SN&R’s poppin’-fresh fall movie preview

Movie critic. It seems like such a kick-ass job—free film screenings, first looks at the biggest Hollywood blockbusters, more popcorn than you can shake a can of salt at. Yet for every Academy Award-worthy flick or sidesplitting comedy, there’s a Kevin James film about some janitor who moonlights as a break-dancing martial-arts superhero. Oh. Joy.

Luckily for SN&R film critics Jonathan Kiefer and Jim Lane, they usually employ roshambo to decide who’ll have to endure, say, the next Tyler Perry flick. And, even then, the guys can always sneak out for popcorn refills and a quick break.

Speaking of which: Mmm, popcorn. Who doesn’t love its salty, buttery crunch? But did you know that mixing equal parts popcorn “butter” and Diet Coke creates crystallized fat particles? It’s true, try it!

Anyway, here at SN&R, our Popcorn Guy is trans-fat free and 100-percent natural. Just like, uh, Kiefer and Lane’s cinema advice. It’s just all in a day’s work—and whether they’re puzzling over Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln or bemoaning the insufferable Kiera Knightly, the SN&R team doesn’t just eat, drink and sleep film: They actually talk, text and instant message it 24-seven.

Really: The guys left their laptop browsers open during a recent screening, so, of course, we snagged them, downloaded a few messages—and, voilà, turned the exchanges into SN&R’s fall movie preview.

Grab some popcorn, sit back and enjoy.

JIM LANE to JONATHAN KIEFER: Looking over the list of movies, my first impulse is to pick one or two from each month that I’m really looking forward to. I don’t mean the way I’m looking forward to, say, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 2 (November 16) as the end of a series that’s already droned on years too long. I mean “looking forward to” as in “want to see.”

KIEFER to LANE: Wait. Do you mean to tell me that you’re not looking forward to Here Comes the Boom (October 12), with Kevin James as a high-school biology teacher who, for some reason, takes up mixed-martial arts in order to keep his music-teacher colleague, played by Henry Winkler, from getting laid off? No? Right, me neither.

LANE to KIEFER: I am tantalized by Cloud Atlas (October 26). Not so much for the Wachowski brothers (one of whom is now actually a sister)—didn’t they kind of fizzle after The Matrix? But they’re partnering with the German ace Tom Tykwer on this one, adapting David Mitchell’s complex episodic novel with a great cast: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, et al—all in multiple roles. The buzz when the book was published in 2004 was that it was unfilmable, so kudos to the Wachowskis and Tykwer for having the guts to tackle it. I found the trailer dazzling and alluring. Hard not to get your hopes up.

KIEFER to LANE: I don’t know about Cloud Atlas. Not because they said it was unfilmable—they said Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis was unfilmable, and … oh, actually, yeah, it was—but because to me, those shallow, callow Wachowskis seem like no match for the substantive postmodern stylist Mitchell. I mean, honestly, didn’t they kind of fizzle during The Matrix? Tykwer might help, or make matters worse (for me, the trailer’s slickness teeters into silliness), but you’re right that the guy’s got guts. He managed to direct Krzysztof Kielowski’s Heaven after the great master died and couldn’t do it himself, and to adapt Patrick Süskind’s also allegedly unfilmable novel Perfume without scorching too much earth. For that, I’ll give Cloud Atlas a go. But for now, I’m just saying I don’t know.

LANE to KIEFER: My hopes were also up for Lincoln (November 16). Still are, I guess—Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, Steven Spielberg directing, based on one of the indispensable Civil War books (Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln). But this time, the trailer gives me pause. The credits say it’s only “based in part” on Goodwin’s book. Not sure I quite trust writer Tony Kushner to fill in the other parts; the few snatches of dialogue in the trailer sound pretty magniloquent. In fact, the whole trailer strikes me as too solemn and self-important.

KIEFER to LANE: I never was a Kushner fan. I once was a Spielberg fan, but now it seems like long ago. And I know from Munich that collaboration between them means a tendency to congratulate themselves and each other. Accordingly, maybe that first teaser trailer really is a bore. But the movie will be an event, and not only due to the never-disappointing Day-Lewis. Just as surely as the sap will ooze from John Williams’ score and Sally Field’s eyes, I think we can count on political-comments-section sludge oozing all across the Internet.

LANE to KIEFER: That first trailer is a pompous bore, sure enough—a phrase that could be applied to Spielberg at his worst, and maybe even to Kushner’s whole career. But you know, another thing niggles at the back of my mind. It sounds silly to mention it, I know, but it seems to me that Daniel Day-Lewis looks almost too much like Lincoln. Is it just a terrific makeup job? Or has the CGI crew gone beyond merely creating Civil War Washington and the burning of Richmond? I hope not. It’s one thing to turn Andy Serkis into Gollum or a genius chimpanzee, but if the techie geeks are being allowed to touch up the work of an artist like Day-Lewis, it may be time to shorten the leash.

KIEFER to LANE: Not silly at all, now that you have mentioned it. Now I too begin to wonder: After morphing Jamie Bell into a pixel-polished Tintin, what’s to stop Spielberg from trying out a photographic cheat of old Honest Abe? This rich philosophical question should at least give us something to scrutinize during the dull talky bits. Someday, it might be fun to make a study of evolving audience credulity where biopics are concerned. Meanwhile, I’ll at least take it on faith that the integrity of Day-Lewis defies touching up.

LANE to KIEFER: High hopes, too, for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (December 14). After The Lord of the Rings trilogy, who can doubt Jackson’s vision? I’m not sure Tolkien’s prequel warrants two movies (second half, The Desolation of Smaug, coming next year). Is this really necessary or just a marketing ploy to pad the box office? Or—perish the thought!—will Jackson do what he did with King Kong, inflating the 1933 original out past the three-hour mark? Ah, well, Jackson knows the ground; I’m inclined to trust him. And, musical-theater buff that I am, I expect Cameron Mackintosh’s long-deferred movie of his opera-lite phenomenon Les Misérables (December 25) to be a milestone movie musical, nothing less. A beloved show to two generations of fans, lavishly produced with a brilliant cast that you’d never see on any stage—Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Eddie Redmayne, Colm Wilkinson—all singing live on the set instead of lip-synching to canned playback. If this turns out a turkey, director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) will deserve never to work again.

I don’t know what the hell to expect from Life of Pi (November 21): An Indian youth, a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a tiger adrift together after a shipwreck sounds like a tough sell, but I’ll follow director Ang Lee almost anywhere.

KIEFER to LANE: Like with Cloud Atlas, the Life of Pi trailer worries me a little. It has that same desperate-seeming computery varnish, which so often tends to leech out any real wonder. What I enjoyed about Yann Martel’s novel wasn’t just its fabulist vitality, but also its humor and nonchalance. And while I’ve admired Ang Lee—even enough to allow a soft spot for his misfire of Marvel’s Hulk—I can’t say “effortless” or “funny” are the first words his name brings to mind. Back in 2001, when the book came out, my automatic suggestion for turning it into a movie would have been to try with animation. Well, no such luck, but what are you gonna do?

Admittedly, I do feel a tad possessive about Hitchcock (in limited release November 21; in Sacramento who knows when), as is any film buff’s prerogative. From Anvil: The Story of Anvil director Sacha Gervasi and Stephen Rebello’s book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, here we have Anthony Hopkins back in impersonation mode. Will it do him or Hitchcock any favors? Hopkins made an oddly compelling Richard Nixon, and at least with Hitch he’ll have an easier accent to fake. Helen Mirren plays his wife Alma, with Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh (well, fine, I guess) and James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins (I’d have voted for Andrew Garfield). Could be fun, all told.

LANE to KIEFER: Sir Anthony may not look that much like Sir Alfred, but Hitchcock does sound like a hoot, doesn’t it? Telling the backstory of Psycho is certainly a better idea that Gus Van Sant’s ill-advised and misbegotten 1998 remake. I’m OK with most of the casting, too—especially Helen Mirren, whose presence promises to offer overdue recognition of Alma Reville Hitchcock as a powerful influence behind the throne.

Also, the umpteenth filming of Anna Karenina (November 16) shows promise, with writer Tom Stoppard, director Joe Wright (Atonement), and actors Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Emily Watson and Kelly Macdonald all onboard.

KIEFER to LANE: I seem to recall the Anna Karenina trailer saying something about a “bold new vision” and then showing some boilerplate period-drama set piece. Hey, Focus Features, no need to be ashamed that Tolstoy’s novel is just one of those durable tales that’s been made into movies ever since movies began. But how will this one rate? I do wonder if the prestigious director Joe Wright is actually just a heavy-handed hack—technician enough to mount that single-shot Dunkirk scene in Atonement, yet dullard enough to dilute Beethoven into a screen saver for The Soloist. Stoppard’s script might be his saving grace here. And yes, when it comes to doomy, throbbing-hearted self-interrogation, who but Keira Knightley will do?

LANE to KIEFER: Frankly, Keira Knightley, with her hungry-shark grin, isn’t quite my picture of Anna. A better choice, I think, would have been Kate Beckinsale—if she hadn’t wrecked her reputation as an actress on the rocks of the Underworld franchise.

Beyond that, what else? Well, Daniel Craig is back as James Bond in Skyfall (November 9), the latest installment in The Movie Series Even Roger Moore Couldn’t Kill. Robert Zemeckis returns to live-action filmmaking for the first time in a decade (but still as much in love with CGI as ever) with Flight (November 2), starring Denzel Washington as an is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-hero airline pilot. Plus, a trio of Quentin Tarantino and/or Guy Ritchie clones: Seven Psychopaths (October 12, with Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken), The Man With the Iron Fists (November 2, with Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu) and Killing Them Softly (November 30, with Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta and Sam Shepard). All three have trailers that promise plenty of bang (and slash and kick and stab) for the buck. Whether they deliver anything more, time will tell.

KIEFER to LANE: At least Seven Psychopaths has the virtue of coming to us from writer-director Martin McDonagh, who also made the 2008 charmer In Bruges and produced his brother John Michael McDonagh’s 2011 charmer The Guard. Tell you what: It appeals to me more than Django Unchained (December 25), the slave-and-bounty-hunter buddy movie (starring Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz) with which Quentin Tarantino appears to remain a clone of himself.

LANE to KIEFER: Like you, I expect Seven Psychopaths to have its wacky whacky pleasures and a real sense of humor. Clone or no, Quentin can hold your attention, and I’m curious to see if he’ll be as free and easy with history as he was on Inglourious Basterds.

KIEFER TO LANE: December also delivers Zero Dark Thirty (December 19), director Kathryn Bigelow’s nail-biter about the Navy SEALs who tracked down and took out Osama Bin Laden. I believe that title derives from military code, and as such, it’s quite effective: I have no idea what time that is.

LANE to KIEFER: I understand the title is military speak that translates roughly as “the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.”

KIEFER TO LANE: There’s more, of course. What are we forgetting?

LANE to KIEFER: Ha! You mean what are we ignoring?

KIEFER TO LANE: Ah, touché.

LANE to KIEFER: We’re ignoring plenty, actually. Here Comes the Boom would be a prime example, except that you did have to go and bring it up. So let’s take a deep breath and gingerly pick our way down that alley.

There’s Paranormal Activity 4 (October 19). I thought the first one was good, the second better, but unwilling to push my luck, I decided to skip No. 3. Now Paramount Pictures has turned Oren Peli’s modest, effective little chiller into a demonic family saga, and I’m pretty much dreading it—but not in the way Paramount would like. Besides, as a general rule of thumb, any sequel with 4 in the title is probably best avoided. (I’m willing to make an exception for Toy Story 4, but that’s a ways off.)

And take (please!) This Is 40 (December 21). Have audiences really been clamoring for a sequel to Knocked Up? Or is Judd Apatow running out of fresh ideas?

Already halfway to my kitsch file is the Red Dawn remake (November 21). Whose bright idea was this and why? Did somebody note Chris Hemsworth’s passing resemblance to Patrick Swayze and think, “Why not?” (If so, thank God they didn’t opt for Road House or Next of Kin.) Still, as dumb ideas go, this one sticks out: A Soviet invasion was a semicredible stretch in 1984. North Korea in 2012, not so much.

A pair of animated features will also come and go; we’ll see if they leave more than fleeting harmless ripples. There’s Wreck-It Ralph from Disney, which looks like a kind of kiddie Tron for the Super Mario Bros. set; and Rise of the Guardians, which at least has a literary pedigree, based on William Joyce’s Guardians of Childhood books—plus a gen-you-wine Pulitzer Prize winner, David Lindsay-Abaire, doing the script.

KIEFER TO LANE: How that old kitsch file bulges. Some films are, shall we say, forgettable, even sight unseen. Take Red Dawn, for instance: I can’t help but see it as a state-of-the-industry yardstick. Not because it’s yet another rehash of the pop monoculture that poisoned my mind as a boy (yes, see also Wreck-It Ralph, with its 8-bit nostalgia and its two-bit concept), but rather for what it reveals of the craven Hollywood urge toward overseas-market-revenue dredging. Note that the villainous invading army used to be Chinese but reportedly was reconfigured in post-production as North Korean. Racist? Xenophobic? Well, sure, but mostly just a matter of which country’s box-office cash we really can’t do without. Not even a semicredible stretch, indeed.

Speaking of weird box-office math, there’s also Alex Cross (October 19), with Tyler Perry in the movie version of a James Patterson potboiler, which looks like one of those calculations where the lowered common denominator becomes a revenue multiplier. But who knows? With Matthew Fox as the bad guy and Giancarlo Esposito in there somewhere, maybe it’ll be a good ride.

At any rate, one does yearn for hearty alternative fare. And, on that front, for this season at least, it’s hard to stay optimistic. Another limited release is Silver Linings Playbook (November 21), a Toronto International Film Festival prizewinner from director David O. Russell (and from Matthew Quick’s novel), with Bradley Cooper coming out of a mental hospital to fall in love with Jennifer Lawrence. Having barely read a thing about it, I know I shouldn’t get so reactionary, but even the title grates. For me, it evokes 2010’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story and that woeful subgenre, the never-quite-black-enough comedy of mental illness—which is usually just fodder for pseudo-edgy schmaltz.

LANE to KIEFER: I do think we’ve overlooked at least one winner. I caught an early screening of The Sessions (October 19), and I think it’s one of the best movies of the year. It certainly walks one of the highest and thinnest tightropes, telling as it does of the late Mark O’Brien’s quest to lose his virginity at age 38, despite being a quadriplegic confined to an iron lung. For such a dicey-sounding premise, it’s a movie brimming with warmth and wit. John Hawkes is Oscar bait, no error, as is O’Brien; and Helen Hunt as the sexual surrogate he consults has never been more serenely appealing. How’s that for hearty alternative fare?

KIEFER TO LANE: Glad to hear it; given its premise, I feared it’d be one of those films in which the defiance of self-pity becomes its own kind of mawkishness, with no able-bodied onlooker wanting to say a disparaging word. I do recall finding much to admire in O’Brien’s memoir How I Became a Human Being, and I know he already was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Breathing Lessons. (I can see why The Sessions had its original title, The Surrogate, revised, but I wish they’d gone with Sex Lessons.) Anyway, Hawkes is an actor I trust, and as for the grander theme of liberation from terrible confinement, that’s what movies are all about. Also, you’ve given me an idea for a biography, although I don’t know if it should be a book or a Lifetime special: Serenely Appealing: The Helen Hunt Story.

Or maybe it’ll end up a movie, and we’ll be talking about it next year.