The big chill

As temperatures cool, the movies get hotter

DRESS FOR SUCCESS: Coco avant Chanel

by MATTHEW HAYS

As sad as it is to say goodbye to such a painfully short summer season, one thing gets better as we morph into winter. With overblown, overhyped, empty summer blockbusters out of the way, the cinematic IQ leaps up as the Oscar contenders work their way onto screens. Here are some of the most intriguing and promising films that are headed our way in the next couple of months.

French master André Téchiné has concocted his own meditation on incidents involving anti-Semitism in France with La Fille du RER (The Girl on the Train), inspired by real-life events and starring the French grande dame of cinema Catherine Deneuve (Sept. 18). Creepy sci-fi is back with a vengeance in Pandorum, which has two astronauts waking up from an extended sleep to realize they can’t quite remember who they are or why they’re on their space ship. A search follows, and the two soon learn that things on earth are not going so well—and that they’re not alone on the ship. Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid star in this intergalactic suspense movie (Sept. 25). And everyone’s favourite Maritime hosers return to the big screen with Trailer Park Boys 2 (also Sept. 25), a sequel that promises more inspired idiocy.

In somewhat more highbrow news, Kiwi auteur Jane Campion delivers a period romance with Bright Star, about the tortured love affair between poet John Keats (played by Ben Whishaw) and his neighbour Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Campion gives more of what she’s so good at: passionate love that ultimately cannot be (Sept. 25). The family melodrama The Boys Are Back will also open, from director Scott Hicks. Clive Owen plays a sports journalist who struggles with life as a single parent after his wife is tragically killed (Sept. 25).

SPACE CASE: Pandorum

Tautou you

Film freaks have been hooked on Audrey Tautou ever since her starmaking turn in Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain in 2001. She’s back in Coco avant Chanel, in which she portrays the iconic fashionista Coco Chanel as she rises to the top of the world of glam threads (Sept. 25).

Rabble-rouser Michael Moore returns with Capitalism: A Love Story, in which the director explores Americans’ tortured relationship with an economic system they seem addicted to, despite its epic flaws. Moore again employs humour and irony as weapons against his enemy, in this case Mammon (Oct. 2). Drew Barrymore will have her feature directorial debut with Whip It, a dramedy about a young woman’s aspiration to become a competitor in the roller derby. No one approves, least of all her conservative Texan mom (Marcia Gay Harden). The young roller-derby wannabe is played by Canuck Ellen Page and also co-stars Juliette Lewis as a roller-derby star (Oct. 2).

After a couple of seriously awesome films (No Country for Old Men and Burn After Reading), the Coen Brothers return with A Serious Man, in which the famous fraternal filmmaking team explore their Jewish roots. It’s 1967, and after his wife announces she’s leaving him for another man, a professor attempts to find a new way of living morally, by consulting with three different rabbis. With Simon Helberg, Adam Arkin and Fyvush Finkel (Oct. 2). A new twist on the living dead arrives with Zombieland, in which an odd couple are forced to deal with their differences—or face becoming zombies themselves. This zombie screwball comedy features Jesse Eisenberg, Bill Murray, Abigail Breslin, Woody Harrelson and Mike White (Oct. 2).

MORAL IS THE STORY: A Serious Man

Mideast romance and
Swank takes flight

Montreal-based writer-director Ruba Nadda spins the romantic story of a sweet holiday love affair that simply can’t happen in Cairo Time. Brilliant actor Patricia Clarkson portrays a magazine editor on vacation in Cairo awaiting the arrival of her husband. A dutiful family friend (Alexander Siddig) shows Clarkson around, and though their bond is entirely innocent, the two begin to fall in love (Oct. 9).

Just so no one thinks we’re out of touch with good old-fashioned mindless formulaic junk, Saw VI will slice its way into cinemas this season too. Director Kevin Greutert’s mission is to come up with new ways to chop, carve and dissect the latest cast of nubiles (Oct. 23). Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank will portray trailblazing pilot Amelia Earhart in the biopic Amelia, directed by Mira Nair. Also starring Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor (Oct. 23). Those of you hankering for more melancholia about the late Michael Jackson will want to line-up for tickets to Michael Jackson’s This Is It, the hastily-put-together concert film that will feature footage of his final weeks of rehearsal for his cancelled-due-to-unexpected-death comeback tour. Those who hold the keys to his estate will have reason to rejoice: cha-ching! (Oct. 28).

The fall remains one of the busiest times for Montreal film festivals, and ’09 is no exception. From Sept. 17 to Dec. 11, the Goethe Institute will be screening its series 1989/2009: 20 Years after the Fall, a broad range of cinematic reflections on the reunification of Germany. The Festival du Nouveau Cinema (FNC), which appears to have more lives than an army of cats, returns with its 38th edition, Oct. 8–18. And Montreal’s queer film fest, Image+Nation, has moved from November to October this year, choosing to unspool its bent offerings from Oct. 22–31.

November also marks the 15th anniversary of Cinemania (Nov. 5–15), which highlights French-language cinema from around the world with English subtitles. That fest overlaps with the documentary extravaganza Les Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montreal (RIDM), which screens Nov. 11–21

EGYPTIAN LOVERS: Cairo Time