Fall is right around the corner, meaning one thing for movies: award-winning films. With awards season at the beginning of the next calendar year, studios release most of their best fare before the end of the year so that their films are in the forefront of voters’ minds. While there are quite a bit more than four films to pay attention to this semester, these don’t look like they should be missed.
However, I’ve been wrong with these predictions before. I’m looking at you, “The Counselor.”
“Gone Girl” Oct. 3 — Based on the best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) reports the disappearance of his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike). Though you would think reporting your own wife missing would suggest innocence, the media starts to turn on Nick. “Gone Girl” seems to be another creeping, slow-burn thriller in the same vein as director David Fincher’s incredibly effective “Zodiac” and “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Here’s a bit of confounding technical information about the film: It was shot at 6K resolution, which has 10 times the pixel resolution of 1080p.
“Men, Women & Children” Oct. 17 — In the first trailer that came out for director Jason Reitman’s (“Juno”) recent work, there are plenty of characters, but not a single bit of talking. This is a film of the modern day and age, concerned with the communicative disconnect between teenagers and adults due to technology. The trailer doesn’t give any special attention to any one character, more than likely meaning we’ll have an ensemble cast comprised of the likes of Adam Sandler, Emma Thompson, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie DeWitt (“Mad Men”), Dean Norris (“Breaking Bad”) and Ansel Elgort. It’s always good to pay special attention to Sandler when he’s in a dramatic role; he usually does some of his best when he goes against his comedic roots.
“Interstellar” Nov. 7 — The tagline for this film is the very evocative, “Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.” In the future, Earth has turned into a giant Dust Bowl and crops can no longer grow. An engineer named Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) must lead a team into a space wormhole and travel beyond the galaxy to find a way to save Earth. Director Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight”, “Inception”), modern-day master of big screen spectacle and proponent of shooting in physical film stock, is shooting on actual IMAX film in lieu of digital. The space visuals will be a sight to behold on the big screen.
“Foxcatcher” Nov. 14 — A nearly unrecognizable Steve Carell, in both appearance and speech, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo all received critical praise for their performances when “Foxcatcher” premiered at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival. Based on real events, Olympic wrestling hopeful Mark Schultz (Tatum) trains with sponsor John du Pont (Carell). However, tensions start to mount between Mark and his brother. This will not be the feel-good sports movie of the year. There’s something very unnerving about the cadence of Carell’s speech in the trailer that foreshadows something sinister.
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