Fall movie lineup is full of promise
SUMMER 2017 is already going down in history as one of Hollywood’s worst in recent memory, notwithstanding such standouts as ‘Wonder Woman’, ‘Dunkirk’ and the little-romcom-that-could, ‘The Big Sick’.
But who are we kidding? Filmgoers of discerning taste know Hollywood typically holds back the good stuff for turtleneck weather, and this year is no exception.
With such highly anticipated films as Guillermo del Toro’s ‘The Shape of Water’ and Alexander Payne’s ‘Downsizing’ already earning plaudits on the festival circuit, it’s possible to dispense with cautious optimism entirely and look forward to several titles with downright abandon.
What will George Clooney do with the Coen brothers’ script for ‘Suburbicon’?
How will Joe Wright top Christopher Nolan in his Dunkirk movie, ‘Darkest Hour’? (For a clue, look at his magnificent one-take staging of the World War II evacuation in ‘Atonement’.)
Did the fashion designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy - known as the label Rodarte - really make a movie? (They did, and it’s called “Woodstock”.)
And what in the everliving dickens is ‘Mother!’ about, anyway?
All will be revealed in a fall schedule that’s crammed with promising filmmakers, cast members, genres and subjects.
Some themes have already emerged: It looks like sports are having a moment, between ‘Battle of the Sexes’, about the 1973 Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs tennis match, ‘Stronger’, about a 2013 Boston marathon bombing survivor, and ‘Molly’s Game’, if poker counts as a sport.
Art will be celebrated in ‘Loving Vincent’ (about van Gogh), skewered in ‘The Square’ (a Swedish satire about the pretensions of contemporary art) and portrayed in ‘Goodbye Christopher Robin’, in which Domhnall Gleeson portrays British author A.A. Milne.
There will be some fond looks back at movie history, with ‘Blade Runner 2049’, a remake of ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, ‘Last Flag Flying’ (a sort-of sequel to the 1973 classic ‘The Last Detail’) and ‘The Disaster Artist’, an homage to Tommy Wiseau’s cringe-y cult film ‘The Room’.
All eyes will surely be on Rian Johnson to see what he will bring to the ‘Star Wars’ franchise with ‘The Last Jedi’, a continuation of the ‘Force Awakens’ story line.
* Critic’s recommendations are indicated by asterisks.
SEPT. 15:
‘American Assassin’ - A CIA black ops recruit teams up with a Cold War veteran (Michael Keaton) to investigate a wave of attacks on military and civilian targets.
* ‘Dolores’ - A documentary about the labour and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta, who cofounded the first farm workers unions with Caesar Chaivez.
* ‘Mother!’- From filmmaker Darren Aronofsky comes a psychological thriller about a couple whose relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home.
‘Rebel in the Rye’ - The story of writer J.D. Salinger, starring Nicholas Hoult.
‘Trophy’ - An in-depth look into big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the United States and Africa.
22:
* ‘Battle of the Sexes’- The 1973 tennis match between women’s world champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and exmen’s champ Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell).
‘Birthright: A War Story’- A story about the real-life women battling government control of reproductive health care.
‘The LEGO Ninjago Movie’ Lloyd is the Green Ninja (Dave Franco), who tags alongside Sensei Wu (Jackie Chan) to defeat a warlord.
‘Stronger’ - Jake Gyllenhaal stars as 2013 Boston Marathon bombing survivor and double amputee Jeff Bauman.
29:
* ‘American Made’ - Tom Cruise reunites with his ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ director, Doug Liman, for this story about the real exploits of a hustler and pilot recruited by the CIA.
‘Flatliners’ - Five medical students take on a dangerous experiment where they stop their hearts for short periods of time to experience some of the afterlife.
OCT. 6:
‘Blade Runner 2049’ - Thirty years have passed, and a new blade runner (Ryan Gosling) comes to the scene.
* ‘Loving Vincent’ - More than 65,000 frames of hand-painted oil paintings piece together the story of Vincent van Gogh’s life.
‘Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House’A portrait of the special agent called ‘Deep Throat’ for his work in helping journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate scandal.
13:
* ‘Goodbye Christopher Robin’- An intimate look at the relationship between beloved children’s author A.A. Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) and his son Christopher Robin, whose toys inspired ‘Winnie the Pooh’.
‘Happy Death Day’- A college student keeps reliving the day of her murder until she discovers her killer’s identity.
* ‘The Florida Project’Moonee, a precocious 6-yearold, and her mother live week to week in a budget motel managed by a stern owner (Willem Dafoe).
‘The Foreigner’ - Jackie Chan stars as a restaurant owner who must track down the Irish radicals responsible for his daughter’s death. With Pierce Brosnan.
20:
‘Breathe’ - Andy Serkis makes his directorial debut with the true love story of a couple (Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy) overcoming the effects of polio.
‘Geostorm’ - The world’s leaders gather together to create a network of satellites to control the global climate, but the system goes awry.
* ‘Only the Brave’ - The story of the ‘Granite Mountain Hotshots’, a unit of elite Arizona firefighters that tackled one of the deadliest wildfires in history.
27:
‘Jigsaw’ - Law enforcement officers chase the ghost of a dead man in this horror film by the Spierig brothers.
* ‘Suburbicon’ - An idyllic suburban community masks an underbelly of deceit and violence. With Matt Damon.
‘Wonderstruck’ - Brian Selznick’s story follows a young boy and a girl from the past who set off on a simultaneous quest in New York. — Washington Post