Now that our long, national nightmare known as the summer movie season is over - we were bombarded with poorly conceived, usually three-dimensional, multimillion-dollar trainwrecks that robbed us of our hard-earned money - let us move on to the only movie season that matters: the fall season.
It's during this season that, as always, the good movies show up. And, of course, there are always those 10 films - however big or small they may be - I look forward to most. Let me share them with you.
I'M STILL HERE (9/17)
Now that Joaquin Phoenix has been looking clean-shaven and sane these days, the big question remains: Was that brief period when he was a bloated, hairy mess longing to be a rapper and having meltdowns on talk shows for real or an act? I hope this movie, directed by his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, will answer that question. It also might just be funny to watch.
THE TOWN (9/17)
You know times are really bad for the movies when one of the most anticipated films of the season is a Ben Affleck movie. Along with starring in this movie, in which he plays a bank robber torn between living the criminal life and going on the straight and narrow with his new love (Rebecca Hall), he also directs it. And since his last directorial effort (2007's "Gone Baby Gone") both surprised and impressed a lot of moviegoers, people are hoping this will be another well-done crime drama from the former Mr. J-Lo.
BURIED (SEPTEMBER)
I don't know what it is, but the thought of pretty Ryan Reynolds being buried alive just appeals to me. That's what happens to the future Green Lantern in this indie nail-biter, in which he plays a truck driver in Iraq who gets trapped inside a coffin with only a cell phone and a lighter. This is an intriguing change of pace for the dashing Reynolds that just might be worth checking out. And if the movie fails, he still has the aforementioned Green Lantern flick (not to mention another rom-com with Sandra Bullock in development) to save his career.
JACK GOES BOATING (SEPTEMBER)
Philip Seymour Hoffman, that doughy master thespian, is on that short list of actors I'll watch in anything. Amy Ryan ("Gone Baby Gone," TV's "The Office") is on that list, too. So, imagine my surprise when I heard that they would be in a film together - in Hoffman's directorial debut, no less. Hoffman plays an introverted single guy who sparks up a romance with Ryan's dizzy dame. This could end up becoming the season's ideal date movie - for people who are fed up with date movies.
LET ME IN (10/1)
When I saw the Swedish vampire movie "Let the Right One In," I thought several things. "This is way, way, way better than 'Twilight'!" was a constant. One of the things I thought (or, should I say, feared) was that the American remake would be right around the corner. Sure enough, it's here. And though the movie already scored a minus with me by hiring Matt Reeves (who helmed the nauseating-on-every-level "Cloverfield") as director, I still want to see how this new version is handled, especially because the U.S. version has Chloe Grace Moretz (aka the cute but deadly Hit-Girl from "Kick-Ass") as the kiddie vampire and Kodi-Smit McPhee ("The Road") as the boy who protects her.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (10/1)
" The Facebook Movie" is finally here or, should I say, the movie about how that time-consuming online network came to be. Jesse Eisenberg ("Zombieland") and Andrew Garfield (aka the future Spider-Man) star as the college buds who become bitter enemies when their little venture becomes an Internet sensation. With Aaron Sorkin handling the script and David Fincher (who was last seen Gumping it up with "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") behind the camera, this might be a movie worth telling your friends about - on Facebook, of course.
JACKASS 3D (10/15)
Let's be real here: Out of all the three-dimensional spectacles that'll be going down in theaters this fall, you're just a little bit intrigued about what will be flung in moviegoers' faces during this movie. I know I'll be in the front row, ready to watch Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O and the rest of those white-trash daredevils out-shock, out-gross and eventually out-injure one another, all in the name of cinematic entertainment. I'm so scared - yet I'm so excited!
TRUE GRIT (12/25)
Leave it to the Coen brothers to have the audacity to remake an iconic John Wayne movie. Technically, they've made another version of the 1968 Charles Portis novel that movie was based on, with recent Oscar winner Jeff Bridges in the role immortalized by the Duke. Well, I'm psyched anyway, mainly because 1) it's a Coen brothers movie and 2) Joel and Ethan reunite with Bridges, whom they basically turned into a stoner cult icon when he starred in their immortal "The Big Lebowski."
ANOTHER YEAR (DECEMBER)
I might be one of the few people left in the U.S. who still get amped when we hear that a Mike Leigh film will be coming to our shores. This movie features Leigh vets Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen as a married couple surrounded by drama-plagued friends. Considering that his last film, 2008's "Happy-Go-Lucky" (which featured a knockout, criminally underappreciated lead performance from Sally Hawkins), was the best of that year for me, I can't wait to see what the Brit filmmaker does with this film.
THE TEMPEST (DECEMBER)
OK, by now, you know how I feel about Dame Helen Mirren. Well, there will be plenty of her to go around this fall. She'll star as a machine-gun-toting agent in "Red" and a Mossad agent in "The Debt." But she'll also play the vengeful sorcerer Prospero, putting the hurting on an all-star cast of dudes (Alfred Molina, Russell Brand, Alan Cumming and Djimon Hounsou, among others), in Julie Taymor's reworking of the Shakespeare play. So, it looks like Mirren will be spending the entire fall season just being the big, bad mama I've always envisioned she'd be!
