After a summer movie season that left audiences generally uninterested, the fall and holiday lineup offers the promise of fresh films with an exotic cast of characters that includes country music legends, a great ape, teen wizards and a Japanese geisha.
The long-awaited adaptation of the best seller “Memoirs of a Geisha,” director Rob Marshall’s follow-up to “Chicago,” stars Ziyi Zhang as a poor Japanese girl who becomes a geisha goddess.
Other big films include Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” a thriller about the slayings of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics; “All the King’s Men,” starring Sean Penn as the Southern political boss of Robert Penn Warren’s classic novel; and “Jarhead,” a Gulf War tale with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx.
Also planned are “The New World,” Terrence Malick’s epic set in colonial America with Colin Farrell; and “Elizabethtown,” Cameron Crowe’s romance starring Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom.
Also on the schedule are “The Weather Man,” with Nicolas Cage as a TV forecaster who has a stormy personal life; “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” starring 50 Cent as a street hood aiming for a rap-music career; “Oliver Twist,” Roman Polanski’s fresh take on the Charles Dickens orphan-boy classic, featuring Ben Kingsley; the animated “Wallace &Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” the big-screen debut of TV’s cheese-loving Brit and his faithful dog; and “In Her Shoes,” a sister-act tale from director Curtis Hanson (“Wonder Boys,” “L.A. Confidential”).
“In Her Shoes” follows two sisters, one a knockout (Cameron Diaz) who has leeched all her life off her workaholic sibling (Toni Collette), and the grandma (Shirley MacLaine) who helps them reconnect after a bitter estrangement.
Science-fiction and fantasy are shaping up as some of the season’s biggest attractions, led by “The Lord of the Rings” mastermind Peter Jackson’s new take on “King Kong,” starring Naomi Watts as the beauty who steals the heart of the gigantic primate.
The fourth “Harry Potter” tale casts the young hero (Daniel Radcliffe) into an international wizardry competition that leads him to another showdown with dark sorcerer Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).
Hollywood’s current love affair for fantasy continues with “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” adapted from C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” series and starring Tilda Swinton and Jim Broadbent.
Fall’s fantasyscape also includes the video-game adaptation “Doom,” starring The Rock as part of a commando force taking on creatures from another realm on Mars; and “Serenity,” a sci-fi adventure.
After scoring with the TV version of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Joss Whedon created a smart, funny show called “Firefly,” about misfits living on the edge of the law aboard the rickety space ship Serenity 500 years in the future.
“Firefly” lasted only 14 episodes but its cult audience kept interest alive. Now Whedon has directed the big-screen continuation “Serenity,” reuniting the “Firefly” cast.
Sarah Jessica Parker also returns to the big screen in “The Family Stone.” After her TV series “Sex and the City,” playing a career woman who makes a terrible impression on her fiance’s relatives when meeting them for the first time.
Also trying something different are Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash in director James Mangold’s “Walk the Line.”
Also on the musical front: “Rent,” director Chris Columbus’ follow-up after making the first two “Harry Potter” flicks; and “The Producers,” Susan Stroman’s adaptation of Mel Brooks’ Broadway show that won a record 12 Tonys. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick reprise their roles.
Charlize Theron and Keira Knightley each have two wildly different films coming. Both actresses step into full action mode, Theron with “Aeon Flux,” adapted from the animated sci-fi TV show, Knightley with “Domino,” a casino-heist caper inspired by the real-life story of actor Laurence Harvey’s daughter, who quit her modeling career to become a bounty hunter.
Knightley also headlines the 18th century period piece “Pride &Prejudice,” a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic about love, marriage and Britain’s rigid social-class structure.
Theron also stars in “North Country,” a drama about a single mother who takes groundbreaking legal action over sexual harassment by co-workers at a Minnesota mining company in 1989.
Steve Martin also has a twofer season with “Cheaper By the Dozen 2,” reprising his role from the 2003 family hit as patriarch of a family of 12 kids, and “Shopgirl,” adapted from his short novel.
“Shopgirl” stars Claire Danes as a Saks clerk wooed by a rich older man (Martin) and a younger guy (Jason Schwartzman). The story originated with Martin’s long-held interest in how people go about looking for love.
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