If the critics are any indication, this October has been one of the best movie months in recent history. Everything from the early awards candidates to pulp entertainments have been getting good reviews and/or good word of mouth. I've put more new releases down in my Netflix queue faster than ever before. Things like Wallace & Gromit, Good Night and Good Luck, North Country, Dreamer, Stay, In Her Shoes, The Gospel, Touch the Sound, Separate Lies, Two For the Money, Domino, and Elizabethtown (the last apparently successfully recut after poor showings at Toronto) have all met with respectable if varying degrees of praise.

This rich October serves as a lead-in to a far more promising holiday season than last year, when there was very little I got excited about and the few greats (Maria Full of Grace, Million Dollar Baby, Hotel Rwanda) came out of nowhere with little advance fanfare.

Here's a rundown of what to anticipate:


October 25 - Left Behind: World At War

Third in the series, this film is noteworthy to Christians for being among the few made *for* them. Movies are so expensive to make, they tend to cast wider nets. In terms of the industry, it is noteworthy for its curious release pattern: it opens in over 3000 churches nationwide before going direct to video, bypassing conventional theaters altogether. This is actually the *second* unconventional release pattern of the series; the first film went to DVD first, then to theaters months later.

October 28 - Prime

Meryl Streep doesn't usually make mistakes, but this comedy about a psychologist who has a patient she later discovers is dating her son...I dunno. Despite the prestige in front of the camera (Uma Thurman co-stars), the film seems to have an immature mentality to it.

October 28 - The Weather Man

This Nicolas Cage vehicle was much-delayed (usually a bad sign) and had awful trailers for it, but there are as many good vibes as bad. There's talk about Cage and Michael Caine for Oscar nominations and the film itself packing more of a punch than the advertising suggests. The director is coming off two great commercial successes (The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean), but this isn't the that kind of grand escapism. This is one of the biggest question marks of the season for me.

October 28 - The Legend of Zorro

Martin Campbell almost botched a Bond film, then made one of the best Zorro films of dozens. I wouldn't want to trust the guy with anything too cerebral, but can he repeat his own success?

October 28 - Saw II

People get hacked up some more.

November 4 - Chicken Little

Another question mark. The trend for animation these days is self-aware CG sitcoms with anthropomorphic characters. Shrek was great, but what happened to those Broadway musical fairy tales?

November 4 - Jarhead

Director Sam Mendes' third film (after two greats, American Beauty and Road To Perdition) looks like a step down to me. It's hard to make early calls on movies that obviously don't sell well in trailers (they're often the best movies anyway), but this looks like a ponderous, preachy, pretentious dissertation on everything wrong with those darned right-wing warmongers. Just what we need: Platoon's politics crossed with The Thin Red Line's love affair with itself. Hope I'm wrong.

November 11 - Derailed

I'm all about thrillers like this, and I've been a fan of Clive Owen since his short films for BMW. I'm not so much of a fan of Jennifer Aniston, but the film has potential.

November 11 - Zathura

Jumanji: In Space. Could be fun.

November 18 - Walk the Line

One of the more serious contenders for a Best Picture nomination, people have been gushing accolades on this thing on the festival circuit, and Joaquin Phoenix, playing the late Johnny Cash, seems assured of a nomination. What could hurt its chances is the perception that it's this year's "Ray," but it feels like it's more than that.

November 18 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Terrible teasers evolved into great trailers. This is probably the most anticipated movie of the season, and I'm hoping for a success here as fervently as anybody.

November 23 - Pride & Prejudice

I know, there are tons of versions of this already, but the early buzz is that Keira Knightley's turn as Elizabeth Bennet is going to secure her an Oscar nomination. Who'd have thought that The Girl in Pirates of the Caribbean was going to prove so versatile by starring in both this and Domino in the same season? This is my favorite Austen novel, and I'm highly curious to see why folks on the festival circuit are lavishing so much praise on this version in particular.

November 23 - Rent

This year's Chicago isn't going to hold up to Chicago, which itself was no Moulin Rouge. It's hard for me to complain about anything in the renaissance of musicals, because that in itself has to be a good thing. But I'm not a fan of the show and most definitely not a fan of the director, Chris Columbus.

November 23 - Yours, Mine, and Ours

Because we need a remake of a family-with-a-lot-of-kids movie.

November 23 - The Ice Harvest

Neither John Cusack nor Billy Bob Thornton pick uninteresting projects. The two of them together, in an action-comedy-crime-thriller, sounds promising to me. A dark and devious black comedy on the order of Grosse Pointe Blank, perhaps?

November 29 - Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

What...is this? Somebody invested in a sequel to a famous money-loser? I liked The Spirits Within, but its financial failure was the nightmare of studio executives everywhere. And let me get this straight...it's the second, not the seventh movie in the franchise? I assume it's an adaptation of the story of the FF7 game, but does it make any sense to keep the number in the title?

November 30 - Casanova

Director Lasse Hallstrom might be the luckiest Oscar chaser ever. Thanks to Miramax's legendary awards campaigning, his Chocolat and Cider House Rules earned undeserved Best Picture nominations (then ironically followed up with The Shipping News, better than both, but unsuccessful in a Picture bid). This year, his entry in the race is Casanova, a biopic about the world's most famous ladies' man. So far, I'm just not interested.

December 2 - Aeon Flux

Lara Croft surely paved the way for this to get made, a live-action adaptation of an anime franchise. I don't know anything about the show, but, ok, I confess an interest in science fiction warrioresses.

December 9 - Brokeback Mountain

Ang Lee takes on a western and social history at the same time. Don't care.

December 9 - Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Unfortunately, comparisons to the Rings trilogy will be inevitable, and I don't know what can stand up to that. All the same, this film looks absolutely gorgeous, and I just love the fact that after decades of abysmal fantasy movies, we're getting such wonderful franchise adaptations. This looks like the birth of another one, as if Rings, Potter, and D&D weren't reason enough to be thankful. Ok, just kidding about that last one.

December 9 - Memoirs of a Geisha

If Rob Marshall can keep from cutting like Michael Bay, this could be fantastic. The project was attached to Steven Spielberg for years, who would have turned out an entirely different film, I'm sure. Rob Marshall is no Spielberg, but from the looks and sounds of things, he got this one right -- time will tell. Much controversy has been generated over the choice of Zhang Ziyi to play a very Japanese role. Come on, people, that's what acting IS: convincingly portraying someone you are not. If the performance is up to par (the buzz is that it's brilliant), that will justify the casting.

December 14 - King Kong

The other day, I caught up on my homework for this one by catching King Kong Lives, the 1986 sequel to the 1976 remake. That it was bad probably goes without saying, but it was *astonishingly* bad. But back to this movie. Nobody was asking for another King Kong remake, but I don't understand how there can still be naysayers out there. Peter Jackson just got finished with what will surely become the seminal movie entertainment of a whole generation. The trailers show off visuals that look absolutely gorgeous -- not just the ape but the reconstruction of 1930s New York and a lush jungle setting with enough character to *be* one of the characters.

December 16 - The Producers

After hearing all the rave about the Broadway show and not being able to get there to see it, it was gratifying to hear that Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane would reprise their roles for a movie version, which brings the material back to its origins. An early European trailer made its way to the Internet and dashed all those hopes -- it looked awful -- but a newer American trailer is a significant improvement. But why, why do movie trailers for musicals try to suggest there isn't any music? How much of this film's audience is going to be unaware that this is an adaptation of one of the most well-known Broadway stage musicals of recent years?

December 16 - The Family Stone

Not much is known about this one yet -- the marketing here is very last minute. One senses a hope to compete for awards, but the campaign strategy is still uncertain. This looks like this year's "Something's Gotta Give" slot, and I don't mean just because it also has Diane Keaton. It skews younger than that one did, but it seems to strive to be the same kind of intelligent relationship comedy. I could be completely wrong, though. It's still a question mark.

December 21 - Cheaper By the Dozen 2

Because we needed a sequel to the remake to the adaptation of the family-with-a-lot-of-kids story.

December 21 - Fun With Dick and Jane

Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni star in this update of the 1977 comedy about a married couple that resort to robbery to pay the bills. After this project, director Dean Parisot will apparently move on to a remake of The Lavender Hill Mob. As disparaging as I am tempted to be about remakes, I guess at least an official remake is an honest remake. A lot of apparently original movies being released these days (Four Brothers, FlightPlan) are seemingly remakes in disguise. And, after all, a remake with Jim Carrey in it, for better or worse, isn't likely to result in a mechanical retread.

December 21 - The White Countess

The last Merchant & Ivory film. A Room With a View, or Slaves of New York? I have no idea. Anyway, this team has been together for so long, it'll be interesting to see what James Ivory's solo work will be like in the years to come.

December 23 - Munich

Steven Spielberg directs a film about the 1972 Munich Olympics and its aftermath, during which Israeli athletes were gunned down by Palestinian terrorists. Though nobody's seen it, and frankly it'll be a rush to get it done in time for theatrical exhibition on this date, this is already the early frontrunner for the Oscars this year. This shows two things: One, just how much people have come to expect from Spielberg, if just the thought of his name attached to a historically significant drama screams Oscar at people louder than several strong known quantities. Two, just how much the Academy has come around on Spielberg, after spending the first two decades of his career as a notorious snubbee.

December 23 - Freedomland

I'd watch Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore in anything, but this crime thriller about a woman whose son is kidnapped looks good anyway. That said, the director's most well-known prior credits are Christmas With the Kranks, America's Sweethearts, and Revenge of the Nerds II. Ouch.

December 23 - The Matador

A hit man comedy starring Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, and Hope Davis. Is it The Whole Nine Yards, or is it The Whole Ten Yards?

December 25 - The New World

It's funny, because this is only director Terrence Malick's fourth film. Fourth film, that is, in a 32 year career. The previous three are all classics of one sort or another. Stephen and I have endeavored to have a meaningful conversation about the guy several times, but it always fails, because he's only seen Badlands and Days of Heaven, which he likes a lot, and I've only seen The Thin Red Line, which I don't like at all. Thus, we are both forced to keep open minds until we each manage to see all three. Anyway, expect this to make big awards waves, even if it isn't able to turn nominations into wins.

December 25 - Match Point

Woody Allen has been critically acclaimed and commercially weak for so long that he gets taken for granted. It's been suggested that if this film had had any other name on it when it made the rounds at the film festivals, it would be touted as a serious Best Picture contender. Roger Ebert is calling Match Point one of his four best films, putting it on a par with the likes of Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors. For those who aren't normally Woody Allen fans, note that this isn't his usual relationship comedy but, in fact, a film noir starring Scarlett Johansson, perhaps my favorite new actress.