Winter of cinematic content

>>What’s on screens in the chilly season

MORE-A NORAH: My Blueberry Nights

by MALCOLM FRASER

The winter is a great time to stay indoors and nourish escapist fantasies, and no one feeds those better than the film industry. With both Oscar bait and holiday blockbusters behind us, it’s the season for the dream factory’s odds and sods, with some intriguing nuggets spread amidst the brain candy.

Hollywood eats its own

Contemporary Hollywood just wouldn’t be itself without an unhealthy dose of cannibalizing its own past product. The biggest franchise revival is probably Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which the crotchety Harrison Ford battles foes and trades quips with Shia LaBeouf as his son (May 23). Those wacky Christians continue their push for family values fantasy with The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (May 16). After the artistic achievement of Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone resuscitates his other ’80s franchise with Rambo, whose previews indicate the kind of orgy of violence his fans no doubt demand (January 25). Personally, I’m much more looking forward to Son of Rambow, in which a shy British schoolboy endeavours to make a shot-by-shot remake of Rambo: First Blood Part II (May 2).

After the spectacular rise and appalling fall encompassed in the Matrix trilogy, the Wachowski Brothers are back with Speed Racer, an adaptation of the famed ’60s anime show with Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci and Lost’s Matthew Fox (May 9). Then there’s the latest Marvel Comics adaptation, Iron Man; Robert Downey Jr. portrays the Howard Hughes-inspired hero, supported by Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard and directed by Jon Favreau (May 2).

Veteran horrormeister George Romero continues his most famous series with Diary of the Dead, said to be a low-budget prequel to the Dead saga (Feb. 15). But on the horrifying tip, perhaps the most intriguing upcoming film is Funny Games, Michael Haneke’s remake of his own 1997 thriller, this time starring Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Michael Pitt (March 14). It should be interesting to see how Haneke’s extreme audience cruelty plays to a mainstream North American crowd, even one jaded by torture-porn horror.

Arthouse confidential

For those of us who still periodically entertain the notion of film as an art form, the season will see the latest works from a number of vouch-worthy directors, writers and actors. Wong-Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights is notable not only as the director’s first English-language feature, but as the acting début of adult-alternative crooner Norah Jones, supported by the always game Jude Law and Natalie Portman (Feb. 15). The highly anticipated new Michel Gondry film, Be Kind Rewind, stars Jack Black as a video store clerk who accidentally erases all the VHS tapes, then sets about remaking all the lost films (Feb. 15).

Peter Morgan, writer of The Queen and The Last King of Scotland, takes his royalty fixation all the way back to Henry VIII with The Other Boleyn Girl, with Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson (Feb. 29). Rian Johnson, who directed the high-school film noir Brick, one of the most original films in recent years, comes back with The Brothers Bloom, a con-man caper with an excellent cast: Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo and Babel’s Rinko Kikuchi (April 11).

After Woody Allen fell off hard in the ’90s, many of us figured he was done for, but his last few efforts have seen his profile rise a bit, and his fruitful “London period” continues with Cassandra’s Dream, starring Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor. I’m not sure why anyone needs to see a documentary on the Rolling Stones’ 2006 tour, but Martin Scorsese thought it worth making Shine a Light (April 4). Terrence Malick-biting writer-director David Gordon Green is not for all tastes, but his fans will no doubt appreciate his latest, Snow Angels, with Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell and Amy Sedaris (March 7).

A number of lesser known but no less promising films are also scheduled to hit the arthouse circuit. Taxi to the Dark Side is a documentary on an Afghani taxi driver unjustly imprisoned in the U.S. war on terror, from Alex Gibney, who previously brought us Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Jan. 18). Ryan Phillippe stars as an Iraq-stationed U.S. soldier who refuses to serve his tour of duty in Stop Loss, the latest from director Kimberly Peirce, who’s been keeping a low profile since her smash debut Boys Don’t Cry (March 28).

CAR CRAZY: Speed Racers

Chicago 10 is a partly animated doc on the famous late-’60s trial of radical protestors, directed by The Kid Stays in the Picture’s Brett Morgen (Feb. 29). Nadine Labaki’s Caramel, about five women who hang out in a beauty salon, was a festival hit and could perhaps be the Lebanese version of Barbershop we’ve all been waiting for (Feb. 1). For those who enjoy the lighter side of the Middle East conflict, Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit tells the comic tale of an Egyptian police orchestra who travel to Israel for a concert (Feb. 8). The Cinémathèque québécoise also has a full season of their usual great programming, including Todd Haynes’s early films and a showcase of Japanese animation from the 1920s to the ’50s.

Comic relief

As the winter continues its brutal reign, sometimes you just need to escape with some good old-fashioned laughs. There are plenty of those on offering this season, ranging all over the brow spectrum. Sports comedy seems to work for Will Ferrell, so he’s back at it with the basketball flick Semi-Pro, also starring Woody Harrelson and André “3000” Benjamin (Feb. 29). George Clooney is on both sides of the camera with Leatherheads, a football comedy set in 1925 (April 4). In David Schwimmer’s directorial debut, Run, Fatboy, Run, Simon Pegg stars as a pudgy fellow who runs a marathon for romantic rewards (March 28). Owen Wilson plays a bumbling soldier of fortune in Drillbit Taylor, whose writers include Seth Rogen and John Hughes (March 21).

Post-Knocked Up and Juno, the subject of maternity seems to be fertile ground (sorry) for comedy, and the trend continues with Baby Mama, in which Tina Fey plays a career-driven woman who enlists Amy Poehler as her surrogate mom. While some may be tiring of the conception concept, the two SNL-trained femmes have a pretty solid track record (April 18). If traditional rom-com is more your thing, perhaps you’ll thrill to Patrick Dempsey in Made of Honor (May 2), the Matthew McConaughey-Kate Hudson team-up in Fool’s Gold (Feb. 8), or the heart-warming antics of Ryan Reynolds and Abigail Breslin in Definitely, Maybe (Feb. 15).

Fans of Rob Schneider—and there are apparently enough of us to keep his career afloat—will delight in Big Stan, where he directs and stars as a man who learns kung fu in prison, with the inspired supporting cast of David Carradine and Sally Kirkland (April 25). Climbing even further down the gutters of taste, the spoof genre continues its mystifying run with Meet the Spartans, a parody of 300 (Jan. 25), and Superhero!, a piss-take on recent superhero flicks (March 28). And no doubt some poor souls will see Paris Hilton’s starring debut in The Hottie and the Nottie (Feb. 8), but surely a boycott would be appropriate at this juncture.