NYT & LAT. Holiday previews.

Something slightly macabre tinges the special holiday preview sections set up this weekend in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Of course, they were prepared long before the writers' strike became a sure thing and all the movies on parade here, too, are wrapped and ready to roll. But as Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes point out in their NYT piece on the strike set to begin on Monday, if the TV talk show circuit is thrown into repeat mode for weeks on end, how will these movies get promoted? In general, depending on how long this strike lasts and how bitter the standoff between writers and their employers becomes, this holiday season may turn out to be one of the least festive in many years.

Updated through 11/4.

At any rate, like the papers, let's buck up and see what they've got on the movies slated for screens over the next couple of months come hell or high water. David Carr, bracing himself for another awards season spent blogging as The Carpetbagger, reminds us (as if we needed to be reminded) that, in Hollywood, this season's all about the Oscars. But he's got a fresh twist here; he argues that the Academy's "growing tendency to nominate and vote for ambitious, risky films - movies that reside outside the forest of studio blockbusters - suggests that the annual bacchanal actually nurtures important work."

Caryn James spots a running theme: "There Will Be Blood may be the title of a film opening the day after Christmas, but it could be the slogan for this entire holiday season."

The NYT gets prominent film folk to write up their favorite holiday movies, so we get Harvey Weinstein on Miracle in Milan and White Christmas; James Schamus on The Apartment; Marjane Satrapi on Pink Flamingos; and Christine Vachon on The Poseidon Adventure.

I'm going to collate and reshuffle the papers' specials and lay out pointers in order of the movies' releases again - but I won't be as thorough with the listings as I was earlier this fall because, really, Dave Kehr's already done his usual herculean job so well, why mimic it meekly? Here's what he's got for November, December and January. And Charles Taylor and Stephanie Zacharek have studied the DVD release schedules and picked out the highlights. But these are the theatrical releases the papers are spotlighting:

"[T]he Iraq war is happening in the time of blogs, camcorders and the Internet, and Redacted, which opens Nov 16, tells its entire story through a montage of those media, as well as surveillance cameras, news reports, terrorist websites - nearly all of it re-created from what [Brian] De Palma found on the Web," writes Charles Taylor. "Paradoxically, though there are more outlets for them, images from Iraq have not dominated the public consciousness in the way images from Vietnam did. That, De Palma says, was the prime inspiration for Redacted. 'Where are the pictures?'"

Sarah Lyall meets Heath Ledger in talk about I'm Not There, opening November 21. "[B]ecause Christian Bale, the actor who plays [an] early Dylan in the film, was scheduled to film his scenes after Mr Ledger, Mr Ledger said he was faced with 'playing an actor portraying Christian portraying a Dylanesque character, and not being sure what Christian was going to do.' Or, to put it another way, 'Who was I playing when I was acting?'... He is here in London filming the latest episode of the Batman franchise, The Dark Knight. (Mr Bale, as it happens, plays Batman; Mr Ledger plays the Joker.)"

"In Disney's Enchanted, which is to open on Nov 21, [Amy] Adams stars as Giselle, first as the tinkly-voiced citizen of the animated land of Andalasia, and then, after she is pushed down a watery portal by the evil Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), as a three-dimensional woman in modern-day New York," writes Margy Rochlin. "'Too much wink,' is how [director Kevin] Lima described other actresses' coy takes on Giselle. Ms Adams, on the other hand, could imitate a hand-drawn Disney heroine's zero-gravity etherealness and dainty gestures and still convey plenty of feeling."

"Devoid of the quirks and sappiness that increasingly typify American indie cinema, [The Savages, opening November 28] captures the sorrow, anxiety and sheer disruptive tumult involved in dealing with aging, dying parents — a subject at once universal and vaguely taboo," writes Dennis Lim, who talks with director Tamara Jenkins.

"As the eponymous heroine of Juno (Dec 5), a comedy about a pregnant 16-year-old that is being touted as this year's Little Miss Sunshine, [Ellen] Page owns her character the way Audrey Hepburn owned Holly Golightly, and the role is going to make her a star," writes Karen Durbin. And Susan King has a brief chat with Jason Bateman, who "seems 180 degrees removed from his character in Juno."

Ian McEwan's novel, Atonement "is among other things a novel about the nature of storytelling," writes Charles McGrath. "In the seminar room, if not at the pitch meeting, you could even call it a meta-text." Here's how that translates to the screen: "For someone who has directed only one other movie - the 2005 Pride & Prejudice, also starring [Keira] Knightley - Joe Wright has a head seemingly stuffed with cinematic history. In Atonement, which opens on Dec 7, he smuggles in a lot of sly and knowing touches." More from Michael Ordoña: "Wright, [cinematographer Seamus] McGarvey, [production designer Sarah] Greenwood and [set decorator Katie] Spencer sat down at the director's temporary home in the Hollywood Hills (where he's staying while they work on his next film, the Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr drama The Soloist) on a remarkably windy evening to discuss the abundant pros and imagined cons of working together so often."

Gina Piccalo talks with Chris Weitz, who worked "closely" with Philip Pullman on The Golden Compass, opening December 7: "If you properly adapt a book, you should do a miniseries of it. But that's financially impossible. So you're working in the movie form. You are reducing it to its essentials without making it feel rushed. That's the tough thing." Earlier: New Line's "in a precarious spot, trying to please fans who relish Pullman's philosophical and theological puzzles without alienating the very bankable Christian masses."

"In I Am Legend (Dec 14), a lean and lonely [Will] Smith grapples with the isolation of being the last healthy man on earth, three years after a deadly virus - meant to cure cancer - has all but wiped the planet clean of people." A backgrounder from David M Halbfinger. More from Chris Lee: "Over the previous 12 years, a panoply of A-list actors have been attached to the role - notably Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger - but until Smith came along, none could shepherd the high-concept project into production."

"Alexandra Maria Lara, 28, doesn't shrink from a challenge," writes Karen Durbin. "Francis Ford Coppola has given her not one but three women of different cultures and eras to play in Youth Without Youth (Dec 14)."

Also: "Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada was 11 when he was chosen to play his first movie role, one of two Afghan boys — Hassan and Amir — who are friends in The Kite Runner (Dec 14).... [H]is Hassan ranks among the great child performances on film."

"The most perceptive and authentic satire is just 10% different from the real thing, and that's the narrow target [Jake] Kasdan and [John C] Reilly's Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is aiming for," writes John Horn. "While movie spoofs are as common these days as comic-book sequels, there's a marked distinction between Walk Hard, which opens Dec 21, and such broad parodies as Epic Movie, The Comebacks and Scary Movie. While all spoof films naturally try to have fun and make moviegoers laugh, Walk Hard wants to be silly by being smart."

"Any way you slice it, it's a gamble," writes Sylviane Gold in her piece on the making of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, opening December 21. "Transferring a stage work to the screen is always dodgy; for musicals, so dependent on the artificial world of the proscenium, the risks are multiplied. To further complicate things [Tim] Burton entrusted the lead roles in this operatic, difficult-to-sing work, which scooped up no less than seven Tony Awards in 1979, to two movie stars [Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter] whose vocal abilities, like those of all but one of the supporting players, were untested. (They include Sacha Baron Cohen, as the competing barber Pirelli.)"

"Despite having won best actress Oscars for 1999's Boys Don't Cry and 2004's Million Dollar Baby - or maybe because of it - the whippet-slender 33-year-old [Hilary] Swank knows she isn't the first person who comes to mind for a romantic comedy." Susan King talks with her about PS I Love You, opening December 21.

Rachel Abramowitz listens to Marjane Satrapi talk about Persepolis, opening December 25: "Anybody can relate to the story - for a human being, because of the changes around you, you as an individual feel completely pushed down. This movie is about peace and love. [Co-director] Vincent [Paronnaud] and I were hippies for six months talking about this movie."

"Since his standout performance in the 2001 L.I.E., as an emotionally abandoned suburban teenager who falls under the sway of a predatory older man, [Paul Dano] has contributed solid supporting work in nine feature films," writes Karen Durbin. "But none of those roles allowed him to cut loose the way he does in There Will Be Blood (Dec 26), Paul Thomas Anderson's ambitious reworking of Oil!, Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel about the California oil rush." And Michael Ordoña meets Dano, too; and gets an email from PTA, "saying that Dano 'has more focus than any other young actor I've met... There are a few young actors coming around right now who are very exciting, and I consider Paul the leader of the pack.'"

"In Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Jan 25) the Romanian actress Anamaria Marinca plays Otilia, a college student in her early 20s in Bucharest, who, by the story's end, has the disillusioned gaze of someone who isn't young at all," writes Karen Durbin. "On the screen her transformation is remarkable."

Update, 11/4: Entertainment Weekly's got its "Holiday Movies 2007" package up now, too. Via Anne Thompson.

Posted by dwhudson at November 3, 2007 10:51 AM