Lets hope the owls do a better job than the crew in Snyder's Watchmen. And where were these heroes when the economy tanked a couple of years back? Leave it to Oliver Stone to get to the bottom of it all in WALL STREET 2: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS (September 24). Even Michael Douglas's Gordon Gekko, just sprung from the clink, can't believe the damage his "greed is good" ethos has wrought. Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, and Charlie Sheen also star. Everything you didn't understand in Michael Moore's Capitalism, a Love Story will make even less sense here.
OCTOBER
It sounds like a perfect metaphor for the war now winding down: in Rodrigo Cortés's BURIED (October 1), Iraqi insurgents kidnap a civilian contractor and bury him alive. Future Green Lantern Ryan Reynolds stars, taking on a predicament that would test the mettle of a superhero — or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol. 1.
While Ryan Reynolds is thinking, "Let me out," Kick-Ass's Chloe Moretz and The Road's Kodi Smit-McPhee are saying, LET ME IN (October 1). Matt Reeves of Cloverfield fame remakes Swedish director Tomas Alfredson's acclaimed, coming-of-age 2008 vampire film, Let the Right One In.
Could the popularity of vampires reflect the life-sucking nature of modern media? You might post that for discussion on your Facebook page — or wait for David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK (October 1), a bio-pic based on Ben Mezrich's book about the billionaires who developed that wildly popular Web site. The stars include your good friends Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake.
For a round-up of other current odd topics, check out Seth Gordon's FREAKONOMICS (October 1). Based on the Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubne bestseller, it's a compilation of reports from top documentarians: Alex Gibney on sumo wrestling, Morgan Spurlock on baby names, Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing on underachieving kids motivated by money, Eugene Jarecki on the drop in crime rates in the early '90s.
Chris D'Arienzo's BARRY MUNDAY (October 1) sounds like an outtake from Freakonomics: a guy wakes up in a hospital and finds his testicles are missing. Mae Whitman and Patrick Wilson star. And Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman's HOWL (October 1) sounds like Barry Munday's first reaction. Instead it's a dramatization of the iconic Allen Ginsberg poem, its composition, and the subsequent trial for obscenity; James Franco, Jon Hamm, and Mary Louise Parker star.
Hey, isn't it time for another Woody Allen movie? How about YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER (October 1), a droll comedy about the intertwining fates of two married couples, their children, and various tall dark strangers, set in London. The usual stunning cast includes Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Josh Brolin, and Naomi Watts.
Sam Taylor-Wood's NOWHERE BOY (October 8) is another tale of intertwining fates set in Britain. Starring Aaron Johnson and Kristin Scott Thomas, it relates the schoolboy days of John Lennon as he bonds with his estranged mother and meets the mates who will make up his band.
What the Beatles were to pop music, SECRETARIAT (October 8) was to horse racing. Randall Wallace's bio-pic stars an Oscar-seeking Diane Lane as the plucky woman who guided the career of the thoroughbred Triple Crown winner of 1973.
