August is upon us, which in the movie world means that the days of blockbusters are gone, and what replaces it is considered by many to be a slow period in the industry for releases.
To label the fall as a slow season is not an unfair judgment. Box office sales numbers are usually less as studios shift focus away from the huge money making projects (superhero movies anyone?) and instead start making the more Oscar-worthy pictures that will draw in more critical acclaim and less “Sold Out” notices.
The fall’s label as slow, however, is not completely deserved. It just has the great misfortune of being sandwiched between the two biggest windows for movie releases with the summer and winter holidays. Regardless of it being overshadowed, this year’s fall is filled with movies that (like all good movies) should delight, entrance, and entertain.
The first weekend of the fall movie season starts usually after Labor Day weekend, a day that film studio executives try and cram the last drop of over-the-top action movies into the waining light of the summer (“Expendables 2” for example). So in that vein, September is usually a schizophrenic month, in that it is torn between the art-housey ways of the fall and the feeling of excess and heavy-handedness of the summer.
The first big release of that month is “Looper,” the time-traveling action/sci-fi movie that star Bruce Willis and the seemingly ever-present Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which opens September 28. The film’s premise is interesting (though also a little lame if you think about it too much), essentially whenever the mob wants someone dead, they send them back 30 years in the past, where a hired gun is waiting. Gordon-Levitt is one of those hired men, but he is forced into a difficult situation when one of his targets turns out to be his future self, played by Willis. The film employs some impressive make-up work, so as to make Gordon-Levitt look more like a younger Willis, and (judging from the trailer) they have succeeded. Also the last time Gordon-Levitt and director Rain Johnson teamed up was in 2005’s “Brick,” which was a surprisingly good movie, so expectations are high. But besides “Looper,” the month of September seems to have problems with being able to classify itself. Films like “How to Survive a Plague,” a powerful documentary about HIV/AIDS activist groups, scream of the more thought out movies that are synonymous with the fall season, but other movies like “Dredd,” the completely unnecessary remake of Sylvester Stallone’s 90s film “Judge Dredd,” are destined to be overly-macho clunkers.
Following September, the movie season starts to get back in gear in October, with several big movies on slate. The first release of note is “Frankenweenie,” a Tim Burton remake of his own 1984 short film of the same name. The film follows a young boy trying to desperately to revive his beloved pooch, and the fallout of when he actually succeeds. The movie brings Burton back to a medium that he is essentially king of, stop-motion animated films, but this time around the film is shot entirely in black-and-white (making it the first IMAX 3D film to be done as such). With a talented cast of voice actors, Burton is sure to delight. The next big release will be “Taken 2,” which will pick up the story from the hugely popular “Taken,” which surprised almost everyone with its performance at the box offices. The story is simple for this, the haggard and yet never aging Liam Neeson will punch a lot of people in the throat and speak in a gruff voice. So essentially, its assured to be worth the price of admission. And following that, “Argo,” the new Ben Affleck film, is sure to entertain with its larger-than-life true story of six hostages in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
Finishing off the fall season will be the penultimate month of November, where there will be more than enough Oscar-bait to go around. The month opens with the Robert Zemeckis directed and Denzel Washington led film “Flight,” which will live and die by Washington’s ability to act within Zemeckis’ occasionaly overly-cheesy vehicles, and the Disney animated picture “Wreck-It Ralph,” which seems to be the most original idea out of Hollywood in years. From there, the month’s biggest release weekend is November 9, where not only the Stephen Spielberg film “Lincoln” opens (with Daniel Day-Lewis as the titular role, it’s hard to go wrong), but so too does “Skyfall,” the new Bond film, and “Anna Karenia.” All three films will be in consideration for major awards, “Lincoln” and “Anna Karenia” for directing, writing and acting, and “Skyfall” for its special-effects, make-up work and soundtrack. From there, November closes out the pre-Thanksgiving rush (a holiday generally considered to be the boundary between the fall and winter movie seasons) with two big releases. The first being the conclusion to the “Twilight Saga,” which will be sure to send almost every pre-teen girl in this country into a Robert Pattinson-fueled tizzy, and “Life of Pi,” the Ang Lee directed adaptation of Yann Martel’s 2001 novel of the same name. Both will do well at the box office, but “Life of Pi” will receive more critical acclaim.
The fall movie season is anything but a downtime. But rather, this fall is a period of the occasional summer-esque blockbuster action flick, mixed with strong character dramas like “Lincoln” and other uniue film ideas like “Argo” and “Wreck-it Ralph.” Overall, this fall should be anything but dissapointing at the box offices.
— Preston Peeden is a senior in history. He can be reached at [email protected].
