10A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 9, 1999
New movies appear to brighten dull days of farl
By Erin Podolsky
Daily Arts Writer
Days getting longer. Students getting
drunker. Homework pile getting bigger.
No, it's not another lame article on how
to survive the back-to-school blues. It's
the fall movie preview.
As always, fall is the best time of
year for the movie industry as the cold-
er temperatures in most of the country
send audiences running for their plush
seats in movie houses and the Oscar
race heats up to the boiling point. This
year promises to be even better than the
last with new offerings from power-
house directors Martin Scorsese, Frank
Darabont, Tim Burton and David
Fincher after already seeing master-
works from Stanley Kubrick and Jan
De Bont.
Just kidding about that last one.
"Stir of Echoes" (Sept. 10)- Kevin
Bacon sees dead people walking
around like regular people. Wait, didn't
this film already come out and make
$200 million? We're wondering what
twist could possibly be left.
"Blue Streak" (Sept. 17) - Martin
Lawrence takes a break from his busy
heat exhaustion schedule to bury a dia-
mond in an under-construction build-
ing, only to discover years later that the
building became a police station. Oops.
"For Love of the Game" (Sept. 17)
- Kevin Costner plus baseball equals
good. Kevin Costner plus Kelly Preston
equals bad. Wait for video so you can
fast-forward through all of the relation-
ship crap to the baseball scenes.
"Jakob the Liar" (Sept. 24)- Robin
Williams plays Roberto Benigni in this
American remake of "Life is
Beautiful." Well, okay, so it's not a
straight remake -- there's a dash of
Good Morning Vietnam" thrown in. Is
Williams looking to be canonized or
what?
"Mumford" (Sept. 24) - A small-
town shrink turns out not to be a shrink
at all in this new comedy from
Wolverine Lawrence Kasdan. Prepare
for hijinks.
"Molly"(Sept. 24)-Autistic savant
Elizabeth Shue makes brother Aaron
"nobody makes me cum like I do"
Eckhart's life hell until she wakes up a
genius one morning. Yeah, I guess the
lease on the life of "Rain Man" is final-
ly up.
"American Beauty" (Oct. 1) - One
of the most highly anticipated films of
the fall and practically guaranteed a
slew of Oscar noms, this dysfunctional
suburbia-based family dramedy stars
Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening as
husband and wife. Let the games begin.
"Drive Me Crazy" (Oct.1) - Five
bucks says there's a Fine Young
Cannibals tune stuck somewhere in this
misguided romantic comedy between
fashion plate Melissa Joan Hart and
lost cause crusader Adrian Grenier.
"Guinevere" (Oct. 1) - Luminous
Sarah Polley plays not the mythical
king's faithless wife but a young girl
voluntarily caught up in a May-
December romance with dough-faced
Stephen Rea.
"Mystery, Alaska" (Oct. 1) - Jack-
of-all-trades David E. Kelley tries his
hand at hockey. Let's hope there are no
crocodiles up in the tundra.
"Plunkett and MaCleane" (Oct. 1)-
Trainspotters Robert Carlyle and Jonny
Lee Miller reteam to wreak havoc as
highwaymen in 18th Century England.
Beware: it's directed by Jake Scott, yet
another music video refugee (see also:
"Stigmata," "Arlington Road" and fifty
other hideously bad-yet-visually inven-
tive movies released this year).
"Three Kings" (Oct. 1) - Another
one we're looking forward to.
Writer/director David O. Russell
("Flirting with Disaster") looks to be
delivering the laughter yet again in this
slightly more serious effort about
grave-robbing in the days following the
Gulf War. Can't go wrong with a cast
that includes Jack Foley, Dirk Diggler
and Dougboy.
"The Big Tease" (Oct. 8) -
Formerly titled "J'Mapelle Crawford,"
co-writer Craig Ferguson stars as a
hairdresser with a comic agenda.
Watch out for split ends.
"Lost Souls" (Oct. 8) - Winona
Ryder plays a psychic chick who
notices that Satan is coming to town to
play with all of the good little kids.
Rumor has it this will be running as a
double-feature with "End of Days." On
the plus side, this is the directorial
debut of Oscar-winning cinematogra-
pher Janusz Kaminski.
"Random Hearts" (Oct. 8) -
Harrison Ford attempts romance with
Kristin Scott Thomas after both their
spouses are killed in a plane crash. It's
better on the rebound, right, folks?
"Superstar" (Oct. 8)- Three words:
Mary. Katherine. Gallagher. God bless
Catholic schoolgirl plaid.
"Fight Club" (Oct. 15) - Brad Pitt
and Edward Norton bite and scratch
their way out of white collar boredom
at this adult version of latchkey. David
Fincher adds another opus t his techno-
ridden, invigorating ouvre.
"Scream If You Know What I Did
Last Summer" (Oct. 15) - Parody
whose title says it all.
"The Story of Us" (Oct. 15) -
Bruce Willis follows up his success in
"The Sixth Sense" with this romantic
comedy. He and Michelle Pfeiffer are
husband and wife stuck in a midlife cri-
sis rut of habit.
"The Straight Story" (Oct. 15) -
David Lynch has finally done the
impossible: submitted a film to the
MPAA and been given a G rating. John
Deere is sponsoring this tale of an old
guy and his cross-country tractor trek.
"Anywhere But Here" (Oct. 22) -
Pulled from Fox's spring slate, mother
Susan Sarandon drags daughter Natalie
Portman to posh Beverly Hills so they
can reinvent themselves. Ugh.
"Bringing Out the Dead" (Oct. 22)
- Can Nic Cage pull himself out of
the morass of stale popcorn films he's
made in the days since his Oscar win
with the help of the greatest living
American director? Let's hope this is
vintage work from Martin Scorsese.
"Crazy in Alabama" (Oct. 22) -
Hasn't anybody ever told first-time
director Antonio Banderas that his wife
is a terrible actress? This syndrome
also afflicts John Travolta and Kevin
Bacon. It's kind of sad.
"The Limey" (Oct. 22) - Steven
Soderberghs's follow-up to the brilliant
"Out of Sight" is a two-fisted tale of
Brit terror as Terence Stamp gets into
the revenge business with Lesley Ann
Warren and Peter Fonda.
"Being John Malkovich" (Oct. 29)
- There could not possibly be a cooler
movie premise this fall than a pup-
peteer (John Cusack) who finds a por-
tal into the mind of warped genius John
Malkovich, who plays himself.
"Music of the Heart" (Oct. 29) -
Bad title alert. Formerly known as
"Fifty Violins," Wes Craven's dramatic
directing debut after such successes as
the "Scream" franchise stars Meryl
Streep as an inner city music teacher.
Hankies will be handed out at the door.
"Princess Mononoke" (Oct. 29) -
One of the top-five grossing film's in
Japanese history, this feature anime has
been given an English script by the
brilliant Neil Gaiman to match the bril-
counesy of columba Pia
Martin Lawrence plays a jewel thief who pretends to be a pizza delivery man in "Blue Streak."
liant animation of Japanese maestro
Hayao Miyazaki. Claire Danes, Minnie
Driver, Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup
and others pull voice duties.
"The Bone Collector" (Nov. 5) -
Denzel Washington plays a wheelchair-
bound forensic detective on the trail of
a serial killer. Angelina Jolie plays his
legs. Damn, they make a sexy couple.
"The Insider" (Nov. 5) - Tick tuck
tick tock tick tock. Tobacco whistle-
blower Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe)
is caught between hell and a hard place
with "60 Minutes." Any movie that can
make Crowe look old and ugly has gut
to be cool. Directed by Michael Mann,
also starring Al Pacino.
"The Messenger: Joan of Arc" (Nov.
5) - The trailer looks suspiciously
like it stole its ideas from the
"Elizabeth" poster campaign, but Luc
Besson has done great work in the
past, so who's to say this will suck?
Now if they'd just get rid of that colon
in the title.
"Felicia's Journey" (Nov. 1'2) - The
latest from Canada's finest son, Atom
Egoyan. It doesn't matter what it's
about, it's Egoyan. Mark your calendar.
"Pokemon: The First Movie" (Nov.
12) - Uh, does this mean there's going
to be another one?
"Three to Tango" (Nov. 12) - Neve
"mmmmnnnnghhhh" Cambell is
caught in a love triangle. Too bad for
her.
"Liberty Heights" (Nov. 19) -
Barry Levinson follows up his
Baltimore-centric "Diner" and
"Avalon," starring Adrien Brody, Joe
Mantegna, and one-to-watch Ben
Foster. Set in everyone's favorite
decade, the 80s. Just kidding, it's the
1950s.
"Sleepy Hollow" (Nov. 19) -
Johnny Depp plays legend Ichabod
Crane, Christopher Walken plays the
headless horseman and Christina Ricci
plays - wait, who cares who she plays.
It's about time Tim Burton made a
movie.
"The World is not Enough" (Nov. 19)'
- It might not be, but at least the world
will be rid of Denise Richards after she
plays Bond girl to secret agent Pierce
Brosnan.
"Anna and the King" (Nov. 24) -
"The King and I" without the songs.
Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat dance
around romance in long-ago Siam.
"End of Days" (Nov. 24) - Do-
gooder Arnold Schwarzenegger returns
to the silver screen after a two and a
half year absence to battle Satan. If he
gets to say, "This is the end of days -
for you," there's no telling how much
money this will make.
"Ride With the Devil" (Nov. 24) -
Ang Lee, having conquered suburban
ennui in the 1970s with "The Ice
Storm," attacks the old West. Then
again, this stars pop whiner Jewel.
"Toy Story 2" (Nov. 24) -
Supposedly this is better than the orig-
inal. To infinity squared and beyond!
"The End of the Affair" (Dec. 3) -
Neil Jordon recovers from the disaster
otherwise known as "In Dreams" with
this gorgeously shot retelling of the
Graham Greene novel. Ralph Fienne's
derrier isn't bad, either.
"The Cradle Will Rock" (Dec. 10)
- Tim Robbins directs this period
piece about Orson Welles' staging of a
banned play. Hank Azaria, Vanessa
Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Cary Elwes
and others star.
"Galaxy Quest" (Dec. 10) -
Actors in space this time instead of
muppets. Sigourney Weaver plays a
character named Tawny, so it can't be
all bad.
"Magnolia" (Dec. 10) - Paul
Thomas Anderson's latest exotic pic-
ture has been kept so secret that all we
know is who's in it, and the only per-
son on that list that matters is Phillip
Seymour Hoffman, who is serendipi-
tously playing a character named Phil.
Takes place in the Valley over the
course of two days. 0
"Scream 3" (Dec. 10) - Screar
hard with a vengeance.
"Stuart Little" (Dec. 10) - El
White's tale of a boy and his mou,
brother gets the big screen treatment I
Geena Davis, little tyke Jonaths
Lipnicki and the voice of Michael
Fox star.
"Bicentennial Man" (Dec. 17) -
Robin Williams draws on his histo'
Mork to play a menial androidW
sprouts emotions a la Data from "St
Trek."
'The Gicen Mile" (Dec. 17) - Fra
Darabont's first film since"The Shawshar
Redemption," is without question the m
highly regarded and sure-shot to come e
this fall. Add Michael Clark Duncan, Day
Morse and Tom Hanks to the mix as
there's no way this can go wrong.
"The Cider House Rules" (Dec. 1
- Author John Irving's period O6
tion epic has certainly been changed
its journey to the screen, but hopeful
that won't drown out the light t1
emanates from a cast that includ'
Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron ar
Paul Rudd.
"Any Given Sunday' (Dec. 25) -
In between drug busts, Oliver Stor
actually makes movies. This footba
saga stars Al Pacino, Dennis Quai
twenty of their closest Hollywoosa
and, of course, the great Frat
Gifford.
"Hanging Up" (Dec. 25) - Walt
Matthau plays daddy to Meg Rya
Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudroa
Prepare for copious high-pitche
shrieking.
"Man on the Moon" (Dec. 25)
Milos Forman directs Jim Carrey
dearly departed funnyman Ant
Kaufman. Here's a little ghost for 5t
offering.
"Next Friday" (Dec. 25)- Not tof
confused with last Friday, or tw
Fridays from now.
"Reindeer Games" (Dec. 25)-
Gary."sinus headache" Sinise and Be
Affleck have shiny red noses just
time for Christmas.
Also being released for Oscar ct
tention but not in time f
Michiganders to see before the tua'
the millennium: "Girl, InterruA
"Angela's Ashes," "Snow Falling
Cedars," and "The Talented M
Ripley."
Courtesy or coluna 'cture's
"Jakob the Liar" features Robin Williams as an inhabitant of a ghetto during the
Nazi occupation.
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