Serious Cinema: Fall Films Roll Out

For the serious film buff, Labor Day kicks off an intense season when American filmmakers, studio-based and indie alike, compete like drunken sailors for the eyes and ears of every North American filmgoer. From now until Oscar time (February 2015), Hollywood studio flacks will swear that they care only about "serious cinema." Even queer-identified filmmakers will convince themselves that God, Oscar, or Harvey Weinstein will anoint them as this season's film flavormeisters.

As a wise man once said, "Nobody knows anything." This roughly translates into the notion that any one of the 16 fall 2014 releases I'll mention in this column stands a reasonable shot at, if not the great awards-season brass ring, at least a memorable night out for you and your favorite moviegoing companion.

September 2014

Last Weekend

Tom Dolby, scion of the fabled "Dolby Sound in selected theatres" family, offers a quirky family drama in which an anxious matriarch (a crackling good Patricia Clarkson) has come to the conclusion that it's time to ring down the curtain on her clan's eons-old tradition of seeing out the summer at their fabulous Lake Tahoe lakefront estate. This particular weekend, her adult gay son has chosen to bring along his latest trick, although this perky one-night-stand has his own ideas about how the script will play out.

This sharply observed portrait of an upper-income West Coast family is enlivened by a sharp ensemble, including Joseph Cross, notable for his high-wire comic turn in the film version of "Running with Scissors," Augusten Burroughs' sassy memoir of growing up crazy. (Sept. 12)

God Help the Girl

Stuart Murdoch (lead singer of "Belle & Sebastian") is the director of this Glasgow, Scotland-situated tale of a lass named Eve (Emily Browning), who chooses songwriting as therapy for emotional problems. Winner of a Sundance Jury Prize, Girl opens here on Sept. 12.

The Man on Her Mind This British rom-com is pitched to hopeless romantics, those with high standards and a rich fantasy life. Nellie is enjoying a secret affair with a successful lawyer who, it turns out, is a figment of her imagination.

Actually, Nellie bases her superman on wisps of memory of an actual blind date, a chap named Leonard. As it happens, Leonard is fanning his own fantasies with memories of Nellie. Can these delusional kids be brought face-to-face with the absurdity of their predicament?

Based on Alan Hruska's popular London stage play, the film version is co-directed by Bruce Guthrie and Hruska, with Amy McAllister and Samuel James recreating their stage roles. (Sept. 12)

This Ain't No Mouse Music

This 2013 Mill Valley Film Festival Audience Award winner from Berkeley filmmakers Chris Simon and Maureen Gosling follows the travels of Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie Records, along rural back roads, looking for alternatives to the soulless "mouse music" dominating the pop charts. (Sept. 19)

The Zero Theorem

They're back! In this case, the "they" in question are "12 Monkeys" director Terry Gilliam ("Brazil," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas") and two-time Oscar-winning actor Christoph Waltz, this time as Qohen Leth, a reclusive computer genius burdened with existential angst. Leth lives in splendid isolation in a fire-ravaged chapel, awaiting a phone call that he's certain will provide him with long-sought answers. (Sept. 19)

I Am Eleven

Director Genevieve Bailey gives 11-year-olds around the world a platform in this anthem to the digital-age doc. (Sept. 26)

The Boxtrolls

From the PG world of 3-D entertainment for the whole family comes a band of quirky creatures who have raised a human boy called Eggs (the voice of Isaac Hempstead White) in an underground cavern home beneath Cheesebridge. A plot by the film's villain, Archibald Snatcher (the voice of Sir Ben Kingsley), to rid the world of Boxtrolls gets Eggs fighting mad, and the result is this movie from directors Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable, along with writers Irena Brignull and Adam Pava, based on the book "Here Be Monsters" by Alan Snow. (Sept. 26)

October 2014

Kill the Messenger

Two-time Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner heads up an all-star cast in a dramatic thriller based on the true story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb.

Webb stumbles onto the sinister origins of the men who launched the crack epidemic on the nation's streets. Webb alleges that the CIA was aware of major dealers who were smuggling cocaine into the U.S., and using the profits to arm rebels fighting in Nicaragua.

Director Michael Cuesta ("Homeland") and screenwriter Peter Landesman's story, set in California, Nicaragua and Washington, DC, is based on the books "Dark Alliance" by Gary Webb, and "Kill the Messenger" by Nick Schou. In addition to Renner, the all-star cast includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Ray Liotta, Tim Blake Nelson, Barry Pepper, Oliver Platt, Michael Sheen, Paz Vega, Michael Kenneth Williams, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Andy Garcia. This R-rated thriller rolls out across the country Oct. 10, 17 & 24.

The Two Faces of January

Patricia Highsmith fans should be pleased with this suspense thriller starring Academy Award nominee Viggo Mortensen ("The Lord of the Rings," "The Road," "A History of Violence"), Cannes Best Actress winner Kirsten Dunst ("Spider-Man," "Melancholia," "Marie-Antoinette") and Oscar Isaac ("Drive," "The Bourne Legacy," "Inside Llewyn Davis"). Adapted by Academy Award nominee Hossein Amini ("Drive," "Snow White and the Huntsman"), the film is Amini's directorial debut.

In 1962, a well-heeled couple (Mortensen & Dunst) come to know an American expatriate acting as an Athens tour guide (Isaac). But an incident at the couple's hotel puts all three in danger and creates a precarious interdependence between them.

A tense and dangerous battle of wits between the two men leads them from Greece to Turkey, and to a dramatic finale played out in the back alleys of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. (Oct. 10)

The Green Prince

Director Nadav Schirman tells the story of the son of a founding leader of the Palestinian organization Hamas who becomes a spy for the Israelis. Winner of the World Documentary Audience Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and the opening-night film of the 34th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the film opens in the Bay Area on Oct. 10.

Whiplash

Damien Chazelle directs this music-school-based drama starring Miles Teller ("The Spectacular Now") and J.K. Simmons. Teller is an aspiring drummer who enters an elite conservatory's top jazz orchestra, in a film that copped the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Dramatic Feature at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. (Oct. 17)

Watchers of the Sky

Edet Belzberg directs this examination of the extraordinary life of Polish Jewish lawyer and human rights advocate Raphael Lemkin. Winner of the Editing category for U.S. Documentary and for use of Animation at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, this doc hits the Bay Area on Oct. 31.

November 2014

Foxcatcher

Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) directs Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo in a dark story of the unlikely and ultimately tragic relationship between an eccentric millionaire and two champion wrestlers. This Best Director Cannes Film Festival winner opens on Nov. 21 in the Bay Area.

Men, Women & Children

This Jason Reitman-directed adaptation of the novel by Chad Kultgen follows the story of a group of high school teenagers and their parents as they attempt to navigate the many ways the Internet has changed their relationships, their communications, their self-images, and their love lives.

The film attempts to stare down social issues such as video-game culture, anorexia, infidelity, fame hunting, and the proliferation of illicit material on the Internet. As each character and each relationship is tested, we are shown the variety of roads people choose -- some tragic, some hopeful -- as it becomes clear that no one is immune to the enormous social change that has come through our phones, tablets, and computers. (November)

The Theory of Everything

Eddie Redmayne ("Les Miserables") and Felicity Jones ("The Amazing Spider-Man 2") headline this true story of the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.

Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking receives an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of: Time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could have dreamed.

The film is based on the memoir "Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen" by Jane Hawking, and is directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh ("Man on Wire"). Marsh directs a script by Anthony McCarten ("Death of a Superhero") with an all-star cast: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, Emily Watson, Simon McBurney, and David Thewlis. Rolls out beginning Nov. 7.

December 2014

Mr. Turner

Director Mike Leigh explores the last quarter-century of the life of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall). This winner of the Best Actor prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival opens for Christmas in the Bay Area.