fall preview - NOVEMBER
November Movie Listings
November 2
BEE MOVIE
Voices: Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger
Who Directed? Steve Hickner, Simon J. Smith
What’s It About? Seinfeld’s first movie role since pulling the plug on his beloved sitcom — in fact, his first movie role ever — sees him voicing disgruntled honeybee Barry B. Benson in this animated feature. After graduating from college Benson does the unthinkable and, instead of making honey like everyone else, leaves the hive to explore New York City. That’s where he discovers that humans, including a sympathetic florist (Zellweger) with whom he becomes friends, actually steal and eat the honey bees work so hard to make. Barry decides to sue.
THE KITE RUNNER
Who’s In It? Khalid Abdalla, Shaun Toub
Who Directed? Marc Forster (Stranger Than Fiction)
What’s It About? Forster’s final film before helming the next 007 blockbuster, Bond 22, is this drama about an Afghan-born man (Abdalla) living in the States who returns to his homeland after his childhood friend is killed and his son is kidnapped by the Taliban. Based on the best-selling novel by Khaled Hosseini.
AMERICAN GANGSTER
Who’s In It? Russell Crowe, Danzel Washington
Who Directed? Ridley Scott (Gladiator)
What’s It About? Washington plays real-life drug kingpin Frank Lucas, who built a drug empire in the 1960s and ’70s by smuggling heroin out of Vietnam in the coffins of dead soldiers. Crowe — doing his best American accent — plays Richie Roberts, an investigator-turned-lawyer who’s trying to nail Lucas, all the while developing a reluctant respect for the criminal.
November 9
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Vince Vaughn (top) and John Michael Higgins in Fred Claus
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SPOTLIGHT
FRED CLAUS
Vince Vaughn makes his Elf.
But where Will Ferrell’s candy-coloured Christmas movie saw him playing an innocent man-child out of place among the little people of the North Pole, Vaughn is a surly bad seed, more in line with Billy Bob Thornton’s conman from Bad Santa.
Vaughn plays Fred Claus, older brother to that jelly-bellied saint, Santa Claus (Paul Giamatti). All his life Fred has been compared to his little bro, and come up lacking. So he left the Pole and moved to the big city where he made a living as a repo man, and a dishonest one at that. When he’s caught stealing items he’s repossessed, it looks like Fred will go to jail.
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Santa, no surprise, comes to the rescue, agreeing to bail Fred out on
the condition that he move back to the North Pole and repay his debt by
helping the elves make toys.
David Dobkin, whose last movie was Vaughn’s Wedding Crashers, directs the film. Expect the same acerbic wit here. A fantastic supporting cast should also push this film from seasonal piffle to annual fave. Look for Miranda Richardson as Mrs.
Claus, Kathy Bates as the Claus boys’ mom, Kevin Spacey as the
business-minded Clyde and John Michael Higgins — who played Jennifer
Aniston’s harmonizing brother opposite Vaughn in The Break-Up — as
Willy the elf.
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LIONS FOR LAMBS
Who’s In It? Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise
Who Directed? Robert Redford (The Legend of Bagger Vance)
What’s It About? This intricate political drama is the first movie developed by Tom Cruise since being dumped by Paramount and taking over the United Artists branch of MGM. Redford, who also directs, plays a professor who unwittingly inspires two former students to join the fight in Afghanistan, while Cruise plays an ambitious Presidential hopeful who reveals something to a reporter (Streep) that may harm those soldiers.
November 16
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
Who’s In It? Benjamin Bratt, Javier Bardem
Who Directed? Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
What’s It About? Based on the novel by Gabriel García Márquez, this drama stars Bardem as Florentino Ariza, who has been in love with Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) since they had a youthful fling. But she rejected him and married Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Bratt). That doesn’t mean Ariza can’t keep trying.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Who’s In It? Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones
Who Directed? Joel and Ethan Coen (Intolerable Cruelty)
What’s It About? The Coen Brothers put their quirky twang on this thriller about Llewelyn Moss (Brolin) who discovers a whack of cash in the back of a truck that’s surrounded by dead bodies. He takes that cash, setting a bloody chain of events in motion. Lee plays the sheriff saddled with the case and Javier Bardem steps in as a professional killer with a bad haircut.
MR. MAGORIUM’S WONDER EMPORIUM
Who’s In It? Natalie Portman, Dustin Hoffman
Who Directed? Zach Helm (debut)
What’s It About? From the outside, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium looks like any other toy store. Inside, it’s anything but. The shop is clearly magical — toys come to life, can behave or misbehave, and turn on and off all on their own. But when Mr. Magorium (Hoffman) decides that he’s leaving and his assistant Molly (Portman) will be in charge, this wondrous place develops a dark side. See Natalie Portman interview.
BEOWULF
Who’s In It? Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins
Who Directed? Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away)
What’s It About? You may remember the old English poem Beowulf from school. Written it the Middle Ages it involves the warrior Beowulf (here played by Winstone) battling the demon Grendel (Crispin Glover). This live-action, but digitally enhanced (it looks like a videogame), retelling of the epic poem embellishes certain parts of the story, including a trumped up role for Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie, using the same accent she developed for Alexander).
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS
Who’s In It? Norah Jones, Jude Law
Who Directed? Kar Wai Wong (2046)
What’s It About? “Come Away With Me” singer Jones’s big-screen debut sees her starring in this episodic romance about a young woman who takes a trip across the States encountering strange characters —including a gambler (Natalie Portman) and an alcoholic cop (David Strathairn) — along the way. Law plays a café owner who feeds her pie.
November 18
WWE SURVIVOR SERIES
Check www.cineplex.com for a list of theatres where you can watch it live, and to buy tickets.
November 21
ENCHANTED
Who’s In It? Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey
Who Directed? Kevin Lima (102 Dalmations)
What’s It About? An evil queen banishes fairy tale, cartoon princess Giselle (Adams) to modern-day Manhattan (cue the live action). There, she falls in love with the only New Yorker who’s nice to her, a divorce lawyer (Dempsey).
HITMAN
Who’s In It? Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott
Who Directed? Xavier Gens (Frontier(s))
What’s It About? Olyphant plays genetically enhanced clone Agent 47 — named for the last two digits of the barcode on the back of his skull — whose ice-cold demeanour and mad shooting skills make him the world’s most efficient hitman.
THIS CHRISTMAS
Who’s In It? Columbus Short, Mekhi Phifer
Who Directed? Preston A. Whitmore II (Crossover)
What’s It About? The Whitfield family gathers for their first Christmas together in four years. And before they can open the presents, there’s a lot of baggage that needs to be unwrapped.
AUGUST RUSH
Who’s In It? Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell
Who Directed? Kirsten Sheridan (Disco Pigs)
What’s It About? Highmore (that cute kid from Finding Neverland) plays orphaned August Rush, a brilliant musician who uses his talent to try and track down his cellist mom (Russell) and guitarist dad (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), whose intense relationship came to an unfortunate end.
November 23
THE MIST
Who’s In It? Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden
Who Directed? Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption)
What’s It About? This third Stephen King story adapted by Darabont (after Shawshank and The Green Mile) takes place in a small town being attacked by strange creatures that arrived with a violent thunderstorm. Jane plays one of several people who take refuge in the local supermarket.
MARGOT AT THE WEDDING
Who’s In It? Nicole Kidman, Jack Black
Who Directed? Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale)
What’s It About? Baumbach’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed The Squid and the Whale once again taps the creative treasure trove of dysfunctional-family dynamics. Kidman plays Margot, who can’t figure out why her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is marrying Malcolm (Black). After all, as Margot puts it, he’s the kind of guy they used to reject when they were 16.
November 28
I’M NOT THERE
Who’s In It? Richard Gere, Christian Bale
Who Directed? Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven)
What’s It About? Very strange. Six different actors — Gere, Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw and even Cate Blanchett — play multifaceted rocker Bob Dylan at different stages of his life.
November 30
PATHOLOGY
Who’s In It? Milo Ventimiglia, Alyssa Milano
Who Directed? Marc Schoelermann (debut)
What’s It About? A group of medical students studying pathology (the nature and cause of disease) try to figure out the best way to kill someone so that it can’t be detected. But what starts out as a game doesn’t end that way.
THE CHRISTMAS COTTAGE
Who’s In It? Peter O’Toole, Jared Padalecki
Who Directed? Michael Campus (The Passover Plot)
What’s It About? Campus — who hasn’t directed a feature film since something called The Passover Plot came out in 1976 — returns to the helmer’s chair for this seasonal story about how mega-popular Thomas Kinkade (Padalecki) became an artist after learning that his mother was about to lose their house.
CASSANDRA’S DREAM
Who’s In It? Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell
Who Directed? Woody Allen (Scoop)
What’s It About? McGregor and Farrell play brothers who turn to crime in order to relieve their financial woes. But going illegit does very bad things to their relationship. This is Allen’s third film in a row that was shot in England. Has the director turned his back on his beloved New York for good?