The screen stars are reborn
Spring can really hang you up the most, as the song says. But movie-wise, fall is the right season for heartbreak. A chill in the air. Midterm elections on the horizon, guaranteed to depress half the country. And, on-screen, pathos in big piles, next to the piles of leaves.
In other words, it’s the right season for the new version of “A Star Is Born.” With this picture, director/ co-writer/co-star Bradley Cooper makes his feature debut behind the camera. In front of it, bringing his voice down to a low, taciturn croak, he co-stars with Lady Gaga. The pop superstar and actress portrays the waitress-turned-megatalent, trading places on the fame-o-meter with her love, the country rocker on the fade.
“A Star Is Born” is destined for a few Oscars and, unless I miss my guess, a ton of money. Even with a radically shifting landscape, already altered by streaming giant Netflix backing more and more big filmmakers’ efforts, one thing remains the same. A film’s commercial run, in theaters, matters. We’re not done with going out to the movies yet.
Can Melissa McCarthy get enough people off their couches to see her in a new kind of role? Can a Chicago-set crime thriller with an amazing cast persuade moviegoers to pony up?
And will anyone ever make a “Star Is Born” that
doesn’t find a big audience? Here are 10 titles coming this autumn, some already out and about on the festival circuit. Dates subject to change, just like the weather.
“The Sisters Brothers”
(Sept. 21). In the Old West, Eli and Charlie Sisters, played by John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix, are bickering siblings and ace gunslingers who kill for hire. But things don’t always go according to plan. French director Jacques Audiard (“A Prophet”) makes his English-language debut with this eccentric, violent, unexpectedly sentimental revisionist Western, co-starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed.
“The Old Man and the
Gun” (Sept. 28). “Someone shoulda told him to quit while he was ahead,” a character says of bank robber Forrest Tucker, a charming old fellow (a real one) who kept up his livelihood until well past retirement age. In David Lowery’s film, based on a New Yorker magazine feature, Robert Redford plays Tucker, with Sissy Spacek, Casey Affleck and Danny Glover in support. This may be Redford’s last movie, and it looks like a fond farewell indeed.
“A Star Is Born” (Oct. 5). This is the fourth official version of the hardy fairy tale, and already it’s a cinch for awards recognition, thanks to director Bradley Cooper’s sincere, straightahead take on the old story of crisscrossed showbiz lovers. This time Lady Gaga plays the struggling vocalist with lungs of fire and the eyes of a tiger, mentored by and then surpassing Cooper’s reckless, alcoholic, pill-popping mess of a country rocker.
“The Hate U Give” (Oct. 5). An unusually good adaptation of the Angie Thomas novel, director George Tillman Jr.’s film stars the excellent Amandla Stenberg as Starr Carter, navigating two worlds: the African-American Atlanta neighborhood where she lives, and the wealthy white enclave where she attends school. A police shooting involving her friend forces Starr to make a very, very big decision.
“The Happy Prince” (Oct. 5). The royally entertaining Rupert Everett has done his share of Oscar Wilde onscreen (“An Ideal Husband,” “The Importance of Being Earnest”) and onstage (“The Judas Kiss”). Now he directs himself in this biopic focusing on Wilde’s scandalous, heartbreaking later years and his relationship with Alfred Douglas.
“First Man” (Oct. 12). Neil Armstrong was a quiet, bottled-up family man who didn’t talk about his feelings much, even after the death of his 2-year-old daughter. Fresh off “La La Land,” director Damien Chazelle is as compelled by this lesser-known side of the first man on the moon as he is by the triumph, not without its costs in human lives, of the Apollo space mission. Ryan Gosling stars; co-starring Claire Foy and Kyle Chandler.
“Halloween” (Oct. 19). There was a time, before WIN buttons and AMC Gremlins, when serial killer Michael Myers was just a figment of John Carpenter’s and Debra Hill’s imagination. That time was long ago, but the original “Halloween” spun off one sequel, pretender and ripoff after another. Now, director David Gordon Green takes a stab at a reboot in which babysitter Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis, once again and forever) squares off with her old tormentor.
“Can You Ever Forgive
Me?” (Oct. 19). Some are born to stardom; others are born to chronicle that stardom and then, when the market dries up and the writer falls out of favor, there’s always forgery. Real-life celebrity biographer Lee Israel, played here by Melissa McCarthy, turned to criminal activities of a unique sort: Her second act as a fabricator of celebrity correspondence made for a strange life indeed. Marielle Heller directs this adaptation of the memoir, and if you haven’t seen Heller’s earlier, terrific “Diary of a Teenage Girl,” it’s the sign of a great future.
“Burning” (limited release starting Oct. 26). Here’s the latest from one of the relatively unsung auteurs, South Korean writer-director Lee Chang-dong. His film “Poetry” was my favorite film of 2010. “Burning” takes place in Seoul, where a provincial would-be writer falls for an old high school classmate. A mystery and a disappearance ensue. Based on a Haruki Murakami short story.
“Widows” (Nov. 16). Just in time for Thanksgiving: corruption, carnage, sisterhood, revenge and excellent location work. Based on a 1980s British miniseries, this heist thriller comes from “12 Years a Slave” director Steve McQueen and his co-adapter, “Gone Girl” and “Sharp Objects” scribe Gillian Flynn. Touchy Chicagoans may bristle at this picture’s depiction of the Windy City as the most multidirectionally corrupt cesspool on the planet. On the other hand, “Widows,” starring Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Michelle Rodriguez and many more marvels, is mighty tasty pulp.