THIS YEAR'S MOVIES, PART ONE

Talk show host Thurman discovers that she's accidentally married to a stranger. Something about the plot tells me the filmmakers will not be going for documentary-style realism.

Ensemble, multi-story drama with major actors but bad reviews. It opened in L.A. last Friday, closes this week. Not a good sign.

Drama about an elderly woman visiting her grandson, from the director of Russian Ark. I only included this one because the trades gave the score rave reviews. Variety said "Andrei Sigle's moving compositions recall the sweep of late 19th century Russian composers, and Sokurov expertly weaves in the music to heighten an honest emotional response," while the Hollywood Reporter went into even more detail: "The value of a beautiful orchestral score in a movie is made clear in Russian director Alexander Sokurov's 'Alexandra,' an austere glimpse of life in war-torn Chechnya. Andrei Sigle, who produced the film, also composed the music, and its sweeping warmth carries something of the soul of mother Russia to that bleak and torrid landscape. Sigle's music, played by the Symphony Orchestra of the Marinsky Theatre, features symphonic waves and gentle solos on piano and cello. Subtle for the most part, it sweeps in where necessary and goes a long way to inform the picture's melancholy and moving sensibility." And as a bonus, Sondheim fans should recognize the name of the film's star, Galina Vishnevskaya, as it popped up in a Merrily We Roll Along lyric: "Galina Vishnevskaya/the Russian soprano/just pronouncing her name/is refreshing enough."

Finally, someone has made a thriller about a group of young women stalked by a killer -- next year's Oscar race begins! This one is from the writer of the When a Stranger Calls remake -- consider that a warning.

Not a remake of the Sidney Furie/Marlon Brando Western, but instead an adaptation of the Western novel by hack mystery novelist Robert B. Parker. Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris (directing his first film since Pollock) are pitted against evil Jeremy Irons, their lives complicated by purty widder lady Renee Zellweger. Westerns are back! Yay!

The first of Soderbergh's two back-to-back Che Guevara biopics.

Down Under's cross between Michael Bay and Joel Schumacher presents a romantic period epic about ranchers suffering under Japanese attack during World War II. And the Oscar goes to...anyone but Baz Luhrmann, I hope. Still, it sounds like a good scoring opportunity, as long as they don't hire Craig Armstrong. (As you might have guessed, I'm not a fan of the Luhrmann/Armstrong team, so judge accordingly)

Kassovitz, director of the acclaimed drama La Haine, has apparently decided he prefers making less prestigious films like Crimson Rivers and Gothika (when he's not acting in the likes of Amelie and Munich), and returns to pulp filmmaking with this sci-fi tinged thriller teaming the oddly unprolific Diesel with an intriguing international cast.

The writers of Across the Universe team up with the director of the Getaway remake for a fact-based '70s British caper film; it should be nice to see Statham in a film that isn't total schlock (War, anyone?).

Actor Townsend (aka the hunky 21st century Kolchak) directs girlfriend Theron and other big names in an ensemble drama about the anti-WTO protests in 1999.

Black accidentally erases all the tapes in Mos Def's video store, so they make home movie versions of Hollywood films to rent out. It's from the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep, so the visuals should be cool, but the premise...

The bedtime stories Sandler tells his niece and nephew start coming true. All the family sentiment of Click, but (one hopes) with fewer groin hits and less flatulence humor.

The director of The Constant Gardener and City of God directs this film about a town struck by sudden blindness (but not attacked by Triffids, alas). According to the IMDB, the characters have names like "Doctor's Wife" and "Girl with the Dark Glasses," so expect heavy allegorical drama (as well as mannered camerawork).

Two dreamy Hollywood movie stars hunt for an Al Qaeda leader in Jordan, with the help of that hot Dutch chick from Black Book. The war on terror has never been this sexy!

CGI feature about a dog actor who discovers he doesn't have super powers after all. Well, at least it's not about penguins. Apparently the makers of this and Firehouse Dog live in some alternate universe where there are a lot of animal stars.

Evelen Waugh's classic novel became a popular miniseries in the early 80s (its cast including Jeremy Irons and Laurence Olivier), and now it's a movie from the director of Kinky Boots and Becoming Jane. I suspect it will have nice costumes.

Brody and Ruffalo as con men, Weisz as an heiress, from the maker of the terrific Brick. The premise sounds like a comedy, but the IMDB says "crime drama."

Two gym employees end up with a CIA agent's manuscript, comedy-thriller hijinks ensue. Great filmmakers, great cast, let's just hope it's not Even Less Tolerable Cruelty.

Social worker Zellweger takes over the case of a little girl, and things turn out not to be what they seem. At least it's not based on a Japanese horror film.

Woody returns to Match Point territory with diminishing results, as brothers McGregor and Farrell turn to crime to help make ends meet. One of the filmmaker's flattest films, and the Philip Glass score is pretty much the same old stuff (not as good as The Illusionist, but less annoying than Notes on a Scandal). Tom Wilkinson livens the film up a bit during his few scenes, but it's not his finest hour.
POSTPONED FROM LAST YEAR

Fact-based period drama, as Angelina's child disappears and is then returned, but she insists it's the wrong child. A collaboration between the director of Unforgiven and the creator of Babylon 5? What is wrong with this picture?

For some reason, films starring Anton Yelchin (Chekhov in the upcoming Star Trek feature) seem to stay on the shelf a long time. First the awful House of D, then the uneven but memorable Alpha Dog, then the strange but watchable Fierce People, and now this high school comedy, with Yelchin as a troubled rich boy who becomes the pusher and psychiatrist for the students at his new public school. Yelchin does his best (and least irritating) work yet, and Robert Downey Jr. is typically first-rate as Yelchin's new principal (and father of his love interest). Delayed from last summer, it supposedly will finally bow in February.

Rhys-Meyers and Mitchell help orphaned Chinese children during the Japanese invasion. With Crouching Tiger stars Chow and Yeoh on hand, expect lots of awesome wire-fu. Or perhaps not.

Sure, the big CGI lion is back, but where's the White Witch? Where's Mr. Tumnus? Oh really, what's the point?

The director and composer of Monster House reteam for this live action fantasy about a town whose lights are dimming. I suspect it will be more magical than I just made it sound.

Skilled but frustrating attempt to reinvent the giant monster movie for the MySpace generation. The film is genuinely tense and surprisingly dark, but the characters are so vapid and interchangeable that it's nearly impossible to care about their fates (and introducing them in a multi-million dollar Manhattan apartment made me hate them instantly). Michael Giacchino's end title homage to Akira Ifukube is a highlight, and hopefully will someday be available for those of us of the non-download generation.

Martin Lawrence horns in on his daughter's college search. Do any of you who are Edward Shearmur fans (as I am) even plan to see this one?

The director of Muriel's Wedding and My Best Friend's Wedding returns to features for the first time since 2003's underrated Peter Pan (in the meantime, he directed yet another Dark Shadows remake for TV, this time with Dune's Alec Newman as Barnabus). Wedding Crashers co-star Fisher plays the title role in this adaptation of the comic novel, and James Newton Howard seems the most likely choice for the score.

The director of The Nightmare Before Christmas makes another stop motion fantasy, this time without Tim Burton, based on the Neil Gaiman novel. The IMDB claims that Bruno Coulais is doing the score, which would be cool, though is as yet unconfirmed.

From the writer-director of The Cooler and Running Scared, a Crash-style ensemble drama about immigration in Los Angeles. With that lineage, one would assume Mark Isham would score it, but IMDB claims John Murphy has the job.

Pitt ages backwards, with the help of state-of-the-art computer enhanced effects, based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story they've been trying to film for decades. It's a Fincher film, so who will do the score, Shire or Shore?

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