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L
DIANE LANE
 NIGHTS
IN RODANTHE: Diane Lane, Richard
Gere, James Franco, Scott Glenn, Christopher Meloni, Mae Whitman,
Viola Davis, Pablo Schreiber, Charlie Tahan, Austin James (Directed
by George C. Wolfe; Written by Ann Peacock and John Romano; Warner
Bros.) In “Unfaithful,” Adrian Lyne’s tense, sexy
2002 thriller, Diane Lane and Richard Gere were suitably shocking
as a cheating wife and her murderously vengeful husband. Now, in
an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ novel, they’re reteamed
as a straying wife and a brooding stranger who meet and mate at
a quaint Southern inn. She cheats because her loser of a husband
doesn’t seem to want her to stick around; he broods because
his estranged son--with whom he hopes to reconnect--considers him
a jerk. Will this couple ever make it out of the inn? Now
Playing
JESSICA
LANGE
 GREY
GARDENS: Drew Barrymore, Jessica
Lange, Olivia Waldriff (Directed by Michael Sucsy; Written by Patricia
Rozema and Michael Sucsy; HBO Films) Little Edith Bouvier Beale
was Jacqueline Kennedy's cousin, and her mother, Big Edith Bouvier
Beale, was the First Lady’s aunt. At one time, the two Edies
lived sumptuously on Manhattan’s Park Avenue, but they ended
up in a squalid, raccoon-infested estate on Long Island. Thanks
to the intervention of Jackie, the East Hampton health department
did not carry through with its plan to raid the dump. But that didn’t
keep the messy eccentrics out of the headlines, and eventually they
became the subjects of “Grey Gardens,” a memorable 1976
documentary made by David and Albert Maysles. Now an expanded version
of their story that includes material on the young Jackie Bouvier
(portrayed by 8-year-old Olivia Waldriff) and covers Little Edie’s
late-blooming career as a nightclub chanteuse is headed your way.
Let us hope that Jessica Lange has more luck playing Drew Barrymore’s
mom than she did playing Christina Ricci’s in the wretched
“Prozac Nation.” Opening
date to be announced
FRANK LANGELLA
 FROST/NIXON:
Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell,
Kevin Bacon, Matthew Macfadyen, Oliver Platt, Patty McCormack, Toby
Jones, Jenn Gotzon, Rebecca Hall (Directed by Ron Howard; Written
by Peter Morgan; Universal) Richard Nixon may be the second worst
president the American public ever had to endure. In 1977--three
years after bidding a mortifying adieu to the White House, thereby
avoiding impeachment because of the Watergate scandal--he agreed
to appear in a series of televised conversations with British media
giant David Frost. Nixon learned too late that he should have played
harder to get; as it turned out, Frost stripped him bare, exposing
his soul for anyone who owned a television set to see. Fortunately,
Peter Morgan, author of the screenplay for “The Queen,”
decided to explore the confrontation between these two strong-willed
men in dramatic terms. The resulting play was a triumph in London
and on Broadway. Best of all, director Ron Howard had the smarts
to nail Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, the duo who brought Nixon
and Frost to riveting life on stage (Langella won a Best Actor Tony
for his take on Tricky Dicky). An unexpected bonus: Patty McCormack,
the kid who received an Oscar nomination for her playing of the
title role in the 1956 flick "The Bad Seed," plays the
long-suffering Pat Nixon this time out. To
read about other new movies based on plays, click
here. Now Playing
ALL
GOOD THINGS: Ryan
Gosling, Kirsten Dunst, Frank Langella, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kristin
Wiig, Trini Alvarado, Philip Baker Hall, Diane Venora, Lily Rabe,
John Cullum, Nick Offerman (Directed by Andrew Jarecki; Written
by Andrew Jarecki, Marc Smerling and Marcus Hinchey; The Weinstein
Co.) Real estate is almost always a profitable game to play in Manhattan,
but sometimes it can be murder. Literally, as it turns out in this
thriller about a wealthy family that plays--and perhaps slays--together.
The movie marks the fictional-feature debut of Andrew Jarecki, who
directed “Capturing the Friedmans,” the chilling documentary
about a very different sort of family.
Opening
date to be announced
THE CALLER:
Frank Langella,
Elliott Gould, Laura Harring, Anabel Sosa, Helen Stenborg, Gregory
Ellis, Axel Feldmann (Directed by Richard Ledes; Written by Richard
Ledes and Alain Didier-Weill; Belladonna Productions)
Whistle blowers are, almost by definition, losers. They may
experience a rush of pride, a flash of glory for their role in exposing
the corrupt schemes and brutal deeds of their corporate bosses,
but in the end they are the ones left without a job or friends to
offer a supporting hand. Or sometimes--as in the case of Jimmy Stevens,
a tell-all employee at a firm whose top executives are guilty of
major criminal activity (including murder) in Latin America--they
are left without much hope of staying alive. That’s why Jimmy
(Frank Langella) hires Frank Turlotte, a quirky but reliable private
eye (Elliott Gould) to keep tabs on people who might be tailing
him. Before long, Turlotte suspects that the man he should be tailing
is Jimmy Stevens himself. And it seems clear that the detective
should not lose sight of the femme fatale played by Laura Harring
(slinking back on track in the aftermath of all the schlock roles
that followed her dynamite performance in David Lynch’s “Mulholland
Drive.”) This noir thriller is one of what appears to be a
trio of upcoming winners for veteran actor Frank Langella, the other
two being “Frost/Nixon,” in which he creates his Tony
Award performance as the disgraced Tricky Dicky, and “All
Good Things,” a murder mystery from Andrew Jarecki, director
of the terrific documentary, “Capturing the Friedmans.”
And it’s good to have Elliott Gould back in what sounds like
a role of substance. Click
here for Guy Flatley's 1973 New
York Times interview with Elliott Gould. Opening date
to be announced
QUEEN LATIFAH
 MAD
MONEY: Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah,
Katie Holmes, Ted Danson, Adam Rothenberg (Directed by Callie Khouri;
Written by Glenn Gers; Overture Films) What’s Bridget Cardigan
(Diane Keaton), a cultured upper-class wife and mom, to do when
Don (Ted Danson), her corporate-executive husband, is shown the
door by his heartless firm? If she’s a flaky, latter-day Annie
Hall, she blithely gets the only kind of job available to a woman
of a certain age with no work history and a useless English degree.
She picks up a bucket of water and starts mopping away at the Federal
Reserve Bank. Not only does she rapidly become a first-rate janitor,
but (with the help of a couple of sticky-fingered sister-employees
played by Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes), a breadwinner to make
her downsized hubby drool with envy. Now
Playing
JUDE LAW
 THE
REPOSSESSION MAMBO: Jude Law,
Liev Schreiber, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga (Directed by Miguel
Sapochnik; Written by Eric Garcia and Garret Lerner; Universal)
Would you buy an artificial organ on an installment plan from a
company that reserved the right to terminate you if you default
on payment? That’s the decision facing somebody--perhaps Jude
Law and/or Forest Whitaker--in this sci-fi thriller set in the near
future. If things go as planned, “The Repossession Mambo”
will take possession of your local theater before “Repo! The
Genetic Opera,” a similarly themed musical directed by Darren
Lynn Bousman, whose previous assaults on our sanity include "Saw
II," "Saw III" and "Saw IV." Opening
date to be announced
JENNIFER JASON
LEIGH
 MARGOT
AT THE WEDDING: Nicole Kidman,
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, Zane Pais, John Turturro, Ciaran
Hinds, Halley Feiffer (Written and directed by Noah Baumbach; Paramount
Classics) “The Squid and the Whale” was one of the sharpest,
funniest and most moving films of 2005, and it should have won at
least one Oscar--maybe the Best Original Screenplay award, for which
writer/director Noah Baumbach was nominated. In Baumbach's follow-up
film, the Margot who goes to the wedding of her pregnant sister
Pauline is played by Nicole Kidman; Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Pauline,
and Jack Black is Malcolm, the blushing, bungling groom-to-be.
Now Playing
LAURA LINNEY
 THE
SAVAGES: Laura Linney, Philip
Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco, Peter Friedman, Gbenga Akinnagbe,
Cara Seymour, Debra Monk, Margo Martindale, Salem Ludwig (Written
and directed by Tamara Jenkins; Fox Searchlight) Wendy and Jon Savage
(Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) are siblings who loathe
one another with an intensity that does indeed border on the savage.
Fortunately, they now live in different cities and are never ever
tempted to turn back the clock and replay traumatic scenes from
their dysfunctional-family past. Wendy, a wannabe playwright who
dabbles in meds and steady-dates a guy she hopes to marry (the chief
obstacle being his claim that he is madly in love with his current
wife), resides in New York’s East Village. Brother Jon, on
the other hand, has shuffled off to Buffalo, where his twin obsessions
are the writing of perversely esoteric books and dodging conversations
about commitment and marriage with his natural-born-homemaker girlfriend.
What could possibly derail Wendy and Jon from their individual pursuits
of non-familial happiness? Phone calls informing them that their
dear old dad (Philip Bosco) is more demented than usual and in urgent
need of hands-on caretaking. Sounds like a family reunion to remember.
Now Playing
LINDSAY LOHAN
 LABOR
PAINS: Lindsay
Lohan, Chris Parnell, Cheryl Hines, Luke Kirby, Connie Britton (Directed
by Lara Shapiro; Written by Lara Shapiro and Stacey Kramer; Nu Image)
Nobody ever suggested that toilers in the fiercely competitive field
of publishing climb to the top by being sweet and supportive to
their colleagues. And the cut-throat race to survive gets deadlier
with each new cost-cutting, outsourcing day. That may or may not
explain why the bright but shakily employed assistant played by
Lindsay Lohan finds it necessary to feign pregnancy to prevent her
heartless boss from giving her the sack. If the cad continues to
harass her, she might have to slap him with a paternity suit.
Opening date to be announced
JENNIFER LOPEZ
 THE
GOVERNESS: Jennifer Lopez (Directed
by Nigel Cole; Written by Kevin Wade and Wendy Braff; Yari Film
Group) Would Jennifer Lopez make a nifty nanny? We’ll find
out when we see this comedy in which she watches over the three
bratty kids of a wealthy, presumably marriageable widower. Not that
J. Lo has plans for becoming a mom with a ready-made family--the
only reason she signed on for this gig is that being employed by
big-bucks daddy puts her on the path to the perfect bank heist.
Did we forget to mention that this versatile lady is a wildly successful
thief? It should be noted that co-screenwriter Kevin Wade, also
supplied the script for “Maid in Manhattan,” Lopez’s
popular, if pathetic, romantic comedy. Ralph Fiennes, her leading
man on that occasion, is not planning an encore. Opening
date to be announced
AMERICAN
DARLINGS:
Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez (New Regency Films) Nicole and J.
Lo were obviously born to play a couple of music-mad chicks determined
to make it in the all-male, pre-World War II club scene. Lucky for
the girls, Pearl Harbor happens along and things begin to open up
for women musicians. But even then, Nicole and J. Lo are forced
to depend on the kindness of numerous male strangers who've played
in bands. Even though Kidman is so keen on this project that she
agreed to serve as its producer (along with "Chicago"
producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron), she definitely faces a challenge
in selling it to Joe Public. I figure the only way she and J. Lo
can make it fly is to sign up Ben Affleck, B. Diddy, Marc Anthony,
Tom Cruise, Ewan McGregor and Keith Urban to play some of the boys
in the band. Opening date to be announced
BRIDGE
AND TUNNEL: Jennifer Lopez (Directed
by Greg Berlanti; Written by Greg Berlanti and Michael Green; New
Line) You’ve got to hand it to J. Lo--she’ll try anything.
In this movie--optimistically categorized as a romantic comedy--she
plays an enterprising Manhattan stock trader who hires a suburban
teenager to make her look smart by researching promising trades
for her on his own little home PC. Well, why shouldn’t
she? Opening date to be announced
SOPHIA LOREN
 NINE:
Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard,
Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Stacy Ferguson, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren
(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
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