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K
DIANE
KEATON
 ONE
BIG HAPPY: Steve Martin, Diane
Keaton (Paramount) What we have here is a comedy about a family
that is far from happy and has been that way for a long while. But
you can bet that Ma and Pa, played by Keaton and Martin, will patch
everything up in time for a big happy ending--just as they did in
“Father of the Bride” and "Father of the Bride
Part II." Opening date to be announced
FOR GUY FLATLEY'S 1974 LOS
ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW WITH DIANE KEATON,
click here.
NICOLE KIDMAN
 NINE:
Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard,
Nicole Kidman, Stacy Ferguson, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren, Judi Dench
(Directed by Rob Marshall; Written by Anthony Minghella and Michael
Tolkin; Weinstein Company) Who could forget “8 1⁄2,”
the stunning 1963 film in which Marcello Mastroianni, under the
direction of Federico Fellini, played a Felliniesque director who
made more women than movies? Certainly, composer Maury Yeston and
dramatist Arthur Kopit could not erase this classic from their memories.
That’s why, in 1982, they came up with a Broadway musicalization
of it starring the late, great Raul Julia as the womanizing auteur
on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The show, called “Nine,”
was successfully revived in 2003, showcasing the song-and-dance
skills of Antonio Banderas. And now, here comes the movie version
of the hit musical, directed by Rob Marshall, who gave us “Chicago,”
and starring Daniel Day Lewis, one of the few actors now working
who could be ranked alongside Marcello Mastroianni. Penelope Cruz
plays his mistress, Marion Cotillard, who triumphed as Edith Piaf
in “La Vie en Rose,” is his shortchanged wife, Nicole
Kidman is an actress who greatly inspires him, Kate Hudson is a
fashion reporter who intrigues him, and Sophia Loren will presumably
haunt him and us as the ghost of his Mama. Opens
11/25/09
RABBIT HOLE:
Nicole Kidman (Written by David Lindsay-Abaire;
Fox Searchlight) The serenity of a suburban family is shattered
when a four-year-old boy is killed by the driver of a speeding car.
Will a visit from the teen-ager who was behind the wheel bring solace
to the boy’s mother, or will it fill her with rage? David
Lindsay-Abaire's play won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and
Cynthia Nixon was awarded a Tony for her performance as the grief-ravaged
woman. Does that mean Nicole Kidman, who received an Oscar for "The
Hours," will be nabbing another statuette? Opening
date to be announced
EMMA’S WAR:
Nicole Kidman (Directed by Tony Scott; Fox)
Darn! Nicole’s paddling in hot political (maybe even terrorist)
water again, topping the trouble she encountered at the U.N. in
"The Interpreter." This time, she’s a British do-gooder
who falls hard for a Sudanese warlord, marries the bloke and then
eggs him on in his effort to seize a sizable chunk of his homeland.
Here's proof that behind every great warlord there is a great warlady.
Opening date to be announced
HEADHUNTERS:
Nicole Kidman (Written by Jez and John Henry
Butterworth; Fox 2000) Four not-quite-destitute women from New Jersey
have a brainstorm--they’ll trek to Monte Carlo, pretend to
be tres wealthy, and land four wealthy-for-real husbands.
As it turns out, the lads they land are just silly gold-digging
gigolos. Is this how to marry a millionaire? Based on what sounds
like a wildly original novel by Jules Bass, the movie will be produced
by Nicole Kidman, and it should be noted that Jez Butterworth, author
of Kidman’s un-festive “Birthday Girl,” is writing
the screenplay. His brother, John Henry Butterworth, is collaborating
with him, so maybe Jez will be luckier this time out. Opening
date to be announced
BEN KINGSLEY
 SHUTTER
ISLAND: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark
Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max Von Sydow, Emily Mortimer,
Elias Koteas, Patricia Clarkson, John Carroll Lynch, Jackie Earle
Haley (Directed by Martin Scorsese; Written by Laeta Kalogridis;
Paramount) Based on the frenzied 2003 novel by Dennis Lehane, author
of “Mystic River” and “Gone Baby Gone,”
“Shutter Island” spins a dark, dizzy tale. Set in 1954,
it revolves around the efforts of U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo
DiCaprio), a crazed war vet and recent widower, and his gullible
partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to capture a murderess who has
escaped from Ashecliffe Hospital, a home away from home for the
criminally insane. As it turns out, this funny farm, located on
a rocky island off Boston Harbor, is no laughing matter. The warden
himself boasts, “We take only the most damaged patients...we
take the ones no other facility can manage.” And it’s
clear that some of the doctors and nurses are even more damaged
than the patients and may be on the verge of hatching a horrific
scheme. All that the increasingly edgy Teddy and the seriously deranged
occupants of Ashecliffe need are a raging hurricane, hordes of rampaging
rodents, and the sudden return of the slippery, blood-thirsty femme
fatale. Which is undoubtedly what director Martin Scorsese will
give them in his bid to top the unblushing Grand Guignol of “Cape
Fear” and “The Departed.” Opens
10/2/09
GREG KINNEAR
 GREEN
ZONE: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear,
Amy Ryan, Brandan Gleeson, Jason Isaacs, Antoni Corone (Directed
by Paul Greengrass; Written by Paul Helgeland; Universal) The army
officer played by Matt Damon is assigned to work with a CIA official
on a mission to track down Saddam Hussein’s vanished weapons
of mass destruction. One of the problems is that the duo spend most
of their time in the Green Zone, the turf that is as safe as it
gets in Iraq but also so sheltered that it is difficult to get a
of view of what’s truly going on in the rest of the country.
The thriller, based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s “Imperial
Life in the Emerald City,” also stars Amy Ryan (“Gone
Baby Gone”) as a New York Times reporter investigating the
mystery of the missing weapons. To
read about more war movies, click here.
Opening date to be announced
SHAME
ON YOU: Dennis
Quaid, Greg Kinnear (Written and directed by Dennis Quaid) Good
old boy Spade Cooley was sometimes a bad old boy, most notably on
the day in 1961 when he stomped, strangled and burned his wife Ella
Mae to death in the presence of their daughter Melody. What madness
drove the famed Western Swing fiddler to murder? You’ll find
out a while after Quaid starts his cameras rolling on what he hopes
will be a New Orleans location. Katie Holmes was set to play Ella
Mae, but she dropped out due to a dizzying schedule. Greg Kinnear
will be on hand, however, as warbling cowboy Roy Rogers. To
read about more new biopics, click
here. Opening
date to be announced
KEVIN KLINE
 AS
YOU LIKE IT: Kevin Kline, Bryce
Dallas Howard, David Oyelowo, Adrian Lester, Brian Blessed, Janet
McTeer, Alfred Molina, Romola Garai, Justin Hoong-Fai Chan, Sacha
Bennett, Yee Tsou, Paul Chan (Directed by Kenneth Branagh; Picturehouse)
Kenneth Branagh, who brushed up his Shakespeare impressively in
filmed adaptations of “Henry V,” “Much Ado About
Nothing,” “Hamlet” and “Love’s Labour’s
Lost,” is at it again. But this time, with the complexly comic,
gender-bending romance of “As You Like It,” he’s
decided to stay behind the camera, and he’s taken the liberty
of moving the magical Forest of Arden to 18th-century Japan. Bryce
Dallas Howard and David Oyelowo play the love-struck Rosalind and
Orlando. And if Kevin Kline, as mercurial courier Jacques, is even
remotely as funny as he was playing Guy Noir in Robert Altman’s
“A Prairie Home Companion,” we’re in for a rollicking
time. Oooops! This one went directly to HBO/Cable.
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY
 ATONEMENT:
Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Vanessa Redgrave,
Romolo Garai, Saoirse Ronan, Brenda Blethyn, Juno Temple (Directed
by Joe Wright; Written by Christopher Hampton; Focus Features) In
the wake of her frantic yet flimsy contributions to the achingly
trivial “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy, Keira Knightley
apparently decided it was time to get serious. So she took on the
challenge of playing the tormented Cecilia Tallis in “Atonement,”
Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel.
This heavy-duty drama has been directed by Joe Wright, who, in 2005’s
“Pride & Prejudice,” helped Knightley reveal the
wit and vulnerability beneath her glossy, high-fashion façade.
Her spirited portrait of Emma Bennet earned an Oscar nomination,
and the fact that “Atonement” was selected to open the
2007 Venice Film Festival suggests she may well be among the Best
Actress nominees when the next batch of Oscars are handed out on
the night of February 24, 2008. Keira--or, rather, Cecilia Tallis,
the heroine of McEwan’s 2002 Booker Prize winner--is a privileged
member of a prominent 1930s British family who is home from Cambridge
in the summer of 1935 with handsome classmate Robbie Turner (James
McAvoy), the son of the Tallis’ cleaning woman who has risen
to the enviable position of Cecilia’s lover. Witnessing an
intimate exchange between the two, Cecilia’s dangerously imaginative
13-year-old sister Briony contrives a story so shocking that it
results in the imprisonment of Robbie. Life soon becomes a nightmare
for the Tallis clan and for those unfortunate enough to have been
part of their not-so-charmed circle. Their anguish endures through
many stages and does not end until the dawning of the 21st century.
So who plays the deceitful Briony? Saoirse Ronan, at the time of
the big lie; Romola Garai, at the age of 18; and , blessing of blessings,
Vanessa Redgrave as the older, presumably wiser, Briony. Now
Playing
BEYONCE KNOWLES
 CADILLAC
RECORDS: Adrien Brody, Jeffrey
Wright, Beyonce Knowles, Cedric the Entertainer, Mos Def, Eamonn
Walker, Gabrielle Union, Norman Reedus, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Tammy
Blanchard, Jay O. Sanders, Eric Bogosian (Written and directed by
Darnell Martin; TriStar Pictures) Chess Records, the Chicago label
that first gave voice to some of the world’s top rhythm and
blues greats, is paid tribute in this big-screen biopic written
and directed by Darnell Martin, the woman behind various episodes
of Law & Order, Grey’s Anatomy, ER and The L Word. Adrien
Brody plays Leonard Chess, the company’s co-founder and the
man who helped the legendary Etta James (Beyonce Knowles) kick a
harrowing drug habit. Jeffrey Wright takes on the role of Muddy
Waters, Moss Def is Chuck Berry and Cedric the Entertainer plays
Willie Dixon. In a recent New York Times article by Alan Light,
Beyonce Knowles described meeting 70-year-old Etta James shortly
after completing “Cadillac Records.” “She’s
honest and no-nonsense,” said the 27-year-old Knowles. “I
know that in some interviews she was like, ‘I don’t
know if she can play me.’ But when I met her, she said, ‘You
are a bad girl,’ and I know that’s the ultimate compliment
from her.” Click
here to read the entire New York Times article. Now
Playing
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
 HE’S
JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU: Ben
Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin
Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson,
Kris Kristofferson, Justin Long (Directed by Ken Kwapis; Written
by Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn; New Line Cinema) Smart, attractive
and variously driven men and women meet, mix, meld and sometimes
split in exotic, erotic Baltimore. The star-studded story is based
on the self-help book by “Sex and the City” writers
Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo and is being directed by Ken Kwapis,
who deserves credit for his contributions to television’s
“The Office,” “The Larry Sanders Show,”
“The Bernie Mac Show” and “Malcolm in the Middle.”
Mention should be made, too, of Kwapis’ big-screen, big-flop
“License to Wed,” starring a spectacularly unfunny Robin
Williams as a man of the cloth who's determined to put Mandy Moore
and John Krasinski through holy hell before deigning to marry them.
To read about more
new comedies, click here; for Diane
Baroni's 1998 interview with Kris Kristofferson, click
here. Opens 2/6/09
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TURNS, CLICK HERE.
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