There’s more death in FAST FOOD NATION (October 20), Richard Linklater’s unorthodox fictional adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s bestselling exposé about the fast-food industry. He dramatizes the book’s reporting and insights with fictional stories; Erinn Allison, Patricia Arquette, Mitch Baker, and a lot of butchered animals star.
So much for the present day. Let’s have the Wayback Machine return us to the turn of the 20th century for THE PRESTIGE (October 20), Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Christopher Priest’s novel. On the surface it appears to be the tale of two rival magicians played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale and a bit of a romantic triangle involving Scarlett Johansson, but look up Nolan’s sleeve and you might spot a structural intricacy and mind-blowing metaphysics à la his 2000 headscratcher, Memento.
MEAN STREETS Martin Scorsese returns to familiar ground with The Departed. |
Expect more playing around with the past in MARIE ANTOINETTE (October 20). Sofia Coppola’s follow-up to Lost in Translation relates with dense period detail the tragic fate of the high-coiffed queen who was brought down to size by the French Revolution. But Coppola is not above a few anachronistic indulgences, such as Siouxsie and the Banshees on the soundtrack and Converse sneakers (you need to fit that product placement in somewhere) on Marie’s dainty toes. Kirsten Dunst has the title role; Jason Schwartzman plays her feckless spouse, Louis XVI.Enough of wigs and minuets and other sissy stuff. Time to check out World War II and the heroes who fought for the freedoms we now so eagerly surrender in a desperate, phony bid for security. Clint Eastwood adapts FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (October 20), the James Bradley bestseller about the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Patrick Dollaghan, Jon Kellam, and Adam Beach star in what sounds like the grimmest, most realistic war film since Saving Private Ryan. It’s the first of two on the same battle; the second, Letters from Iwo Jima, tells the story from the Japanese side and will come out next year.
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS (October 27) might not be as hazardous as clearing out enemy pillboxes, but Augusten Burroughs’s memoir about growing up with a crazy family and an even crazier shrink is still pretty traumatic. First-time director Ryan Murphy casts newcomer Joseph Cross as the troubled memoirist alongside such veterans as Annette Bening, Brian Cox, and Joseph Fiennes.
Speaking of trauma: Alejandro González Iñárritu ups the angst ante from 21 Grams with BABEL (October 27), wherein four groups of people in four different countries in four interconnecting story lines and five different languages suffer horribly. It’s a cat’s cradle of narration set off by a tragedy. Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt, and Jamie McBride star.
November
Watching what passes for news these days, you wonder whether we’ll ever see a journalist who simply tells it like it is. BORAT (November 3) might well be that newsman, if only we could understand what he’s saying. Based on the character from the Da Ali G Show, this is a mockumentary about a Kazakhstan TV reporter sent by his network to investigate America. Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, it’s directed by Larry Charles (Masked and Anonymous).
