Entertainment - Movies

Friday, Nov. 13, 2009

10 anticipated movies: Mayhem, a musical and a bit of mirth

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Human endurance has long been the movies' supreme subject. Already, with the release of the wrenching new feature "Precious," we have traveled to hell and back with a 16-year-old incest survivor. More sexual violence is coming our way, with director Peter Jackson's adaptation of "The Lovely Bones," which promises a poetic vision of the afterlife as experienced by a young girl raped and murdered by a neighbor. Happy holidays!

Some of the winter season's most intriguing titles play directly into this stark view of humanity. Others offer a break, and the promise of a laugh or two. Dates are subject to change.

1. "Broken Embraces," opens Nov. 20. The latest, lavishly good-looking melodrama from Pedro Almodovar, starring Penelope Cruz, his muse of choice. No one mixes and matches genres with the panache of Spain's premier director.

2. "Everybody's Fine," opens Dec. 4. Robert De Niro takes over the Marcello Mastroianni role in this Americanized remake of the 1990 Italian film, about an uneasy family reunion. Wouldn't it be swell if De Niro gave a really good performance in a really good movie again?

3. "Invictus," opens Dec. 11. The annual Clint Eastwood-directed Oscar bait arrives on schedule, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as rugby champ Francois Pienaar.

4. "The Lovely Bones," opens Dec. 11. From the Alice Sebold best seller comes director Peter Jackson's film adaptation, starring the exceptional young actress Saoirse Ronan ("Atonement") as the murdered girl who keeps an eye on her grieving parents (Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg) and her killer (Stanley Tucci) from heaven.

5. "Up in the Air," limited release Dec. 11, wide release Dec. 25. A monster critical and popular success at the Toronto International Film Festival, director Jason Reitman's third feature follows on the heels of his "Thank You for Smoking" and "Juno," which are pretty good films to be following. George Clooney plays an emotionally isolated downsizing expert in this adaptation of the Walter Kirn book. Vera Farmiga co-stars. Expect many Oscar nominations.

6. "Avatar," opens Dec. 18. The long-gestating James Cameron fantasy arrives in 3-D. Whopping hit on the order of "Titanic," or whopping "eh" on the order of "The Abyss?" We will know in the fullness of time.

7. "Nine," opens Dec. 25. When he took on the musical "Chicago," director and former chorus boy Rob Marshall struck it rich. Now he tackles the Broadway musical based on Fellini's "8 1/ 2," in which a Famous Italian Film Director (played and sung by Daniel Day-Lewis) sorts through various crises. Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard, among others, play the crises.

8. "It's Complicated," opens Dec. 25. Romantic comedy. Meryl Streep. Alec Baldwin. Steve Martin. Written and directed by Nancy Meyers. Here's hoping it's as sterling as its cast, or better than "The Holiday," at least.

9. "Sherlock Holmes," opens Dec. 25. If Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous sleuth can survive a World War II-era relocation (remember Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce fighting Nazis?), he can jolly well survive the "RocknRolla" hands of director Guy Ritchie. The cast is rich: Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes; Jude Law as Watson; Rachel McAdams and Kelly Reilly as the dames.

10. "The White Ribbon," limited release Dec. 30. In a northern German village on the brink of World War I, long-simmering tensions between the haves (the land barons and their social circle) and the have-nots (their serflike employees) turn violent, as unexplained acts of cruelty threaten to disrupt the lives of all concerned. Michael Haneke's drama won the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival; shot in silvery, sinister black-and-white, the film is excellent and unsettling.