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The ‘You’ve got a friend in me’ edition
by Peter T. Chattaway
The leaves are falling, the days are growing shorter, and now that the sugar
rush of summer has come and gone, the quieter season of autumn is here. That
means smaller films and a bit less hype, at least for a month or two . . . but
then, as we near the end of the year, things will step up again as the holidays
approach. Here are a few of the season’s more highly-anticipated films. As always, the release dates are subject to
change.
The Invention of Lying (September 25) stars Ricky Gervais as a man who lives in an alternate world
where no one has ever lied . . . until the man himself does, that is. He
initially does it because he’s a storyteller who has lost interest in the true, factual stories he is
supposed to tell, but he ends up telling lies for his own personal gain.
Depending on how the story goes, this could be an interesting moral fable.
Surrogates (September 25) takes place in the near future, when humans are living in
isolation and interacting only through robotic doubles. When several people are
killed, and their surrogates destroyed, a cop (Bruce Willis) begins to
investigate – and he is forced to continue on his own after his own surrogate is destroyed.
Based on the comic-book series by Robert Venditti, who was inspired by stories
about people who lost their jobs or spouses because they were addicted to the
internet.
Toy Story / Toy Story 2 (October 2). The original Pixar classics are returning to the big screen – and being shown in 3-D for the first time ever – in a double-bill that will prime the pump for next year’s release of the much-anticipated Toy Story 3.
Shutter Island (October 2) marks the fourth collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo
DiCaprio, following their work on Gangs of New York, The Aviator and the Oscar-winning The Departed. This time, they are adapting a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) about a couple of U.S. marshals who are stranded on an island with dozens of
inmates from the local hospital for the criminally insane.
Where the Wild Things Are (October 16). Written by Dave Eggers and directed by Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich), this long-delayed film promises to put a hipster-ish spin on Maurice Sendak's
classic children's story. In this version, a boy named Max is upset when his
mother invites her boyfriend over for dinner, so he retreats to an imaginary
world in which he can rule over monsters as their king.
A Christmas Carol (November 6). Jim Carrey stars as Ebenezer Scrooge and as the Ghosts of
Christmas Past, Present and Future in this 3-D computer-animated movie. The
film uses a form of animation called ‘performance capture,’ which is based partly on the physical movements of the actors themselves; and
it is directed by Robert Zemeckis, who previously made The Polar Express and Beowulf.
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2012 (November 13). Disaster-movie specialist Roland Emmerich blew up the White
House in Independence Day, and then he submerged the eastern seaboard under a blizzard of really, really
bad weather in The Day after Tomorrow. Now he gets to do all these things again, and more, in a disaster movie that
takes its cue from the Mayan calendar, which supposedly predicts the end of the
world in 2012.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (November 20). Vampires and werewolves battle for Bella's affections in this
sequel to Twilight, last year's highly popular teen romance flick.
The Blind Side (November 20) stars Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw as Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy,
a real-life Christian couple who helped a homeless 6-foot-5, 350-pound
African-American teenager named Michael Oher become a star football player. The
film is based on the book by Michael Lewis and directed by John Lee Hancock,
who previously directed the similarly faith-sensitive sports movie The Rookie.
The Lovely Bones (December 11). Peter Jackson's first movie since King Kong is this adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel about a teenage girl (Atonement's Saoirse Ronan) who watches from Heaven after she has been raped and murdered
by a serial killer (Stanley Tucci). Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz play her
parents.
Avatar (December 18). Twelve years after James Cameron conquered the box office with Titanic, he finally returns to the big screen with a 3-D science-fiction movie set in
the 22nd century. Not unlike Surrogates, it will concern beings known as ‘Avatars’ who can be remote-controlled to allow humans to operate in an alien environment
– and it will concern a human who volunteers to become an Avatar himself.
Sherlock Holmes (December 25) stars Robert Downey Jr. as the title character and Jude Law as his
sidekick Watson, in what promises to be a very unusual – more action-oriented, more comedy-oriented – spin on the world's greatest detective. The villain this time is described as “an occult-dabbling Satanist” based on Aleister Crowley.
August 2009
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