Film preview
Fall is usually a strange season for the film industry, one of those transitional periods between the money-grubbing summer film season and the and the pathetic Oscar-grubbing of winter. What usually comes out in the fall is an interesting combination of the holdovers from the summer and the early starters of the winter. Here is a sample of October’s new films from Hollywood and elsewhere.
“Red Dragon” opens Oct. 4, revealing how desperate Hollywood can be for a successful franchise. Based on the Thomas Harris novel that preceded “Silence of the Lambs,” it has already been adapted once to film in 1986’s “Manhunter.” Despite Hollywood’s obvious milking of the Hannibal Lector character for all it’s worth, the movie actually looks promising. With Ed Norton and Ralph Fiennes in the cast, it could be a well-rounded entry into the annals of serial killer cinema.
Oct. 11 brings both “The Rules of Attraction” and “Punch-Drunk Love.” The first is an adaptation of a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, whose “American Psycho” was adapted into one of the better films of 2000, despite being a less-than-faithful retelling. If “The Rules of Attraction” can match the morbid humor and style of “American Psycho,” it could work out just fine despite its neo-Brat Pack cast.
“Punch-Drunk Love” is the fabled meeting of “Magnolia” director P.T. Anderson and raving man-child Adam Sandler. It’s already won the best director award at Cannes and might turn out to be less cringe-inducing than expected.
Oct. 18 has three items of interest for the discriminating viewer. “The Ring,” a remake of the Japanese film “Ringu,” involves a videotape that leaves all who watch it dead. “FearDotCom” had a similar plot, only more contrived. Hopefully “The Ring” can do it right. DreamWorks has launched an Internet campaign that’s drawing some buzz among horror fanatics, so it might be good for a fright.
“Formula 51” has a plot that feels part “Superfly,” part “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” — if such a thing is imaginable. Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle star in this Liverpool crime-fest. Jackson wears a kilt in one scene. Worth it for that alone.
“Autofocus” has generated the biggest word-of-mouth buzz of any film this year. It stars Greg Kinnear as the real-life “Hogan’s Heroes” star and sex addict Bob Crane, who was beaten to death with a camera tripod in 1978. Kinnear is already being viewed as an Oscar contender for this work, so this might end up being the best of the month.
Finally, Oct. 25 brings “The Truth About Charlie,” a remake of the 1963 Cary Grant film “Charade.” Jonathan Demme directs Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton and Tim Robbins in the story of a woman who finds her husband dead and her bank account gone, and many suspicious characters interested in her affairs. Remakes are iffy these days (seen “Mr. Deeds” recently?), so give it a 50 percent chance of being worth the trouble.
From the makers of, God help us, “13 Ghosts,” comes “Ghost Ship.” Do you see a pattern developing here? The first showed a distinct visual style that was put to very little good. Lets hope they improve on the formula here with this story of a passenger ship lost in 1953 and found floating around the Bering Sea. Salvage crew comes, scary stuff happens. Good for the Halloween crowd and could be a nice antidote to the bloated Oscar season.