The Darjeeling Limited
October 5
Directed by Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson is one of the most distinctive voices in Hollywood. His movies have a bent sensibility to them that is right in my wheelhouse. Rushmore. The Royal Tenenbaums. The Life Aquatic.
One of the main themes in his movies is the idea of family. Skewed, messy, loving (though how that love is communicated is always the question)—he has a lens that says there’s no such thing as a normal family unless you take dysfunction as the norm. Then his movies become an experiment in how dysfunctional relationships can get and still be relationships.
In The Darjeeling Limited, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman are estranged brothers who come together after the death of their father. They go on a “spiritual journey” on a train through India, all the while pushing one another’s buttons.
But at its emotional core, the movie is about brothers and family. Family isn’t just about blood ties, it’s about a community of love and acceptance. Sometimes it takes a “spiritual journey” to realize that.
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The Golden Age
October 12
Directed by Shekhar Kapur
Maybe I’m getting cynical, maybe I’ve suffered through too many summers of needless sequels, prequels, and three-quels and presumed franchises, but I never saw Elizabeth as the kind of movie that could become a franchise. Yet, here comes Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
The first Elizabeth propelled Cate Blanchett from an interesting talent from Australia to global star. She portrayed a queen in the making, learning to accept the weight of responsibility and sacrifice and the importance of an icon.
The entire creative team from the first movie has reunited for this one. While the movie will undoubtedly take creative license with the facts of history, I want to see what sort of contemporary overtones will resonate within it.
Plus, I’m a sucker for palace intrigue.
I’m going to presume that this one won’t have more car chases, more special effects, and a needlessly convoluted storyline in order to appease our supposed need for bigger and better in our sequels. If we’ve learned nothing from James Bond it should be that stand-alone sequels can go on for a long time, and are best when they have the feel of being episodic; and when they try to go bigger with more special effects, we get Moonraker. I guess I’m also presuming that should they do a third installment of Elizabeth (Elizabeth: The Dark Queen Returns?), that she won’t be toting laser rifles.
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30 Days of Night
October 19
Directed by David Slade
I don’t know if there is any movie I’m looking forward to more this Fall than 30 Days of Night. Based on the hit comic by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 Days of Night has a premise so obvious that I’m surprised it hadn’t been done before: Barrow, Alaska is a town with no sunlight for 30 days each winter so a bunch of vampires descend on the town so that they can walk around at will.
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