The weather isn’t the only thing that changes when summer segues into fall. While the weather may begin to cool down, the fall film season heats up, bringing a wave of new, intriguing films to wide audiences. The month of October will bring new films that are potentially huge box-office hits and may end up in awards conversations come December; they are interest-piquing, to say the least.
For the first film, the wait isn’t long at all. Already being advertised on television in preparation for its Oct. 4 release, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” director Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” stars box-office juggernauts Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts who find themselves stranded in space after an accident disables their space station. From the terrifying trailers alone, the film looks to be a visual stunner. The film has already received critical acclaim following its screenings at film festivals in Venice, Telluride, Colo., and Toronto and is drawing comparisons to last year’s “Life of Pi,” with praise going to its visuals, music and acting. It looks fantastic and is definitely one to check out.
The second week of October, brings Tom Hanks back to the big screen in the first of his two reality-based films of 2013 in “Captain Phillips.” (“Saving Mr. Banks,” in which Hanks stars as Walt Disney himself, is due out in December.) Directed by Paul Greengrass, whose credits include “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “United 93,” the film follows Hanks’s titular captain, Richard Phillips, as he attempts to ensure the survival of himself and the crew during the 2009 hijacking of the MV Maersk Alabama cargo ship by Somali pirates. From the early trailers, Greengrass and Hanks make a good combination, as the film looks to be full of suspense and excitement. Early reception to the film has been positive, with Hanks’s name being thrown around as a potential nominee in the Best Actor category for next year’s Academy Awards. Awards attention or not, the film looks good, worth checking out when it hits theaters Oct. 11.
Oct. 18 sees a Stephen King novel brought to the big screen once again as “Carrie” is released. A new adaptation of King’s 1974 novel – already notably adapted in 1976 with Sissy Spacek in the title role – stars “Hugo” and “Kick-Ass” actress Chloe Grace Moretz as Carrie White, a bullied teen who discovers she has strong telekinetic powers. Remakes and adaptations can be tricky to pull off; they can either capture the spirit of the original or completely separate themselves from the original’s legacy, which can be good or bad. Judging from the first trailers, the film seems to have captured the horror well. However, it remains to be seen how the talented Moretz and her director, “Boys Don’t Cry” filmmaker Kimberly Peirce, can make a good final product. Originally due out in March, the film was pushed back to October, just in time for horror fans to get a glimpse of it before Halloween.
The final Friday of October, Oct. 25, brings one of my most anticipated films of the year to the big screen: Ridley Scott’s “The Counselor.” A crime drama set in the American Southwest, the film – notably the first screenplay from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Blood Meridian,” Cormac McCarthy – follows a lawyer only known as “Counselor,” played by “X-Men: First Class” star Michael Fassbender, who tries to enter the drug trade without being sucked in. Judging from the film’s gripping trailers, this plan doesn’t work out that way, and the counselor finds himself in a world of deception and danger that he may or may not be able to escape. Outside of Fassbender, the film features an ensemble packed full of star power, featuring Oscar-winner Javier Bardem as a wild-haired drug dealer, Oscar-winner Penelope Cruz as the counselor’s fiancé, Brad Pitt as the counselor’s mysterious contact and Cameron Diaz as a sociopathic femme fatale. With this massive cast and prestigious writer/director combination (Scott’s works include “Alien” and “Gladiator”), “The Counselor” sounds like a crime drama that is not to be missed.
