Films for fall: something for all

The fall movie season is upon us, with new releases as thick as the leaves that will soon be clogging our gutters. Here are some of the potential highlights (or possibly lowlights) opening between now and Thanksgiving; note that release dates are tentative and ever-shifting, like a starlet's fortunes.

Oscar-bait drama

'Tis the season for the kind of movie that wins Oscars, so here we go: Jodie Foster turns vigilante as a violent-crime victim in "The Brave One" (Sept. 14), directed by Neil Jordan. Ang Lee follows "Brokeback Mountain" with "Lust, Caution" (Sept. 28) a drama set in pre-World War II Shanghai. Also traveling into the past is Brad Pitt, who plays Wild West outlaw Jesse James in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (October), a title that should test the limits of theater marquees.

Danish director Susanne Bier ("After the Wedding") makes her English-language debut with the drama "Things We Lost in the Fire" (Oct. 26) which has Halle Berry as its widowed heroine. George Clooney leads a strong cast — Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack — in the legal drama "Michael Clayton" (Oct. 12). Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo face off in "Reservation Road" (Oct. 19), based on John Burnham Schwartz's novel about revenge in a New England town.

"Margot at the Wedding" (Nov. 16), from Noah Baumbach ("The Squid and the Whale"), features Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh as sisters. (Well, they do both mumble a bit.) And Alison Eastwood (yes, Clint's daughter) directs the drama "Rails & Ties" (November) starring a pair of "Mystic River" alums: Marcia Gay Harden and Kevin Bacon.

Read the book

Book groups just might be turning out in force at the multiplexes, with film versions of the following novels hitting the screen: Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" (Nov. 2), directed by Marc Forster ("Finding Neverland"); Gabriel García Márquez' "Love in the Time of Cholera" (Nov. 16), with Javier Bardem; Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" (Nov. 9) from the Coen brothers; Alessandro Baricco's "Silk" (Sept. 14) with Keira Knightley; Charles Baxter's "The Feast of Love" (Sept. 28), directed by Robert Benton ("Kramer vs. Kramer"); and Karen Joy Fowler's "The Jane Austen Book Club" (Sept. 28), with Mario Bello and Emily Blunt.

Sean Penn adapts and directs "Into the Wild" (Sept. 28), Jon Krakauer's haunting nonfiction tale of a young man's journey into the Alaskan wilderness. And "Beowulf," which many of us read in high school, turns up on screen Nov. 16 as an animated adventure, with the voices of Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, and Crispin Glover as the "demon grim," Grendel.

Been there, done that?

Just three high-profile remakes on the Hollywood slate this fall; perhaps that's a good sign. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale star in James Mangold's Western "3:10 to Yuma" (Sept. 7), coming 50 years after the Glenn Ford original. The Farrelly brothers direct Ben Stiller in "The Heartbreak Kid" (Oct. 5), a remake of the 1972 Neil Simon comedy about a man who meets a knockout on his honeymoon. And Jude Law and Michael Caine team up for "Sleuth" (Oct. 26), a twisty two-character thriller previously filmed in 1972 with Sir Laurence Olivier and ... Michael Caine (who has, it should be noted, swapped roles and is now playing the older fellow).

Been there, done that, a little different this time

A handful of familiar director/actor duos are teaming up again this fall. "American Gangster" (Nov. 2), surely, will be more intriguing than Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe's previous collaboration, the flat wine fest "A Good Year." This time, Denzel Washington joins the guys for a tale of a '70s drug lord. "Eastern Promises" (Sept. 14), a drama set among London's Russian mob, reunites director David Cronenberg and actor Viggo Mortensen, whose previous project was the nail-biting drama "A History of Violence."

Wes Anderson directs Jason Schwartzman ("Rushmore") and Owen Wilson ("The Royal Tenenbaums"), along with Adrien Brody, in "The Darjeeling Limited" (Oct. 5), a comedy in which a trio of brothers are stranded in India. And Cate Blanchett re-dons the white makeup and curly wig to play Queen Elizabeth I in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Oct. 12) for director Shekhar Kapur, nine years after "Elizabeth" earned Blanchett her first Oscar nomination.

For the family

Amy Adams, who was indeed enchanting in "June bug," stars as a fairy-tale princess who turns up in contemporary Manhattan in Disney's "Enchanted" (Nov. 21). Jerry Seinfeld and Renée Zellweger lend their voices to the much-buzzed "Bee Movie" (Nov. 2), an animated comedy about a disillusioned bee. Paul Giamatti is Santa Claus (really, I've been waiting a long time to type that phrase) and Vince Vaughn his troublesome brother in the comedy "Fred Claus" (Nov. 9), and Dustin Hoffman runs a magical toy store in "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" (Nov. 16).

"The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising" (Oct. 5) brings Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising" fantasy series to the screen. And The Rock plays a quarterback who discovers he has a child from a previous relationship (wait, this is a kids' movie?) in Disney's "The Game Plan" (Sept. 28).

Reel life: documentaries

Daniel Karslake's moving take on Christianity and homosexuality, "For the Bible Tells Me So," gets a local run starting Oct. 26; the film won the Seattle International Film Festival's award for best doc. A handful of other documentaries that played SIFF come to theaters this fall: the space-travel film "In the Shadow of the Moon" (Sept. 21); "The Devil Came on Horseback" (Sept. 21), about the Darfur genocide; Tony Kaye's examination of abortion, "Lake of Fire" (Oct. 19); and "Soldiers of Conscience" (Nov. 2), about soldiers who find they cannot kill.

Also on the topic of Darfur is "Darfur Now" (November), narrated by Don Cheadle. "In Search of Mozart" (Sept. 28) looks at the life of the great composer. And "My Kid Could Paint That" (Oct. 19), a hit at Sundance, tells the strange tale of a 4-year-old who's an art prodigy — maybe.

Here at home

On the made-in-Seattle front, local filmmaker John Jeffcoat's SIFF audience award-winning comedy "Outsourced," shot here and in India, opens for a regular run Sept. 28. "Brand Upon the Brain," a surreal silent film from Canadian director Guy Maddin ("The Saddest Music in the World"), was filmed here last year and will make its local debut Oct. 12. And AJ Schnack's "Kurt Cobain About a Son," a documentary about Aberdeen's most famous native, opens Oct. 12.

But what I really want to do is direct

Actors sitting in the big chair this fall include Ben Affleck, making his feature directing debut with the crime drama "Gone Baby Gone" (Oct. 19), starring the invaluable Morgan Freeman and based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (who wrote the novel "Mystic River"). David Schwimmer, silencing the multitudes who want to know what he's been doing since "Friends" ended, directs the comedy "Run, Fat Boy, Run" (Oct. 26), about a London guy (Simon Pegg) who abandons his pregnant fiancée.

Justin Theroux directs Billy Crudup in "Dedication" (Sept. 14), a romantic comedy about a children's-book author. Ethan Hawke helms "The Hottest State" (Sept. 14), based on his own novel about a young actor from Texas. (Hawke, it should be noted, is from Texas.) And Robert Redford, a senior member of the actor-turned-director club, directs and stars in "Lions for Lambs" (Nov. 9), a drama in which he plays a professor, Meryl Streep a journalist and Tom Cruise (!) a senator.

A few laughs

Just a few, mind you — fall is no time for comedy, with all those serious Oscar-bait movies to get through. Ryan Gosling plays a guy in love with an inflatable doll in "Lars and the Real Girl" (Oct. 19); while cute Amanda Bynes channels Snow White in "Sydney White" (Sept. 21), a high-school comedy complete with seven dorks. (What, only seven?) The sports comedy, "The Comebacks" (Oct. 26), follows a college football coach (David Koechner) with a lousy team.

Actor/writer/director Tyler Perry returns with "Why Did I Get Married" (Oct. 12), a comedy based on his own play about the trials of marriage. Dane Cook and Jessica Alba star in "Good Luck Chuck" (Sept. 21), about a guy who has bad luck with women; Will Arnett and Will Forte (clearly Will Ferrell was busy) seek out a woman to impregnate in "The Brothers Solomon" (Sept. 7). And Michael Douglas plays a former mental patient now obsessed with seeking Spanish gold in "King of California" (Sept. 28).

Be afraid

Various scary entities will prowl the multiplexes this season, including killer crocodiles ("Rogue," Oct. 19), bloodthirsty vampires with very bad dental work ("30 Days of Night," Oct. 19), mysterious monsters who emerge from an impenetrable mist ("Stephen King's The Mist," Nov. 21); creepy men who hold a young couple hostage (Michael Haneke's "Funny Games," Oct. 26); and the umpteenth return of murderous sicko Jigsaw, for heaven's sake, in "Saw IV" (Oct. 26). Isn't he done yet?

High concept (or, so weird, it just might work)

Todd Haynes, whose last feature was the beautiful 2002 drama "Far from Heaven," returns with "I'm Not There" (Nov. 21), in which an assortment of actors play various aspects of Bob Dylan. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Richard Gere are among the Bobs. Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe" (Sept. 14) is a trippy-looking sort-of-musical that uses Beatles tunes to tell the story of a couple named, natch, Lucy and Jude. Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess star.

Lynn Hershman Leeson "Strange Culture" (Sept. 14) mixes documentary and traditional narrative to tell the story of Steve Kurtz, an artist and professor suspected of bioterrorism. Tilda Swinton and Thomas Jay Ryan, among other actors, appear in scripted sections of the film. "Chalk," produced by Morgan Spurlock ("Super Size Me"), likewise blends genres; it's a semi-mockumentary about the lives of high-school teachers, shot at an Austin, Texas, school.

War stories

From the headlines to the movies: In "Grace is Gone" (Oct. 12), John Cusack plays a widowed father unsure how to tell his daughters that their mother won't be returning from the Iraq war. Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron star in "In the Valley of Elah" (Sept. 14) about a young man who disappears after returning from Iraq; the film is written and directed by Paul Haggis ("Crash").

Gavin Hood, the South African director who won an Oscar for "Tsotsi," returns with "Rendition" (Oct. 19), about an American wife's struggle to free her Egyptian-born husband from a secret detention facility after he is suspected of terrorism. Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep and Jake Gyllenhaal star. Jamie Foxx plays an FBI agent investigating terrorism in the Middle East in "The Kingdom" (Sept. 28), co-starring Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. And a trio of journalists trying to find a Bosnian war criminal face unexpected complications in "The Hunting Party" (Sept. 14) from writer/director Richard Shepard ("The Matador"). Terrence Howard, Richard Gere and Jesse Eisenberg star.

A movie in which Daniel Radcliffe plays someone other than Harry Potter

"December Boys," Sept. 28. Get in line, girls. Happy autumn.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com