Last month, Entertainment Weekly published their usual guide to all the upcoming films being released from September through December.  This is the time of year when the Oscar-bait films come out to play, which generally leads to some terrific — and some terrible — offerings.  Here’s what caught my eye:

Extract — The new film from Mike Judge (Office Space), starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, and Ben Affleck.  I am there.

Capitalism: A Love Story — Michael Moore’s latest documentary.

The Informant! — Steven Soderbergh’s films are always interesting, even the ones I don’t connect with as much.  This true-life story of an FBI informant (played by Matt Damon) who develops superspy-like delusions sounds intriguing.

9 — Post-apocalyptic CG sock-puppets.

The Invention of Lying — I’ve been reading about this comedy, written and directed by Ricky Gervais (the original The Office) for ages now.  Can’t wait.

Where the Wild Things Are — Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the classic book by Maurice Sendak.  The first trailer absolutely sold me.  I am really curious to see what Mr. Jonze has created.

The Road — An adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel about a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.  It’s been delayed for almost a full year, but I’m still interested.  I have high hopes.

Toy Story & Toy-Story 2 3-D — Two great films, now in 3-D?  Should be a ton of fun.

Fantastic Mr. Fox — A stop-action animated kids’ movie by Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums)?  Color me curious.

The Box — The plot of this new film from Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) sounds like the plot of an episode of The Twilight Zone: A husband and wife are offered $1 million if they press a button on a small wooden box.  The catch: pushing the button will mean the death of someone, somewhere else around the world.

The Lovely Bones — I’m pretty much going to go see any movie Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) makes for the rest of his life.  Luckily, this adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel looks haunting.

Sherlock Holmes — Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and Robert Downey Jr. bring us a new take on Holmes.  Done and done.

Avatar — James Cameron’s first film since 1997’s Titanic, and he’s returning to sci-fi?  Like Peter Jackson, the master who gave us the first two Terminator films, Aliens, The Abyss, and True Lies always has my ticket.

So how many of that above lengthy list of films will I actually get to see??  (I did pretty well with last Fall’s list…)  I’ll keep you posted!!

I’ve been perusing my copy of Entertainment Weekly’s “Fall Movie Preview,” and there are some really interesting flicks coming our way in the next few months.  Here are some of the films I’m looking forward to:

Burn After Reading — It’s the next Coen Brothers movie, and it stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and John Malkovich.  It looks like the Coens are in goofy comedy mode with this one, which suits me just fine.

Appaloosa — Its a cowboy movie with Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris.  Don’t know too much about this one, but I’m interested.

Body of Lies — Director Ridley Scott is responsible for some of my favorite movies ever (Alien, Blade Runner…I’m even an enormous fan of the longer director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven), so he always has my ticket.  This one has to do with CIA operatives, and its headlined by Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist — After Arrested Development, Superbad, and Juno, I think I’ll watch Michael Cera (who plays Nick) in pretty much anything.  Nora is played by Kat Dennings, who was very funny as Catherine Keener’s daughter in The 40 Year Old Virgin.  This could wind up being a generic two-teens-looking-for-love chick flick, but the cast (and the sort-of bizarre title) has me interested.

Changeling — Babylon 5 mastermind J. Michael Straczynski wrote the script, and I’m eager to see how his distinct writing translates to the big screen.  It has nothing to do with sci-fi, but I’m still curious.  Its directed by Clint Eastwood, which helps.  

Zack and Miri Make a Porno — I love Kevin Smith, and this one features Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, both of whom are funny in pretty much everything.

RocknRolla — I’m still waiting for Guy Ritchie to make a movie half as good as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.  Maybe it’ll be this one?

Synecdoche, New York — Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) wrote and directed this film that, according to EW, “follows a frustrated theatre director who sets out to create a masterpiece to impress his estranged wife.  His project?  A life-size recreation of New York City, with thousands of actors all contained inside an improbably large warehouse.”  Um…okay.

What Just Happened? — The book of the same name that this movie is based on is sitting in my to-read pile, and I’m eager to get to it.  Its a Hollywood satire, and the film stars Bruce Willis, Robert DeNiro, and Sean Penn.  

Religulous — Bill Maher and Larry Charles take on religion.  I’ve mentioned this movie before on this site, and if I’m not mistaken it looks like its getting released in October.

The Road — Viggo Mortensen stars in this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s postapocalyptic novel.

Frost/Nixon — Adapted from a play of the same name, this film deals with the 1977 TV interviews between David Frost (Michael Sheen) and Richard Nixon (the great Frank Langella).  Even better, the movie also stars one of my favorite actors, Sam Rockwell (Galaxy Quest, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind).

The Spirit — Frank Miller (the comics superstar who wrote and illustrated Sin City, 300, The Dark Knight Returns, and many many other towering works) directs this film version of Frank Eisner’s crime-fighter from the 40’s and 50’s.  The first trailer was less than stellar, but I am most intrigued to see what Frank has cooked up.  The great cast (Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Jaime King) is also encouraging.

Quantum of Solace — The new James Bond movie.  There’s never really been a Bond movie that was a direct follow-up to the one that came before it, so this should be interesting.  (Diamonds are Forever SHOULD have picked up the story-threads from the dramatic cliff-hanger ending to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but sadly that film is one of the great missed opportunities of the Bond franchise.)

Whew!  That’s probably WAY more movies than I’ll ever get to see this fall, but they all sound good.  Can’t wait!

I love DVDs.   Love ‘em.   I love the great resolution and the surround sound.   I love watching all the behind-the-scenes special features and listening to the commentaries (which I often play while drawing Motion Pictures, among other projects).   I love getting to enjoy great TV shows in complete-season sets.   I love how I can re-watch, ad infinitum, the successful movies and shows that I love along with so many great selections that are a lot more obscure (I’m thinking about you, my live action The Tick complete series set…).

Yeah, I love DVDs.

And just as I find that I always have a pretty significant “to read” stack of books on my shelf as well as comics on my desk, I always seem to have a nice large stack of DVDs in my “to watch” pile.   Here are some of the DVDs I’m looking forward to enjoying in the coming weeks/months (if I ever get some free time!!):

Walk Hard: Extended Edition – Not exactly a home run from the Apatow factory, I did nonetheless very much enjoy this flick.   It’s worth it for the Beatles scene alone.   Apatow DVDs (Freaks and Geaks and Undeclared, as well as The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Superbad) have a habit of being pretty spectacular, crammed full of alternate takes, deleted scenes, and other fun stuff.   I’m hoping this one is too.

Cloverfield – I loved this in theatres…I’m eager to see if it holds up to a repeat viewing.

Juno – ditto.

Bee Movie – I missed this one in theatres.   Nothing that I saw or read about it made it jump out to me as a “must see,” but I’m an enormous Seinfeld fan so I’m looking forward to giving this a viewing.

John, Paul, Tom & Ringo – A series of lengthy interviews with 3 of the 4 Beatles which Tom Snyder conducted on various episodes of his talk show The Tomorrow Show in the late seventies and early eighties.   This includes John Lennon’s last televised interview, from 4/25/75.   I have never seen any of these episodes, so I’m very eager to check out this DVD collection.

Young Indiana Jones – Lucasfilm has released three enormous collections over the past year that collect the entire run of this show.   I have the first one.   I actually watched about half of it a few months ago.   The episodes I saw were the ones with the young, 10-12 year-old Indy.   They were rather hit-and-miss…I admired the concept of using the Young Indy character to educate the viewer about all sorts of different people and places in history (done via Indy’s Forrest Gump like encounters, in each episode, with all sorts of historical figures)…but I found many of the episodes I saw to be rather boring.   After watching a few of them, I started putting the episodes on in the background while I was drawing.   Its worth noting that the extras on this DVD set are stunning – each episode has lengthy documentaries about all the people and places and historical events mentioned in each episode – and I found these to be endlessly fascinating.   So why is this set still on my list?   Because I just happened to get sidetracked from this set right before the 1st episode with teen-aged Indy, played by Sean Patrick Flannery.   I’m really eager to see if those episodes are any good.   I just haven’t had a chance to get back to watching this set – hopefully sometime soon.

Robot Chicken Season 2 – I bow before the brilliance of this show.   If you’ve never seen it, you must seek it out to behold its glory.

King Kong: The Extended Edition — I liked Peter Jackson’s King Kong and eagerly bought this set when it came out, both to watch the extended version of the film as well as the extensive behind-the-scenes documentaries.   (The documentaries on the extended DVDs of the Lord of the Rings films are some of the best DVD special features I’ve ever seen.)   And yet, this DVD has been sitting unwatched on my shelf for almost 2 years now.   I’m not sure exactly why.   Maybe its just that the thought of sitting down for an even LONGER version of this flick (which was almost 3 hours in its original theatrical form) has been subconsciously daunting.  Well, hopefully I’ll get to it one of these days…

That’s all from me for now.   I have tickets to a late-night showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tonight…I’m pretty jazzed about that!   I’ll be posting my thoughts as soon as I get out of the movie late late tonight (more like early tomorrow morning), so check back soon to see what I thought!

On April 29th I wrote about my anticipation for all of this summer’s big-budget movies. But a quick perusal of last weeks’ Entertainment Weekly summer movie preview contained info on a number of smaller movies coming out this summer that sound like they’re also worth my ten bucks or whatever the hell it costs to go see a movie these days in downtown Boston.

Son of Rambow – Two British boys watch Rambo: First Blood and team up to film their own version. I saw the trailer last week and it looks dynamite. I have no idea of the story of the movie is anything like this at all, but the synopsis and the trailer remind me a lot of the 3 kids who made a shot for shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. (I mentioned this on April 21st , and my buddy Andy Mo was kind enough to forward me the link to the Vanity Fair article about these guys.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2004/03/raiders200403

I actually saw their version of Raiders at a sci-fi fan-film festival in Worcester a few years back, and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever beheld. I am desperate to see it again some day.) Anyhoos, that connection makes me very interested in this flick.

The Foot Fist Way – Apparently this is a comedy about a hapless tae kwon do instructor. It was made three years ago, and I’ve been reading about it on-line seemingly forever. According to EW, Will Farell used his clout to help this small film finally see a theatrical release. I’m intrigued.

Religulous – Bill Mahr and Larry Charles (writer for Seinfeld and director of Borat as well as many episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm) team up for a documentary about the state of world religion. I’m there.

Towelhead – Another movie I’ve been reading about on-line for quite a while. Its based on Alicia Elan’s 2005 novel about a 13 year-old girl of Lebanese descent. On the surface that doesn’t sound so much like my kind of movie, but its written and directed by Alan Ball (who wrote American Beauty), so I’m interested.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona – Directed by Woody Allen and starring Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, and Scarlett Johansson. I always try to give a new Woody Allen movie a chance, and this one has a spectacular cast.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – Just kiddin’!

I thought 2007 was a tremendous year for movies. Here are just a handful of terrific ‘07 flicks that I saw: Eastern Promises, The Darjeeling Limited, Grindhouse, Knocked Up, Superbad, The Simpsons Movie, The Mist, Gone Baby Gone, Margot at the Wedding, 300, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Juno, Charlie Wilson’s War, Ratatouille…I could go on and on.

And yet my recollection is that 2007 saw one of the most disappointing crop of big-budget summer movies in recent memory.   Other than a couple of the comedies mentioned above (Knocked Up, Superbad, and The Simpsons Movie), I found myself continually disappointed by practically every single summer flick I saw.   Those include:

Spider-Man 3 – What a disaster.   I’ve been mocking it for two weeks on this site, and we have barely plumbed the depths of my disappointment.   The first hour is pretty good (well, except for the whole Harry-has-amnesia thing), but then it just all falls to pieces.   Peter Parker combs his bangs over his forehead to show that us he’s evil.   Sandman agrees to help Venom kill Spider-Man for no reason whatsoever (an act made even more ridiculous considering that the whole first half of the movie bent over backwards to show us that Sandman is really an OK guy just trying to help his daughter).   That awful, awful dance number.   The way Gwen Stacy’s character is completely forgotten about.   That awful, awful dance number.   Ugh.

Shrek 3 –Mildly entertaining at best.

Transformers – Very much like ID4 to me — Big and dumb.   Like ID4, it was a ton of fun to see in the theatre for the first time – lots of eye-candy explosions, lots of great “audience cheering” moments – I would be dishonest if I claimed it wasn’t a blast.   But I really wish the movie was a bit smarter.   Optimus and the gang acting like idiots trying to hide around Spike Witwicky’s house (“my bad”) is kind of like Jeff Goldblum using his Mac powerbook to download a virus into the alien mothership’s computer.   I can’t see myself re-watching this too many times.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 – I really didn’t like Pirates of the Caribbean 1 or Pirates of the Caribbean 2, so I’m not sure what I was expecting.

Die Hard IV – To me, Live Free or Die Hard is kind of like The Godfather Part III. Hang on, bear with me.   I have always defended The Godfather Part III. My assertion is that if it had some other title, people would think it was a pretty decent gangster flick.   Not amazing, but enjoyable.   But because it’s the Godfather Part III, viewers compare it to the masterpieces that are the first two Godfather films…and of course Part III isn’t even close.   I feel the same way about Die Hard IV. If this had some other name, we’d think it was an OK action flick.   But calling it Die Hard is a big mistake.   Because there really, to me, is nothing that makes this a Die Hard film, other than that Bruce Willis’ character is named John McClane.   I just didn’t get any of the claustrophobic, race-against-time, one man against the world feel of Die Hard. And when people like me went in expecting Die Hard, they were disappointed.

Now, I am very excited for summer 2008.   Iron Man.   Indy.   Batman: The Dark Knight.   The X-Files.   The Incredible Hulk.   The Happening.   Get Smart.   Wall-E.   The Pineapple Express.   Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Those are some big movies, with a lot of potential.   Will summer 2008 like up to expectations more than summer 2007?   We’ll all find out soon enough!