The Pitch fall guide to film
Forget the summer blockbusters. Jurassic World has stomped away. The Terminator was indeed back, but now he’s gone again. We are all dosed to the gills on Marvel. So now comes the last quarter, the season in which prestige and spectacle go together like the lenses in a pair of 3-D glasses. The big-budget stuff is meant to appear more serious, the lighthearted films more actorly, the A-list names more burnished by their association with fellow A-listers. Expectations are high, the potential for disappointment profound (especially in the case of a certain monolithic franchise).
There’s no shortage of intriguing titles on the way, from legitimate Oscar bait to small pictures that almost play better in a quiet living room. For the purposes of this list, though, the point is simple: These are the ones for which I’ve already got ticket money in hand, even if I’ve already seen them for free in order to review them. I wouldn’t want to miss any of these on a real screen, preferably on opening weekend — maybe before dark, for a matinee price, so I can see a certain monolithic franchise a few times.
Black Mass (September 18)
You have to go back to 1997’s Donnie Brasco for a Johnny Depp title that’s not a Tim Burton fiasco, a dubious-accent showcase, a period misfire, or some combination thereof. Playing real-life gangster Whitey Bulger might at last be a return to acting rather than stylization. Fingers crossed.
The Martian (October 2)
Ridley Scott follows up his dismal Prometheus with a more humanistic sci-fi tale, one taken from a decent novel and starring Matt Damon and a bunch of other highly likable actors.
Bridge of Spies (October 16)
Steven Spielberg directs a Coen brothers script that’s based on real Cold War events. Tom Hanks stars. It almost sounds too easy.
Spectre (November 6)
This time, it’s Christoph Waltz facing off against Daniel Craig’s James Bond. Sam Mendes directs again, following Skyfall‘s record-breaking success. It does sound too easy. But impossible not to be excited about.
In the Heart of the Sea (December 11)
Nathaniel Philbrick’s National Book Award-winning narrative-history thrill ride gets the Ron Howard treatment, with Chris Hemsworth at the helm of a solid cast. Whale rams ship. Survivors struggle. Father’s Day in December.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (December 18)
Sleeper.
The Hateful Eight (December 25)
Quentin Tarantino, shooting in 70 mm, attempts to ascend Mt. Sergio Leone with a winter Western starring Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson and 1,000 blood squibs.
Joy (December 25)
Writer-director David O. Russell teams a third time with Jennifer Lawrence, playing a different kind of American hustler: Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano. Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper also turn up.
The Revenant (December 25)
Alejandro Iñárritu, coming off Oscars for last year’s Birdman, here pits Leonardo DiCaprio against Tom Hardy in a frozen frontier hell. Based on Michael Punke’s gritty novel, taken mostly from actual history, it tells a simple story: Trapper left for dead seeks revenge; fur flies. And so did a bunch of the crew during a long, cold, all-natural-light shoot.
