Content scores over form

“Fall is the time where popcorn movie stars get to stretch their muscles a little bit and do things that are creatively rewarding,” said Dave Karger of Entertainment Weekly magazine.

Last week,director Steven Soderbergh explored panic in Contagion,a thriller about a virus outbreak that kills millions. The film boasted of an impressive cast comprising Matt Damon,Gwyneth Paltrow,Kate Winslet,Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne.

On September 30,box-office comedy star Seth Rogen headlines independently-made cancer film 50/50,while Daniel Craig dons the role of a married father who unknowingly moves his family into a home that was once the scene of grisly murders in director Jim Sheridan’s thriller Dream House.

Not to be outdone,Captain America star Chris Evans plays a heroin-addicted attorney in Puncture (Sept 23) and Johnny Depp takes a break from his Pirates Of The Caribbean movies to star as a down and out newspaperman in Puerto Rico in The Rum Diary,based on the Hunter S Thompson novel (Oct 28).

SPORTS,HORROR & OSCARS

Sports-related films also figure prominently in the fall lineup. Last week,mixed martial arts—a sport which is rapidly gaining mainstream popularity—saw its traditional cage fighting taken to a new level in Warrior as two estranged brothers were pitted against the other.

Brad Pitt stars as the Oakland A’s general manager who revives his baseball team by using computer-generated math analysis in Moneyball (Sept. 23).

Hugh Jackman portrays a father who,with his son,restores a robot and enters the world of remote-controlled boxing in Real Steel (Oct 7). And if auto racing is your thing,Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stuntdriver who moonlights as getaway driver in Drive (Sept 16).

With Halloween nearing,October is ripe with horror,from edge-of-your seat thrillers to campy fright films. Antonio Banderas is a demented plastic surgeon in Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In (Oct 14),two cops probe a series of murders in Texas Killing Fields (Oct 7),John Carpenter’s The Thing gets a prequel (Oct 14),and ghostly footage is again captured in Paranormal Activity 3 (Oct 21).

While the late fall traditionally features a glut of Oscar contenders,some films are getting an early jump on the competition. On Oct 7,Academy Award winner George Clooney stars in,directs and produces the political drama The Ides Of March,co-staring perennial Oscar favourites Ryan Gosling,Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti.

On Nov 4,two-time nominee Michelle Williams stars as Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn and on Nov 9,four-time Oscar winner Clint Eastwood directs J Edgar,which carries a strong Hollywood pedigree — Oscar winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) and three-time nominee Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role.

COMEDIES & CROWDS

But Hollywood is not only focussed on awards. It also needs big sales at box offices,and the industry’s major studios can always count on comedies to lure audiences. Anna Faris revisits all her past relationships in What’s Your Number? (Sept 30). Jack Black,Owen Wilson and Steve Martin are three competitive bird watchers in The Big Year (Oct 14),and Adam Sandler plays both a family man and the character’s abrasive twin sister who refuses to leave his home after Thanksgiving in Jack & Jill (Nov 11). Nov 4 becomes a triple-threat action-packed comedy weekend: Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy star in director Brett Ratner’s Tower Heist. Shrek’s favourite sword-wielding kitty cat gets his own spin-off film in the animated Puss In Boots,and those two stoners,Harold and Kumar are back for another inappropriate adventure in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.

But those won’t be the only three choices over that crowded Nov 4 weekend. Another Happy Day with Demi Moore and The Son Of No One starring Channing Tatum and Al Pacino are also in the mix.

The Oct 14 weekend is jam-packed,too. There is a remake of the 1984 classic Footloose starring Dancing with Stars alumnus Julianne Hough. And the indie drama Fireflies in the Garden,with Julia Roberts and Ryan Reynolds,also hits theatres that weekend.

“There are many movies per week to be found this fall,” said Entertainment Weekly’s Karger. “In the summer,studios get spooked. In the fall,with less tentpole movies around,the weekends don’t feel as sacred. Any week seems viable.”

“Fall is when you can find movies that are a little bit off the beaten path that still have interesting people in them,” he said. “It’s unpredictable.”

Zorianna KitReuters