Fall Arts Preview: Movies

We've been set up and knocked down before. But there's something about the lineup of films between now and year's end that promises heft, and hope, and even a little originality. The big guns are at it - Kathryn Bigelow, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg. Big themes are being addressed - immortality, destiny, the soul, love, courage, and the rippling causality of time.

Two of our country's biggest presidents are being brought to life. Daniel Day Lewis is Abraham Lincoln, and Bill Murray, Wes Anderson's slacker talisman, gets his act together to portray Franklin Delano Roosevelt, circa 1939.

And big books have been adapted: Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (big on the bestseller lists, anyway). The literary adaptations don't stop there: Victor Hugo by way of French and English musical adaptations in Les Miserables; Stephen Chbosky's teen-angst coming-of-age novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower; David Mitchell's epic Cloud Atlas; Matthew Quick's Silver Lining Playbook; Yann Martel's Life of Pi.

There's a documentary about fashion visionary Diana Vreeland; a rerelease (in 3-D, of course) of Pixar's 2001 gem, Monsters, Inc.; and Amour, a powerful study of an aging couple, in love but losing their grip, from the challenging Michael Haneke (it won Cannes' grand prize, and stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva will be up for award nominations).

Fall is, of course, when serious awards contenders are paraded for moviegoers, and the list of films and filmmakers, actors and actresses is loaded with possibility. There are also potential blockbusters, from Rian Johnson's time-traveling Looper to the aforementioned Tarantino, with Christmas Day's Django Unchained. And there is Bond. James Bond.

Let's see if we feel this good a few months from now.

The Master (Sept. 21) Does Philip Seymour Hoffman drink Joaquin Phoenix's milkshake, or is it the other way around? From There Will Be Blood's Paul Thomas Anderson comes the tale of the founding of a cult religion in the post-World War II West, and the yachts, the women, the power, and the problems that ensue. The hugely anticipated film, which also stars Amy Adams and Laura Dern, played the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals.

Taken 2 (Oct. 5) Not to be confused with Stolen, the Nicolas Cage-goes-looking-for-his-missing-daughter thriller (shame on you, Cage!), Taken 2 brings laconic action hero Liam Neeson back into the world of sinister kidnappers and ex-CIA pals. With Famke Janssen and Maggie Grace, the wife and (kidnapped) daughter, respectively, of Taken.

Frankenweenie (Oct. 5) Remaking his own 1984 short, Tim Burton returns to stop-motion animation for this characteristically macabre black-and-white comedy about a dead dog brought back to life. The beloved pet is literally in stitches, and Burton & Co. are hoping audiences will be, too.

Argo (Oct. 12) Based on the stranger-than-fiction story of a CIA operation to rescue a group of Americans caught in the throes of the Iranian revolution. The "exfiltration" mission involved spies posing as a Hollywood movie crew. Ben Affleck stars, and directs.

Seven Psychopaths (Oct. 12) From Martin McDonagh, the Irish playwright and filmmaker responsible for the blissfully twisted gangster gabfest In Bruges, with that movie's costar, Colin Farrell, back in the lead - this time as a Hollywood screenwriter who finds himself in the thick of nasty gangland business.

Killing Them Softly (Oct. 19) And speaking of nasty gangland business, Brad Pitt stars as an enforcer investigating a heist gone bad - real bad. With Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins, and James Gandolfini, from the writer/director of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Cloud Atlas (Oct. 26) High-profile and possibly highfalutin adaptation of David Mitchell's sci-fi novel, with Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant in an exploration into the human spirit and cosmic causality. From Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski, who long ago made a little brain-twister called The Matrix.

Skyfall (Nov. 9) In the trailers for Cloud Atlas, people float. In the new James Bond, they fall. Craggy Daniel Craig returns in his third 007 franchise film, this time from serious director dude Sam Mendes. Ralph Fiennes, Javier Bardem, and Dame Judi Dench - back again as M - class up the joint. Now Craig should go back to work on the second Stieg Larsson book-to-film. Blomkvist, Mikael Blomkvist.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (Nov. 16) Renesmee is born, and Bella and Edward get protective, and the Volturi get, um, concerned. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson drive a stake through the final installment of the pop-cult phenomenon, with vampires and wolf packs, covens and subliminal Mormon symbolism. Well, maybe.

Lincoln (Nov. 16) Daniel Day-Lewis grows a beard and gets ready to deliver his Academy Award acceptance speech, playing the 16th president of the United States, battling the Civil War South, and battling his own cabinet over abolition. Adapted from Pulitzer-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Steven Spielberg directs.

Anna Karenina (Nov. 21) Tolstoy's classic gets the Joe Wright / Keira Knightley treatment - the same director/actress duo behind Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, tackling infidelity and aristocracy in 19th-century Russia.

Life of Pi (Nov. 21) M. Night Shyamalan was originally down to direct this adaptation of Yann Martel's novel about a 16-year-old who survives a shipwreck, bobbing on the seas in a lifeboat with a monkey, a hyena, a zebra, and a tiger. In 3-D, with Oscar-winner Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) at the oars.

Silver Linings Playbook (Nov. 21) Lots of Philly provenance (Matthew Quick, the author of the novel, is from here, as is the star, Bradley Cooper) and shot in this neck of the woods, too, this is the darkly comic tale of a guy trying to rebound from a mental breakdown, and the woman he meets - Jennifer Lawrence - along the way. David O. Russell directs.

Hyde Park on Hudson (December) Somebody got Bill Murray to commit to a role, and what a role: He's FDR, the polio-stricken president, hosting the king and queen of England at his Hudson River hideaway in 1939, before the United States jumps into World War II. With Laura Linney as Margaret Suckley, Roosevelt's distant cousin and close confidante.

Les Miserables (Dec. 14) "I Dreamed a Dream" and all the other rousing numbers from the mega-smash musical, set in the squalor of early-19th-century France, with Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, and a teeming horde of impoverished "French folk" singing up a storm. Les Miz = box office biz?

The Hobbit (Dec. 14) Peter Jackson returns to Middle-earth, bringing all his mighty Weta powers to the task of turning J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved children's book about Bilbo Baggins, the furry-footed and reluctant adventurer, into a three-part movie franchise. Just like The Lord of the Rings, only prequel-ishy. The first installment is subtitled An Unexpected Journey. Expect technical magic. Pray for storytelling magic, too.

Zero Dark Thirty (Dec. 19) From Kathryn Bigelow, who won the directing Oscar for The Hurt Locker, a reenactment of the Navy Seals' hunting and killing of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

This Is 40 (Dec. 21) Judd Apatow meditates on middle age in this Knocked Up sort-of-sequel, revisiting the comedy-hit couple played, again, by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (Apatow's very funny real-life wife). With Megan Fox, Lena Dunham, and Albert Brooks as Rudd's dad.

On the Road (December) Jack Kerouac's totemic Beat Generation book gets movie-ized, with Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty, Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, and Amy Adams, Kirsten Dunst, and Kristen Stewart as the women along the way.

Jack Reacher (Dec. 21) Fans of Lee Child's homicide detective weren't thrilled when Tom Cruise was announced as the star of the film adaptation, but this is what the movie star does best and, hey, how much longer can he do all that Impossible Missions stuff, anyway?

Django Unchained (Dec. 25) Quentin Tarantino channels blaxploitation and spaghetti westerns and who-knows-what-else in this blood-soaked Deep South drama about a slave (Jamie Foxx) who goes on the hunt for a gang of killers, aided by a bounty hunter (Inglourious Basterds' Christoph Waltz). Kerry Washington is Django's wife, Leonardo DiCaprio a ruthless plantation owner, and what better heartwarming, egg-nogging fare for Christmas Day?