Rolling out the big guns

>> Get ready for Angels, Dalmatians, Farrah Fawcett and Japanese zombies

by MATTHEW HAYS

This is the season for the big guns: the Oscar contenders, the more thoughtful films, many of which, culled from Cannes and Sundance, were screened last week as part of the increasingly important Toronto International Film Festival. They are the heavy hitters, antidotes to the fluffy crap we've had to sit through all summer.

So let's start with the really, truly important fall movie: Charlie's Angels are back, and while Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu don't really fit my mental picture of an Angelic resurrection, the trailer for this film looks mighty wicked, with John Forsythe (the original voice of Charlie) returning, a cameo by Tom Green and Matrix-style fight sequences. Let's hope this big-screen retro-TV rejuvenation is good (à la The Brady Bunch Movie) rather than bad (Lost in Space) or ugly (The Mod Squad). (Nov. 3)

Speaking of that '70s show, original Angel Farrah Fawcett is making news and sparking some controversy with her turn in Dr. T and the Women, the latest film from auteur Robert Altman. In it, Fawcett plays the well-to-do wife of Richard Gere, who's cast against type as a non-philandering gynecologist. The film opens with her on a shopping spree with her daughters, only to lose her mind and end up frolicking naked in a mall fountain. It's a raw scene--one can't help but think of Fawcett's very public breakdown on Late Night with David Letterman last year. As she did with The Burning Bed and The Apostle, the actress is trading on our off-screen knowledge of her life to bolster her performance. Altman knows what he's doing; the scene works very well indeed. (Late Oct.)

I think I feel a song coming on

While Fawcett stages yet another shaky comeback, director Bas Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet) makes a play at resurrecting the musical genre with Moulin Rouge. It's being described as one very big and difficult anachronism, set in 1899 Paris but featuring actors Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman citing songs by contemporaries like The Beatles and Madonna. Could Luhrmann have the magic indie touch to make a successful musical? (Late Dec.)

Luhrmann isn't the only one betting the bank on the musical genre. The Coen Brothers return with what they're referring to as the final chapter in their "hayseed trilogy"--the others being Blood Simple and Raising Arizona--with O Brother, Where Art Thou? which stars John Turturro and George Clooney (Late Dec.) And Lars von Trier will open the New Film Festival (Oct. 22) with his experimental musical, Dancer in the Dark, which was the toast of Cannes.

Critics may swoon, but which of these musicals will catch on with audiences? With such directors as Woody Allen, Kenneth Branagh and Alan Parker all recently trying to inspire with their own musicals--and falling short of the mark--the odds don't look great.

In the anniversary year for This Is Spinal Tap, one of the faux band's original members, Christopher Guest, resurfaces for a doggie talent pageant in Best of Show. As with his Waiting for Guffman, Guest is joined by Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara in the largely improvised feature. (Early Oct.)

A frenetic hit as part of the Toronto Fest's Midnight Madness series, Wild Zero is the first feature starring the Japanese band Guitar Wolf. In this wacked movie, the band find themselves in a vicious shootout with their unscrupulous manager in the opening sequence. They befriend Ace, one of their fans, during the shootout and soon after parting he finds himself in trouble. After heading down the freeway and falling in love with a girl he meets at the gas station, Ace and company are soon under attack by a gang of zombies (à la George A. Romero). This is a truly bizarre and hilarious hybrid, full of pop culture references, both Japanese and American. There's even a hysterical nod to The Crying Game in Tetsuro Takeuchi's feature directorial debut, a film that's still without a firm release date. (Are you reading, Cinéma du Parc programmers?)

Scary, eh kids?

For those looking to be creeped out, Chasing Sleep is the bare-bones first feature of Michael Walker, starring Jeff Daniels. Daniels plays a man who lodges a missing-persons complaint when his wife doesn't arrive home one night. The film immediately slips into the surreal, as Daniels is besieged by outsiders, who descend on his home and hound him about his absent spouse. Chasing Sleep takes place almost entirely within one house, and Daniels pulls off a haunting claustrophobia in this, a film best described as a Kafkaesque horror movie. (Late Nov.)

Darren Aronofsky, who wowed audiences with Pi two years ago, returns with Requiem for a Dream, the second filmic adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s novel Last Exit to Brooklyn. The film features a knockout cast, including Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans and Louise Lasser, and Aronofsky employs rapid editing of striking visuals to help invoke that maybe-I'm-about-to-overdose-on-drugs sensation. (Nov.)

Adding to the seasonal chills will be the second annual Macabre, the festival of film and live performance dedicated to scaring everyone just before Halloween. Ringmaster Craig Francis is again promising rare, big-screen showings of horror films (both contemporary and classic) and Rick Miller (MacHomer) and the drag-queen-who-rules Grae Phillips will return with live performances. (Oct. 19-31) Also just in time for Halloween will be the sequel Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, in which some new unknowns venture over the same landscape those now-famous other three did. (Oct. 27)

We're here, we're queer

Robert Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, who so artfully composed a history of Hollywood's codes of sexual repression in The Celluloid Closet, are back with their new doc Paragraph 175. The film documents how this piece of German legislation, so rarely used during the Weimar Republic, became crucial for the Third Reich, who interned tens of thousands of people on the basis of sexual orientation. The film features interviews with some of the few survivors. (Nov.) The third Boys Life anthology, which features collections of gay-related short films, includes one directed by Jason Gould, the offspring of Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould. The first two Boys Life installments included some truly innovative queer work. (No firm release date) And gay director Don Roos, who made the exceptional comedy The Opposite of Sex, returns with Bounce. Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow are brought together when her husband dies in a plane crash--after Affleck offered his seat to her hubby on the doomed flight. Naturally, in the intensity of her mourning and the wacky coincidence, they fall in love. (Oct. 13)

Screening at Ex-Centris will be Alanis Obomsawin's latest Oka-related documentary, Rocks at Whiskey Trench. This is a moving account of what happened on that hot August day 10 years ago, when native elders and children, on board a fleet of cars, were pelted with rocks and stones by an angry white mob. Obomsawin's poignant interviews are matched, typically, by some solid history lessons. The final film in her four-part series on Oka marks the incident's 10th anniversary. (Sept. 29)

Appealing to your inner child

Glenn Close returns as Cruella De Vil in 102 Dalmatians, the sequel to the first live-action version of the animated Disney classic (and let's hope this one is a bit more lively than the prequel). Throwing more weight into the cast will help, as Gerard Depardieu joins Close as an evil man intent on turning the pups into a fur coat. (Nov. 22) Also eagerly anticipated is Jim Carrey's turn as the Grinch in Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, directed by Ron Howard. I am a Suess fan, I am, I am--let's hope Hollywood doesn't turn this wonderful tale to Spam. (Nov. 17) :

The Toronto International Film Festival wraps this Saturday, Sept. 16