SEPTEMBER 2008

BURN AFTER READING: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton (Directed by Joel Coen; Written by Ethan and Joel Coen; Focus Features) You’re not really a top male star in today’s Hollywood until you’ve played a hit man, something Brad Pitt did with aplomb in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” wherein he was assigned the challenging task of bumping off his wife, a spitfire who was hired to terminate her husband (and we all know who played the feisty hit woman). At any rate, it’s high time for George Clooney, Brad’s prime competitor in the superstar sweepstakes, to play an ace assassin, which is what he is doing on this playfully morbid Coen brothers occasion. Who are his targets? Not sure, but one of them might well be Ozzie Cox (John Malkovich), the former CIA agent who manages to misplace the manuscript of his tell-all book about his days as a spy. Another potential victim: Ozzie’s rabidly unfaithful wife (Frances McDormand). And possibly there is a bullet waiting for Brad Pitt, as a man of mystery who may be linked to Ozzie’s mate, or even to Ozzie himself. Opens 9/12

RIGHTEOUS KILL: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Carla Gugino, John Leguizamo, Donnie Wahlberg, 50 Cent, Brian Dennehy, Dan Futterman
(Directed by Jon Avnet: Written by Russell Gewirtz; Overture Films) As anyone who saw “The Godfather Part II” knows, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were terrific in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 masterwork. But they weren’t terrific together. That’s because De Niro appeared as the young Vito Corleone only in flashbacks and Pacino’s Michael remained very much in the present. They were terrific together, however, in Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1995), but only in the two brief scenes they shared. Well, that was then, and this is now. So you’ll see them together--and presumably terrific--throughout the entirety of this hardboiled thriller. What’s more, they’re even getting trendy, playing a pair of cops determined to capture a popular staple of the current movie scene--you guesed it, a serial killer! To read Guy Flatley’s 1973 interview with Robert De Niro, click here; for the interview Guy did with Al Pacino that same year, click here. Opens 9/12

CHOKE: Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald, Brad William Henke, Clark Gregg, Joel Grey, Bijou Phillips, Willi Burke (Written and directed by Clark Gregg; Fox Searchlight) A boy’s best friend is not always his mother, and that’s very much the case in this adaptation of "Choke," the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, cult author of "Fight Club." Yet, even though sicko lawbreaker Ida Mancini (Anjelica Huston) has always been cruel in her treatment of her son Victor (Sam Rockwell), the loyal lad foots the bill for her stay in a bizarre institution for women suffering from dementia. But how does he come up with the money, considering the fact that he is paid a mere pittance for his labors in a Colonial American theme park? Easy--he dines in elegant restaurants, pretends to be choking to death on his gourmet meal and then fleeces the sap who steps in to perform the Heimlich Maneuver. And, in his spare time, the orgasm-obsessed Victor attends 12-step meetings for sex addicts with Denny (Brad William Henke), his masturbation-crazed best friend. Meanwhile, mom's nurse (Kelly Macdonald) is hatching a scheme whereby an unsuspecting Victor will sire her child. Opens 9/26

NIGHTS IN RODANTHE: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, James Franco, Scott Glenn, Christopher Meloni, Mae Whitman, Viola Davis (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? Stay tuned. Opens 9/26