By Robin E. Simmons
September brings an end to summer’s big, loud, popcorn, tent-pole extravaganzas about super heroes, robots and monsters. Fall ushers in a time of indie, art, foreign dramas and sly comedies. It’s a favorite movie time for adult movie fans. Some of these films will play in the CV, others in LA. But finally most, if not all, will be available on-line or for the home theater. Here are some random titles that have caught my attention. Keep an eye out.
MY OLD LADY
Kevin Kline plays a depressed, alcoholic, down-on-his-luck New Yorker who unexpectedly inherits a few books and a multi-million Euro apartment in Paris from his detested, estranged father. His plan is to go to Paris and sell the place and buy himself a new lease on life. However, he soon discovers there’s an elderly tenet (Maggie Smith) who, based on an obscure French real-estate law, rightfully refuses to move. And her daughter (Kristin Scott Thomas) also lives in the building.
What sounds like a dark comedy is more an angst ridden extended conversation about failures and resentments. I though of Ibsen. Nice production design and exterior locations help flesh out Israel Horowitz’s stage play. Horowitz, who is 75, has written over 70 plays but this adaptation from his 2002 play is his first produced screenplay. From Cohen Media Group
THE DROP
A great cast brings life to a riveting thriller with a big twist. Tom Hardy’s a loner who tends bar and on the side channels cash to local gangsters when he’s suddenly caught between a heist gone very wrong and an intense investigation that’s closing in. Besides Hardy, who is very hot right now, there’s Noomi Rapace and the late James Gandolfini. Dennis Lehane wrote the story and Michael Roskam directs. From Fox Searchlight Pictures
HONEYMOON
I’m hoping this unseen by me movie is a loving homage to 1950’s low budget drive-in B horror movies. I’m basing this on the multiple posters that suggest a cleverness beyond the budgetary restrictions. I realize that’s a big, risky wish. Press and production notes tell a simple story about a young couple (Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway) who honeymoon in a remote lake country. One night, the husband finds his wife wandering disoriented and suspects something is very wrong. And apparently he’s right. Co-written by Leigh Janiak and Phil Graziadei. Janiak directs. From Magnet Releasing
ROCKS IN MY POCKETS
Latvian-born but U.S. based filmmaker Signe Baumane’s personal, complex and dense animated film tells five fantastical stories of brave women battling madness. This fascinating feature film debut was not only written and directed by Baumane but also voiced by her with her thick accent intact. Filled with irony and wit, the film also tells a mini-history of 20th century Latvia along with a surprisingly personal look at mental illness. I love the stream of consciousness narration along with the eclectic mix of stop motion and classic hand-drawn images – all 30,000 of them. This surreal, sometimes silly (in a very good way) milestone is showing in only two theaters (NY & LA) during September. More art houses will follow in a wider release. From Zeitgeist films
TRACKS
This incredible true adventure from the producers of THE KING’S SPEECH stars Mia Wasikowska as a young woman who leaves her ordinary, every-day city life behind to trek through nearly 2,000 miles of rough Australian outback where she runs into a National Geographic photographer (Adam Driver). John Curran directs Marion Nelson’s screenplay. It’s been a while since we’ve had a lushly photographed, epic romantic adventure. From The Weinstein Co.
HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS
Oh, how we love our quirky Brits. “Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness. You hold all the cards,” says a wise man on a mountain to seeker Hector (Simon Pegg), a psychiatrist dissatisfied with his humdrum life on a global quest to uncover the secret of true happiness. Toni Collette and Rosamund Pike costar in a screenplay by Maria von Heland, Peter Chelsom and Tinker Lindsay and directed by Chelsom. This wise film discovers anew the fundamental truth that it’s not the “pursuit of happiness” that matters but the “happiness of pursuit.” From Relativity
LIFE’S A BREEZE
I love off-beat, eclectic movies that follow eccentric characters on crazy quests – especially if the characters dwell in the UK. Here we have an unemployed slacker (are there other kinds?), his elderly mum mother and a young niece in a desperate race race to recover mum’s stash of nearly one million Euros they’ve inadvertently thrown out while tidying up her disorganized apartment. This heartfelt, deadpan “recession comedy” is about a family struggling to stay afloat is all the funnier because it stays real. Well, mostly. Pat Shortt, Fionnula Flanagan and Eva Birthistle co-star in writer director Lance Daly’s first Irish film since KISSES. From Magnolia Pictures
