Labor Day has passed, the film industry’s official end to
summer, and this will go down as the worst summer box office in 25 years. Labor
Day weekend was the worst on record. Grosses are way down, which means, given
the steep rise in ticket prices, attendance has fallen off a cliff. Studios
will fall all over themselves, trying to figure out where they went wrong, then
come back next year and repeat the same mistakes. Analysts will present their
theories, and some will be compelling, others less so. Ultimately, cause and
effect will remain murky, and business will proceed as usual.
There certainly is not one answer to this problem, if we
want to call it that, but if I may humbly suggest a possibility: This summer’s
movies just were not that good. Audiences see good movies. This is a fact of
moviegoing. People go to films with positive reviews and see movies their
friends like. Should a movie tick both boxes, so much the better. Over the past
four months or so, there has been a dearth of films that meet either category,
let alone both.
As someone who spends much of his life in theaters, even I
have had a hard time getting excited about any of this year’s crop of films
thus far. I hope soon to take a deeper dive into the year so far – both the
highs and lows – but suffice it to say I am ready for the fall movie season,
when smart movies made by and for adults rule the day.
Last year’s list featured what would turn out to be some of
the best films of the year, including Martin Scorsese’s Silence, which was the No. 1 most anticipated film and finished at
No. 2 on our year-end best-of list. Beyond that, there were Jeff Nichols’ Loving (No. 3 most anticipated) and Ava
DuVernay’s 13th (No. 8), which both
earned honorable mentions. I have no doubt we will be talking more and more
about the following films in the months ahead, so without further ado, Last
Cinema Standing’s 10 Most Anticipated Movies of the Fall:
10. Downsizing,
directed by Alexander Payne
Release date: Dec. 22
Payne really started to catch fire around Election in 1998. I was a little later
to the party, going into Sideways
blind and with no forewarning of the acerbic wit and naked humanity (and naked
humans) I would witness. Since then, the director has refined his observational
style and honed his ability to make us care about and root for even the
schlubbiest schlubs. Here, he reteams with his Sideways and Election
co-writer Jim Taylor to take on a fantastical science-fiction premise to which they
will no doubt add a grounded sense of reality and frailty.
9. Suburbicon,
directed by George Clooney
Release date: Oct. 27
A double-dose of Matt Damon to kick things off, this one
looks like a wild ride indeed. If the trailer, particularly its final joke,
gives you the impression of a latter-day Coen Brothers comedy – think Burn After Reading or Hail, Caesar! – there is a good reason
for that. Joel and Ethan Coen share a writing credit with Clooney and his
writing partner, Grant Heslov, on the script. While Clooney the director has
tackled an array of filmmaking styles to varying degrees of success, this satirical
take on suburban paranoia looks to be right in his wheelhouse. With the Coens
jumping in, as well, expect this to be one you cannot miss.
8. Lady Bird,
directed by Greta Gerwig
Release date: Nov. 10
Gerwig is the talented writer-actor behind films such as Mistress America and Frances Ha, and after appearing in three
of last year’s best films – Jackie, 20th Century Women, and Weiner-Dog – she steps behind the camera
with a chance to deliver one of this year’s best. This will be Gerwig’s first
solo directorial effort – she co-directed the 2008 mumblecore comedy Nights and Weekends with Joe Swanberg –
and she appears to be sticking firmly to what she knows, subbing in her
Northern California hometown for her usual New York City milieu. With the
promise of a great Saoirse Ronan performance in tow, Gerwig needs only to bring
her consistently deft touch with human foibles to make this a sure-fire
success.
7. Kings, directed by
Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Release date: TBA
(Toronto International Film Festival
Halle Berry, in Kings
Ergüven, the writer-director behind the brilliant
coming-of-age protest film Mustang,
would at first seem an odd choice for this material. A Turkish woman with a
French education would not likely jump to the top of most people’s list to
direct a film about the Rodney King riots, and indeed, there has been
controversy around Ergüven taking on the project. However, she proved with her
directorial debut Mustang she is
capable of making an angry, powerful film about tearing down the structures
that oppress and dehumanize. If that is not precisely what we want from a film
about the L.A. Riots, then I don’t know for what it is we are looking.
6. Battle of the
Sexes, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Release date: Sept. 22
Dayton and Faris do not work nearly often enough. The list
of projects the husband-and-wife team have had fall through is extensive and
storied. After breaking through with the influential independent hit Little Miss Sunshine in 2006, it took
six years for them to return with the underappreciated romantic comedy
deconstruction Ruby Sparks. It is now
five years since that feature, and Battle
of the Sexes arrives. The performances by Emma Stone and Steve Carell look
to be stellar, the subject matter timely, and the approach dead-on. Dayton and
Faris have been gone from cinemas too long. Let us hope they do not depart so
long again.
5. Three Billboards
Outside Ebbing, Missouri, directed by Martin McDonagh
Release date: Nov. 10
Another director gone from multiplexes since 2012, McDonagh’s
absence can be attributed mostly to the fact he is a rock star in the theater
scene. The famed Irish playwright has written and directed just three feature
films, but each is an event, and Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri looks like his best chance yet for
mainstream cinematic success. Although, if mainstream success were something
McDonagh were interested in, I am quite certain he already would have achieved
it. Operating in the darkest possible realms of comedy, as always, here
McDonagh brings along Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, and Woody Harrelson for
a journey that looks to be his most fun but most human yet.
4. Mother!, directed
by Darren Aronofsky
Release date: Sept. 15
Not that she needs the help, but Jennifer Lawrence looks
here to be getting the Black Swan
treatment from Aronofsky, which is to say the director will run the “it” actress
of her generation through the emotional wringer. Aronofsky’s most recent film, Noah, was troubled but unfairly
maligned, mostly due to its impossibly high budget. This time, he scales back
for the kind of psychological horror story that put him on the map in films
such as Pi and Requiem for a Dream. Aronofsky is as much the stylist as ever, and
Lawrence seems to be taking her gifts to another level. The combination of the
two should produce nothing short of magic.
3. The Killing of a
Sacred Deer, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Release date: Nov. 3
Greek auteur Lanthimos made the jump to English-language
features with last year’s wondrous The
Lobster, in which he teased out career-best work from Colin Farrell. Farrell
now is joined by Nicole Kidman and Alicia Silverstone for a film that won the
best screenplay award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Co-written by
Lanthimos and his The Lobster
collaborator Efthymis Filippou, The
Killing of a Sacred Deer seems to take the director’s icy, detached view of
human endeavors and marry it to the intense thriller we might expect from someone
such as Michael Haneke – think Cache or
Funny Games.
2. The Square,
directed by Ruben Östlund
Release date: Oct. 27
As the winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film
Festival, The Square would already be
high on my must-see list. That it comes from Östlund only raises its
profile. The Swedish filmmaker’s previous effort, Force Majeure, is among the century’s best films, a landmark of
emotional exploration and familial disintegration that should be watched and
studied for years to come. If The Square,
the satirical targets of which seem fitting for our current era, equals or even
nears those heights, it will be a transcendent experience.
1. Wonder Wheel,
directed by Woody Allen
Release date: Dec. 1
My favorite filmmaker directing my favorite actress, there
could be no film more anticipated for me. Allen’s late-career output at this
point is famous for its unevenness. For every Match Point, there is a Whatever
Works. For every Blue Jasmine,
there is a To Rome with Love. I am a
fan even of much of the director’s most slapdash work, while still admitting to
some of its haphazard construction. The reason: Despite it all, Allen still has
the potential to dazzle – Vicky Cristina
Barcelona and Midnight in Paris
being just two recent examples.
In Wonder Wheel, Kate
Winslet is said to deliver a career-topping performance. The New York Film
Festival has selected it as the closing-night film, not an honor bestowed
lightly. It is scheduled at the height of awards season, whereas much of Allen’s
work lately has been offered up as a summer trifle. For these reasons and more,
there could be no other film at the top of this list.
*A quick note: Paul
Thomas Anderson’s new film surely would have made this list if I could be
reasonably certain it would come out this year. I cannot be. As of now, it has
no official title and a tentative release date at the end of December. Anderson
can work as long as he wants to make the best possible film, and when it
finally does come out – with what is sure to be another brilliant Daniel
Day-Lewis performance, I will be first in line.
