Fall-holiday Movie Preview: October
Our picks for October’s must-see movies
Where The Wild Things Are (pictured above)
Maurice Sendak had been holding out for decades. The now 81-year-old author of the classic kids book Where the Wild Things Are wanted the right filmmaker to adapt his work, and he found him in Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation).
Sendak's 491-word masterpiece focuses on a boy named Max who is sent to his room by his mother after acting out. There he imagines a world populated by beasts called Wild Things, who anoint him as their king. That's not a lot to work with, so screenwriter Dave Eggers flushes out the tale by having Max (Max Records) misbehave because his mother (Catherine Keener) is having a relationship with a younger man (Mark Ruffalo).
Jonze was adamant that he wanted to use old-school effects — no CGI or blue-screen technology, but rather actors in furry suits — and arty camerawork to tell the story. The decision irked Warner Bros, who considered making Jonze re-shoot the entire film. But after years of finagling (the film started shooting in 2005), the execs and the artist are happy, and one of the year's most anticipated family films finally hits theatres.
Release date: October 16
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A Serious Man
The Coen Brothers bring their wonderfully controlled sense of anarchy to this 1967-set comedy that focuses on college professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), whose life is falling apart. His wife announces she’s leaving him, his layabout brother won’t get off the couch and it looks like he’ll be denied a tenure position. Larry seeks out three rabbis to get some advice, but even they aren’t sure they can help loser Larry.
Release date: October 2
Toy Story & Toy Story 2 (3D)
Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toys from Andy’s room are back on the big screen as Disney re-releases the Toy Story pics in 3D; no doubt whetting our appetites for the upcoming and long-awaited Toy Story 3, which hits theatres in June 2010.
Release date: October 2
Whip It
Sixteen-year-old Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) learns to keep her elbows up and head on swivel while skating in a women’s roller derby league. The independent-minded Bliss travels from her home in the sleepy town of Bodeen, Texas, to Austin, where she joins a team of rebel roller girls, lead by Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore, also making her directing debut), Dinah Might (Juliette Lewis) and Malice in Wonderland (Kristen Wiig).
Release date: October 2
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Zombieland
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Zombieland
In a world overrun with zombies it takes a brave man to hack, shoot and pummel the evil undead. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) isn’t that man, but gun-toting Tennessee (Woody Harrelson) is, and they team up in an effort to survive the zombie onslaught.
Release date: October 2
The Invention of Lying
British funnyman Ricky Gervais plays Mark, an average guy who
lives in a world much like our own. The one big difference is that no
one there knows how to lie...until Mark figures it out.
Release date: October 2
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Couples Retreat
Four troubled couples — Vince Vaughn/Malin Akerman, Jon Favreau/Kristin Davis, Jason Bateman/Kristen Bell and Faizon Love/Kali Hawk — travel to an island paradise to participate in relationship therapy.
Release date: October 9
Cairo Time
This tender and acutely observed drama finds the married Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) travelling to Cairo, Egypt, where she makes an emotional connection with her husband’s former co-worker Tareq (Alexander Siddig), a Cairo native who acts as her tour guide through the mesmerizing city.
Release date: October 9
Law Abiding Citizen
Clyde Shelton’s (Gerard Butler) wife and child are murdered, and the assistant district attorney (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal with the killer for a lighter sentence. Ten years later the killer is set free, and Clyde takes revenge against him, the D.A. and anyone else who stands in his path to retribution.
Release date: October 16
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The Road
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The Road
This adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is set in a desolate, post-apocalyptic America where a father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee)
slowly travel south toward the ocean. Along the way they fend off
desperate survivors — including cannibals — while trying to hold onto
their own humanity.
Release date: October 16
The Stepfather
Real stepfathers everywhere suffer a PR knock with this thriller starring Dylan Walsh (Nip/Tuck’s Sean McNamara) as the seemingly perfect guy who marries Michael’s (Penn Badgley) mom, Susan (Sela Ward). But Michael suspects Mr. Perfect is hiding a deep, dark secret.
Release date: October 16
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Nightmare Before Christmas 3D
In what has become a Halloween tradition, Henry Selick’s classic stop-motion animation returns to the big screen in 3D.
Release date: October 23
Amelia
Hilary Swank bears an uncanny resemblance to Amelia Earhart, which is a good thing considering she stars as the famed ’30s aviatrix in this bio-pic directed by Mira Nair. Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, captured the public’s imagination as well as the hearts of her partner and husband, George Putnam (Richard Gere), and her lover, Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor).
Release date: October 23
Saw VI
Let’s see. Who’s still alive? Not Special Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson). Not Jigaw (Tobin Bell), although the psycho, game-loving genius lives on in flashbacks. Guess it’s up to Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) to carry on, which he does by setting a new game in motion just as the FBI is closing in.
Release date: October 23
Astro Boy
Japan’s favourite robot started off as a manga, morphed into a TV
series and now becomes an animated Hollywood movie. Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage) builds Astro Boy (Freddie Highmore)
after his own son is killed. Despite giving the robot superpowers,
Astro Boy disappoints the scientist and goes off into the universe to
fight evil.
Release date: October 23
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Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
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Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
Are you vampired-out yet? Hope not ’cause the vampire train keeps
a-rolling with this adaptation of the first three books from author Darren Shan’s 12-volume, young adult Cirque du Freak series. The hero, also named Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia), joins a circus and is befriended by vampire Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly), who turns him into his half-vampire assistant.
Release date: October 23
This is It
Sony Pictures reportedly paid $60-million for the footage of Michael Jackson rehearsing for his upcoming This Is It Tour. This documentary is directed by Kenny Ortega (High School Musical)
who was prepping Jackson for his concert tour. He had more than 100
hours of rehearsal footage with which to piece together this look at
the last two months of Jackson's life.
Release date: October 28
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Youth in Revolt
Michael Cera stars as Nick Twisp, a teenage virgin who meets the foxy Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) while vacationing with his parents and decides she is the girl who will make him a man.
Release date: October 30
Special Events on the Big Screen
All’s Well That Ends Well
Britain’s National Theatre Company performs William Shakespeare’s bittersweet comedy.
Thurs., Oct. 1
7 p.m. ET/PT, 8 p.m. CT/MT
Monty Python: Almost the Truth
Documentary recounts the history of the British comedy troupe.
Thurs., Oct. 22
7 p.m. ET/PT
WWE-Pay-Per-View
Hell in a Cell
Sun., Oct. 4, 8 p.m. ET
The Metropolitan Opera
Tosca (Puccini)
Live: Sat., Oct. 10, 1 p.m. ET
Encore: Sat., Oct. 31, 1 p.m. ET
Aida (Verdi)
Live: Sat., Oct. 24, 1 p.m. ET