E'RE SIX WEEKS AWAY FROM THE end of 2008, and Hollywood has failed to produce one bona fide awards contender (unless, of course, you count everybody's favorite dark horse "The Dark Knight").
But fear not, Oscar.
With the holiday movie season upon us, there's palpable awards-buzz excitement surrounding a sleigh-full of pictures sure to be included in many year-end top 10 lists having nothing to do with Santa.
This is not to say there isn't plenty of lightweight fluff stuffed into every nook and cranny of the calendar. Whether you want you and yours to feel all warm and cozy inside ("Marley & Me," "Last Chance Harvey," "Yes Man"), get your cholesterol-choked heart pumping again after a big meal ("Quantum of Solace," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Valkyrie") or light up your kids' frosty faces ("Bolt," "Twilight," "Bedtime Stories"), there's the usual buffet of fattening goodies to pig out on. But I bet you a Christmas ham with all the trimmings that you're likely to forget all those films, like some of those last-minute gifts you received last year, not long after you've unwrapped the flashy packaging. All that holiday noise is enough to give anyone a bellyache, a headache or both.
Luckily for your sanity, the holiday season offers some alternatives to James Bond and lovey-dovey vampires. For those discerning adults wanting something more out of their moviegoing experience, here are 10 pictures coming out this season that are most likely, upon their opening, to be the gifts that keep on giving.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Dec. 25): An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's bittersweet tale about a man who ages backward from senility to infancy. David Fincher ("Zodiac," "Fight Club") directs. With Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Oscar Watch: Best Picture, Best Actor (Pitt), Best Actress (Blanchett), Best Supporting Actress (Taraji P Henson), Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
"Milk" (Nov. 26): Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), the openly gay San Francisco politician and activist shot to death on the steps of City Hall in 1978, is the subject of Gus Van Sant's biopic. With Josh Brolin, James Franco and Emile Hirsch, along with Penn, giving noteworthy performances. Oscar Watch: Best Picture, Best Actor (Penn), Best Supporting Actor (Franco), Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
"Frost/Nixon" (Dec. 5): Ron Howard directs this drama about the true story behind a historic interview in 1977 between Richard Nixon (Frank Langella), the inglorious former president with a legacy to salvage, and British television personality David Frost (Martin Sheen). Peter Morgan ("The Queen") wrote the script, adapted from his own stageplay. Oscar Watch: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Supporting Actor (Sheen), Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
"Doubt" (Dec. 12): Meryl Streep, always dependable to score an Oscar nod, stars as a nun who suspects a priest (the terrific Philip Seymour Hoffman) of abusing a student in John Patrick Shanley's adaptation of his play. Oscar Watch: Best Picture, Best Actress (Streep), Best Supporting Actor (Hoffman) and Best Adapted Screenplay.
"Revolutionary Road" (Dec. 26): Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet star as a seemingly happy 1950s suburban couple with two children torn between desires and a pressure to conform in Sam Mendes' adaptation of Richard Yates' bleak 1961 novel. Oscar Watch: Best Picture, Best Actor (DiCaprio), Best Actress (Winslet), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Shannon), Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
"The Wrestler" (Dec. 17): In a reportedly phenomenal comeback performance, Mickey Rourke stars as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a retired professional wrestler who, despite the threat of having a deadly heart attack, is drawn back into the ring to fight an old nemesis, The Ayatollah. Darren Aronofsky ("Requiem for a Dream") directs. Oscar Watch: Best Picture, Best Actor (Rourke), Best Supporting Actress (Marisa Tomei) and Best Original Screenplay.
"Australia" (Nov. 26): An English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) inherits a vast ranch in northern Australia prior to World War II. When industrialists conspire to seize her land, the heiress reluctantly cooperates with a coarse cowboy (Hugh Jackman) to shepherd 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of hazardous terrain, only to encounter Japan's bombardment of Darwin, Australia, months subsequent to the same squadron's attack on Pearl Harbor.Baz Luhrmann ("Moulin Rouge") directs this romantic Western epic in the old-Hollywood style. Oscar Watch: Best Picture and Best Director.
"Slumdog Millionaire" (November): Accused of cheating and desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, reflects back on his tumultuous life as a street kid while competing to win a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" in Danny Boyle's ("Trainspotting") vibrant inspirational drama. Oscar Watch: Best Picture.
"Waltz with Bashir" (Dec. 25): Haunted by recurring nightmares sparked by his surreal experiences as an Israeli soldier mired in the 1982 Lebanon War, director Ari Folman meets with and interviews old friends and fellow infantrymen to jog his repressed memories in this visceral animated documentary. Oscar Watch: Best Foreign Film.
"Synecdoche, New York" (Opens Nov. 21 in Red Bank): From the mind of Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), this neurotic's near-brilliant postmodern twist on Federico Fellini's "8 1/2," stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director so obsessed with his own mortality that he sets out to stage a massive microcosm of his own life inside a warehouse in hopes it can grant some meaning to his lonely, depressed existence. Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton and Dianne Wiest co-star. Oscar Watch: Best . . . oh, what does Oscar know, anyway!
From: http://www.app.com/article/20081116/ENT01/811160313/1031/ENT
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