I wouldn’t want to jinx it, but one surely indisputable thing about the upcoming fall movie season is that it can’t be worse than the one this summer.
And it looks as if the studios again have hoarded their best – or at least most prestigious – films for release between now and January.
Not only can you look forward to the Harry Potter movie, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (Nov. 16), and the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Dec. 19), you’ve got new movies helmed by a host of newly successful directors like Cameron Crowe, Frank Darabont, John Woo, Penny Marshall and Tony Scott.
More to the point, there’s a Coen brothers movie (“The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Nov. 2) – always a welcome development.
There’s “Ali” the Michael Mann biopic of Muhammed Ali (Dec. 7), starring a beefed-up Will Smith. The formidably talented Russell Crowe is back (as a mentally ill mathematician) in Ron Howard’s “A Beautiful Mind” (Dec. 25).
And Steven Soderbergh’s has assembled a crackerjack cast for his remake of the rat pack heist flick “Ocean’s Eleven. ” (Dec. 7)
In “Training Day” (Sept. 21), Denzel Washington, after years of playing only noble suffering heroes, gets to be a charismatic bad guy, and co-star Ethan Hawke delivers his best performance in years, finally letting go of the greasy haired slacker shtick that has bedeviled his career since “Reality Bites.”
Among other good news is Barry Levinson’s film “Bandits,” starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and the great Cate Blanchett. (The bad news is that it isn’t set in Baltimore in the 1950s or ’60s.)
One movie that really piques my curiosity is “From Hell” (Oct. 19), starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham, a consistently underrated actress.
A version of the Jack the Ripper story, it represents a refreshing, daring and pretty much unprecedented shift of time and territory by the Hughes Brothers, two talented filmmakers best known for the very American, very urban gangsta pics “Menace II Society” and “Dead Presidents.”
“In the Bedroom,” a drama directed by Todd Fields and starring Marisa Tomei and Tom Wilkinson, was the subject of a critical raves at Sundance and looks very promising, indeed.
I’ve also heard great things from across the water about the French megahit “Amelie” (Nov. 2) a romance directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who helmed the cannibal comedy “Delicatessen” and “Alien Resurrection.”
The romance “Serendipity” (Oct. 5) pairs John Cusack with Kate Beckinsale. So terrific in “The Last Days Of Disco” “Cold Comfort Farm” and “Brokedown Palace,” Beckinsale was the victim of her own good looks in “Pearl Harbor,” in which she was used merely as a pretty face. Maybe this time she’ll get the star role she deserves.
As a fan of the Coen brothers and their consistently intelligent and funny work, I’m looking forward to their next period piece, the black-and-white “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (Nov. 9) starring Billy Bob Thornton and James Gandolfini.
As far as action goes, I have a feeling that “The One” (Nov. 2), starring Jet Li (Romeo Must Die), could be pretty good fun, though there’s always something disappointing and annoying about martial arts flicks in which the hero has to fight his evil twin.
For the most part, it doesn’t look set to be much of a season for horror (although “Brotherhood of the Wolf,” set in France in the 1760’s, opens Nov. 2) or science fiction. And with the exception of “Windtalkers” which puts Nicolas Cage back in uniform and back under the direction of John Woo, war buffs will have to get their fix from TV’s “Band of Brothers.” Starting with “The Musketeer,” there are a bunch of films in which the actors get to wear cool costumes and handle swords or antique guns.
Martin Scorsese’s “The Gangs of New York” has the biggest fanfare, and is a must-see for Leonardo Di Caprio fans and history buffs, though the trailer looks less than promising.
The other big costumer of the season looks to be “The Affair of the Necklace,” set in 18th-century France just before the Revolution, and starring Hilary Swank, Christopher Walken, Adrien Brody and Joely Richardson.Finally, it will be interesting to see how our generation’s icon of golden male beauty stacks up against his predecessor, when Brad Pitt co-stars with Robert Redford in “Spy Game” (Nov. 21).
Redford is actually in two movies this season: He also stars in Rod Lurie’s “The Last Castle” – which sounds a bit like “Brubaker” set in the military – with James Gandolfini.