LUCID FORGE

Fall’s a great time for movies; you get the best of both worlds. As the season wears on we get into bigger and bigger pictures of blockbuster stature and sprinkled in between are several prestige films jockeying for position as best of the year and other awards. Listed here are the films vying for your hard earned dollars over the next couple of months.

Fall’s a great time for movies; you get the best of both worlds. As the season wears on we get into bigger and bigger pictures of blockbuster stature and sprinkled in between are several prestige films jockeying for position as best of the year and other awards. Listed here are the films vying for your hard earned dollars over the next couple of months.

September 5th Bangkok Dangerous (Lionsgate) – Nicolas Cage once again demonstrates a lack of judgment in this assassin’s tale from The Pang Brothers. September 12th Burn After Reading (Focus Features) – The Coen Brothers follow-up the blood-filled, and Academy Award winning, No Country for Old Men, with this comedy about a personal trainer and a missing disc filled with CIA secrets. Righteous Kill (Overture Films) – Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino play cop partners tracking a vigilante killer. Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys (Lionsgate) – The new film from the highly prolific Perry works to reach a wider audience by chronically the comings and goings of two families: one wealthy, one working class. The Women (Picturehouse) – The adventure in getting this updated version to the big screen could be a movie itself. Apparently, the studio was unsure if a film with an all-female cast could succeed until the recent box office tally of Sex & The City.

Towelhead (Warner Independent Pictures) – Alan Ball returns to film by looking at the cultural divide through the eyes of a young Arab girl living in Texas during the first Gulf War.

September 19th

Fanboys (MGM) – After several years of re-shoots and re-editing, this loving tale of friendship is a throwback to a more innocent time: when people had nice things to say about Star Wars. Ghost Town (Paramount Pictures) – Ricky Gervais sees dead people and has to serve as their ghost whisper if he is to return to the rewarding life of a curmudgeon. Igor (MGM) – This animated offering follows a mad scientist’s assistant that outshines his master when he creates life. It features the voice of John Cusack as the title character. Lakeview Terrace (Sony) – Samuel L. Jackson becomes the thorn in Patrick Wilson’s side as the worst next door neighbour you could ever have. My Best Friend's Girl (Lionsgate) – Somehow Kate Huson finds herself caught between Jason Biggs and Dane Cook in this romantic comedy from Pretty in Pink director Howard Deutch. The Duchess (Paramount Vantage) – Although it takes place in the 18th century, this curiously contemporary tale deals with fame, wealth and notoriety through the visage of a young Duchess played by Keira Knightly.

September 26th

Eagle Eye (DreamWorks) – Shia LaBeouf reunites with Disturbia director D.J. Caruso for this conspiracy thriller where LaBeouf plays a nobody, framed as a terrorist, trying to clear his name.

Miracle at St. Anna (Touchstone Pictures) – Spike Lee follows up Inside Man with this adaptation James McBride’s novel four African-American soldiers caught behind enemy lines in World War II Italy.

Nights in Rodanthe (Warner Bros. Pictures) – This one’s another weeper based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook and A Walk to Remember.

Blindness (Miramax Films) – This Canadian co-production chronicles a society in collapse after an epidemic of blindness affects an unnamed city.

October 3rd

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (Sony) – Michael Cera gets the girl, and the spotlight, for a night filled with wacky adventures.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Walt Disney Pictures) – We can thank all those actresses and heiresses that use dogs as accessories for this one.

Flash of Genius (Universal Pictures) – This story of one man versus the corporation that stole his idea could be the David Vs. Goliath tale for our time. Based on the true story of the invention of intermittent windshield wiper.

Rachel Getting Married (Sony) – A darkly comedic tale of family tension from director Jonathan Demme.

How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (MGM) – This one looks to be a sly, Hollywood send up in the spirit of The Player or Swimming With Sharks.

Religulous (Lionsgate) – Bill Maher tries his best to get on everybody’s nerves with his comedic travels through world religions, directed by Borat’s Larry Charles.

An American Carol (Vivendi Entertainment) – If you transplant the Fourth of July for Christmas and the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge learning the true meaning of Christmas with Michael Moore learning the true (right-wing) meaning of America, then you get the point.



October 10th

City of Ember (20th Century Fox) – A new fantasy tale based on a novel with a script written by A Nightmare Before Christmas screenwriter Caroline Thompson and Monster House director Gil Kenan.

Body of Lies (Warner Bros.) – International intrigue is the backdrop as Leonardo DiCaprio faces off against his CIA boss Russell Crowe. And director Ridley Scott only sweetens the deal with his involvement.

The Express (Universal Pictures) – Another based on a true story tale about football and overcoming odds to prove a point to society.

Quarantine (Columbia Pictures) – Think Resident Evil with a Cloverfield edge.

October 17th

Max Payne (20th Century Fox) – Last year Fox tried to turn Hitman into a video game crossover franchise, this year they’re hoping to do better with Max Payne. The Secret Life of Bees (Fox Searchlight) – Based on the novel of the same name, the film deals with racism and family in 1960s South Carolina. W. (Lionsgate) – Oliver Stone chronicles the rise of George W. Bush from village idiot to President of the United States, and just in time for the American election October 24th Saw V (Lionsgate) – Even though everybody from the other Saw movies has died, we now get the fifth chapter in this improbably series.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Walt Disney Pictures) – Speaking of improbable, the High School Musical gang makes the jump from cable to the big screen for senior year.

Passengers (Sony) – Anne Hathaway plays a shrink assisting plane crash survivors in this spooky entry co-starring Patrick Wilson as one of her haunted patients.

Changeling (Universal Studios) – In this film, beloved by audiences and critics at Cannes’, Clint Eastwood revisits the subject of missing children in this period mystery starring Angelina Jolie.

Pride and Glory (New Line Cinema) – Police corruption and family honour are the themes as Edward Norton and Colin Farrell play cops, who are both members of the same policing brood.

Crossing Over (MGM) – What Crash did for racism, Crossing Over aims to do for the immigration issue. The bonus is Harrison Ford going indie, joining an all-star cast including Ray Liotta and Sean Penn.

The Brothers Bloom (Summit Entertainment) – A couple of con men try to swindle an heiress in Rainn Johnson’s first film after his breakthrough Brick.

Synecdoche, New York (Sony Pictures Classics) – Not much is known about the plot other than it involves a playwright and a giant New York set built in a Warehouse. But all you rally need to know is that it’s written and directed by Charlie Kaufman.

October 31st

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Weinstein Company) – Kevin Smith tries something new with Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as BFFs that try to make some quick money by making porn.

RocknRolla (Warner Bros.) – Another thrilling tale of double crosses and gunfights from British underworld as only Guy Ritchie can deliver.

November 7th

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (DreamWorks) – All your favourite domesticated zoo animals are back as they head back to New York, but only make it so far as mainland Africa.

Repo! The Genetic Opera (Lionsgate) – Saw II-IV director creates a sci-fi rock opera about men that repossess organs when the owner can’t keep up payments, that stars Paul Sorvino, Sarah Brightman and Paris Hilton. This is either going to be really awesome, or really crappy.

Role Models (Universal Studios) – Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd are inexplicable allowed to act as big brothers to disadvantaged youths. Questions of who’s the more childish ensue.

November 14th Quantum of Solace (MGM/Sony) – Picking up mere moments after Casino Royale, James Bond pursues a terrorist syndicate, and a couple of beautiful babes, to various exotic locations across the globe. The Road (Dimension Films) – A man and his son walk the lonely roads of post-apocalyptic America in the film based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country for Old Men. Soul Men (Dimension Films) – The late greats Bernie Mac and Issac Hayes co-star in this story about two soul singers reunited for a cross-country tour after a 20 year long break-up. November 21st Twilight (Summit Entertainment) – Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the story follows the romance between a girl named Bella and the boy she likes, who just so happens to be a 107-year-old vampire. Bolt (Walt Disney Pictures) – From Disney Animation is this light-hearted adventure about a TV dog that thinks he’s the hero he portrays on the show. The Soloist (DreamWorks) – Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx play a reporter and the homeless musician he’s writing about.

November 26th

Australia (20th Century Fox) – Baz Luhrmann’s follow-up to Moulin Rouge unites Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in a romantic western set against the backdrop of the Japanese bombing of Darwin in 1942.

Four Christmases (New Line Cinema) – It’s the holidays in the era of the nuked family as married couple Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon have to attend four Christmases with their four separated parents in a single day.

Transporter 3 (Lionsgate) – Jason Statham returns to the franchise that made him a star, once again ferrying potentially dangerous, possibly illegal, things for people across Paris, no questions asked.

Milk (Focus Features) – This bio-pic about the assassination of San Francisco city supervisor and gay rights advocate Harvey Milk is brought to us by Gus Van Sant, returning to mainstream Hollywood after the low-key indies Elephant and Paranoid Park.