greg Kinnear. In “Ghost
Town” (Friday), he plays a philandering husband who is killed in
a bus crash and then haunts dentist Ricky Gervais to set things
straight.
In “Flash of Genius” (Oct. 3), Kinnear stars in the true
story of the inventor who waged a lengthy battle against Detroit
automakers over the patents for the intermittent windshield wiper.
Honest.
Two of the most talked-about films of the fall season are, in a sense,
about distorted vision.
“Blindness” (Oct. 3), adapted from a novel by Jose
Saramago by director Fernando Merielles (“City of God”), is about a
mysterious plague that robs the populace of its sight – and unleashes
the beastliness in human nature.
In “Happy-Go-Lucky” (Oct. 24), Sally Hawkins is a young
London schoolteacher who sees the world through rose-color glasses.
Maybe it’s contagious, because we’re looking forward to
some other autumn movies sight unseen, such as the Western
“Appaloosa” (Oct. 3), Bill Maher’s documentary
“Religulous” (Oct. 3) and Keira Knightley in the bodice
ripper “The Duchess” (Oct. 3).
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