2010 Fall/Winter Movie Preview - Part 1

It is time again that we look at the cinematic offerings just over the horizon, those set for release over the next few months. The Fall/Winter movie season generally involves a divergence from the big budget action flicks of the summer to films that are more serious and Oscar-friendly. Today we will take a quick look at 20 movies set to come out in September and October, complete with a short plot synopsis from IMDB and my take based on the cast and this summary.

Opening 9/3
Machete
Director: Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, From Duck Till Dawn, Desperado)
Writer: Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Steven Seagal
Plot: After being betrayed by the organization who hired him, an ex-Federale launches a brutal rampage of revenge against his former boss.
My Take: Awesome. I’m a big fan of Robert Rodriguez, so this violent and fun Grindhouse spin-off definitely has my attention.

The American
Director: Anton Corbijn (Control, music videos by U2, Metallica, and others)
Writer: based on novel by Martin Booth
Cast: George Clooney, Paolo Bonacelli, Violante Placido
Plot: An assassin hiding out in an Italian village while he anticipates his last-ever assignment tempts fate by seeking out the friendship of a priest as well as the affection of a local woman.
My Take: Sounds interesting and I do like George Clooney, but this will have to wait until the reviews start coming out.

Opening 9/10
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Death Race)
Cast: Mill Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller
Plot: As the T-Virus continues to spread, Alice (Jovovich) maintains her mission to find survivors and keep them safe from the Undead, and to take down the Umbrella Corporation. Reteaming with Claire (Larter), Alice makes a dangerous journey to a new city that is said to be a safe haven.
My Take: I’ve never seen any of the Resident Evil movies and I don’t plan to start now.

I’m Still Here
Director: Casey Affleck
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix
Plot: Casey Affleck documents Joaquin Phoenix’s transition from acclaimed actor to aspiring rapper.
My Take: Phoenix has always struck me as a weird guy and probably nothing exemplified that more than when he grew out a beard, put on dark glasses and decided to become a rapper. This one is intriguing. Wait for the reviews.

Opening 9/17
Never Let Me Go
Director: Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo)
Writer: Based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro
Cast: Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield
Plot: Set in a dystopian Britain, boarding school friends Ruth (Knightley), Kathy (Mulligan), and Tommy (Garfield) face the sobering reality that awaits them all as they mature into adults.
My Take: The dystopian genre always fascinates me, so this film, based on a book I’ve never read, sounds interesting. Wait for the reviews.

Devil
Director: Drew and John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine)
Writer/Producer: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Chris Messina, Caroline Dhavernas, Bokeem Woodbine
Plot: A group of people trapped on an elevator realize that the devil is among them.
My Take: M. Night has done me wrong too often. No thanks.

Jack Goes Boating
Director: Philip Seymour Hoffman (debut)
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, John Ortiz
Plot: A limo driver’s blind date sparks a tale of love, betrayal, friendship, and grace centered around two working-class New York City couples.
My Take: I’m a fan of Hoffman, so this sounds like a real winner. I’ll probably wait until it comes out on DVD.

Leaves of Grass
Director Tim Blake Nelson (The Grey Zone, O)
Writer: Tim Blake Nelson
Cast: Edward Norton, Keri Russell, Henry Max Nelson
Plot: An Ivy League professor (Norton) is lured back to his Oklahoma hometown, where his twin brother (Norton), a small-time pot grower, has concocted a scheme to take down a local drug lord.
My Take: I’ve liked Edward Norton for a long time and this sounds like it will be worth seeing. Wait for the reviews.

Opening 9/24
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Michael Douglas, Carey Mulligan
Plot: Fallen stockbroker Gordon Gekko (Douglas) teams up with a young Wall Street trader (LaBeouf), who’s mentor was recently murdered, to track down the killer and warn others about an impending massive financial meltdown.
My Take: I never saw the original Wall Street. Eh, whatever.

Opening 10/1
The Social Network
Director: David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zodiac)
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
Plot: Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg) recruits some of his classmates to develop the social networking website, Facebook. The endeavor, however, leads to a messy fallout with friend and co-founder, Eduardo Saverin (Garfield).
My Take: I like Fincher’s past work and the cast is a good one, so this is a film that I’m sure I’ll see when it comes out on DVD.

Let Me In
Director: Matt Reeves (Cloverfield)
Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins
Plot: Owen (Smit-McPhee) is an alienated and bullied 12-year-old who builds a tentative friendship with his mysterious new neighbor, Abby (Moretz). Only socializing at night and seemingly immune to the winter climate, Abby reveals her true nature to Owen after her father (Jenkins) disappears and a series of murders grips their town.
My Take: See Let the Right One In instead of this Hollywood remake. There was no reason to redo it and the director’s past work leads me to believe this will be a major disappointment.

Opening 10/8
Secretariat
Director: Randall Wallace (We Were Soldiers)
Cast: Diane Lane, Scott Glenn, James Cromwell
Plot: The life story of Penny Chenery (Lane), whose racehorse, Secretariat, won the triple crown in 1973.
My Take: No thanks. I still don’t care about horse racing.

Nowhere Boy
Director: Sam Taylor-Wood (Love You More)
Cast: Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Anne-Marie Duff
Plot: A chronicle of the early life of John Lennon (Johnson) in 1950’s Liverpool, from his relationship with his aunt Mimi (Scott Thomas) and estranged mother (Duff), to the foundation of the Quarrymen.
My Take: Taking on the role of Lennon will be quite a change from Johnson’s last role in Kick-Ass and it will be interesting to see how he does. As a Beatles fan, this one sounds very interesting.

Stone
Director: John Curran (The Painted Veil)
Cast: Edward Norton, Milla Jovovich, Rober De Niro
Plot: A convicted arsonist (Norton) uses his wife (Jovovich) as a device to secure his release by getting her to seduce the aged parole officer (De Niro) in charge of his case.
My Take: More Edward Norton is never a bad thing and the rest of the cast is great as well. I’ll have to check this one out.

Opening 10/15
Jackass 3-D
Director: Jeff Tremaine (Jackass: The Movie, Jackass Number Two)
Cast: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera
Plot: Johnny Knoxville and company return for the third installment of their TV show spin-off, where dangerous stunts and explicit public displays rule.
My Take: Isn’t Johnny Knoxville getting a little old for this? No thanks, I’d rather not waste another 1.5 hours of my life.

Conviction
Director: Tony Goldwyn (The Last Kiss, A Walk on the Moon)
Cast: Hillary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo
Plot: A single mother (Swank) spends nearly two decades putting herself through law school in order to overturn her brother’s (Rockwell) unjust murder conviction.
My Take: Hillary Swank’s latest attempt to star in something Oscar-worthy is not something that interests me. I’ll wait on the reviews.

Red
Director: Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Flightplan)
Cast: Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman
Plot: When his idyllic life is threatened by a high-tech assassin, former black-ops agent Frank Moses (Willis) reassembles his old team in a last ditch effort to survive.
My Take: I realize that this is probably the point of the film, but isn’t Bruce Willis getting a little old for these black-ops/assassin roles? What hath The Expendables wrought? Will wait on the reviews.

October 22
Hereafter
Director: Clint Eastwood (Invictus, Gran Torino, Million Dollar Baby)
Cast: Matt Damon, Cecile De France, Bryce Dallas Howard
Plot: A supernatural thriller centered on three people – a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy – who are touched by death in different ways.
My Take: I’m not going to second guess Clint Eastwood, who has proven himself to be one of the best directors in Hollywood, but the whole supernatural genre seems to be outside of his norm. I’m sure it will be great and I’ll see it at some point.

The Company Men
Director: John Wells (debut, creator of ER and The West Wing)
Cast: Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones
Plot: A drama centered on a year in the lives of three businessmen who look to what’s next in their lives after being laid off by their company.
My Take: Could be a good film, but the fact that it is helmed by a novice director and stars Ben Affleck are red flags to me. We’ll see.

Opening 10/29
Monsters
Director: Gareth Edwards (film debut, writer/director/visual effects for TV)
Cast: Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able
Plot: With half of Mexico serving as an alien quarantine zone, an American journalist (McNairy) heads across the border into dangerous territory to find his boss’s daughter (Able) and bring her back home.
My Take: It sounds a little to close to the excellent District 9, but we’ll see.

Paranormal Activity 2
Director: Tod Williams (Wings Over the Rockies, The Door in the Floor)
Cast: Katie Featherston
Plot: unknown – sequel to low budget blockbuster.
My Take: Can you say Blair Witch 2? Truth be told, I thought the first one was overrated. We’ll see.

To be continued…

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