College is all about finding your niche, and as the new semester begins, scads of incoming freshmen will begin the quest to find their place in the social scene here on the Hill. It's a mortifying rite of passage, but these flailing fledglings can take comfort in the fact that they're not the only ones looking to find the right clique.
At the same time, the movie industry is bracing itself for the awkward gap between the summer blockbuster season and the end-of-year Oscar rush. With the uncertainty of a freshman entering a frat party, anxious production companies release films hoping to score a genre gem instead of falling into the no man's land of forgettable miscellany.
At Tufts, we have the frat guys and the engineers, the drama majors and the international students. And like these generalizations and labels we so quickly employ, this fall's movies can also be sorted into broad categories.
First, there are the summer leftovers. These are the films whose flashy special effects and scintillating action sequences are meant to satisfy those for whom "Stealth" just didn't cut it. Then again, Jodie Foster's return to big-budget films might not either; her breathy performance in the airline melodrama, "Flightplan" (Sept. 23), is shaping up to be a mediocre copy of August's "Red Eye." And considering that Book Four was the beginning of a two-novel backslide for J.K. Rowling, only time will tell if "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (Nov. 18) will break the PG-13 boundary with its dignity intact.
Action die-hards, however, will surely find more mature fare in "Domino" (Oct. 14), the based-on-a-true-story tale of model-turned-bounty hunter Domino Harvey (budding actress Keira Knightley). The semi-autobiographical "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" (Nov. 11) has rapping sensation Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson playing opposite rising superstar Terrence Howard. We saw in this summer's "Hustle & Flow" that Howard can rap, but it remains to be seen if Jackson can act.
Next come the horror flicks, those shock-effect extremists who arrive just in time to coincide with trick-or-treating. When Halloween rolls around, slasher fans usually rejoice, but "Evil Dead" loyalists will face a more intellectually stimulating selection this year. "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" (Sept. 9) kicks things off by probing into the well-traveled territory of theology and the occult, but in a spine-tingling true-story context.
Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride" (Sept. 23) will resurrect Burton's flair for clever stop-motion animation, and his fifth collaboration with leading voice Johnny Depp could redeem them for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Finally, "Stay" (Oct. 21) rounds out the bewitching hour with Ewan McGregor, Ryan Gosling, and Naomi Watts melding their talents in a psychological mind-bender that is, oddly enough, scripted by the same writer that crafted "Troy."
Like campus politicians, Oscar hopefuls begin to emerge later in the season with a subdued style that focuses more on acting and less on plot. Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" (Oct. 14) features the director's signature insight into the human psyche, but leading couple Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst will likely be too hit-or-miss to live up to the film.
Jake Gyllenhaal poses a triple threat with the star-studded "Proof" (Sept. 16), a controversial take on cowboy drama in "Brokeback Mountain" (Dec. 9), and a leading role in "Jarhead." Though it's set during the Desert Storm, this is no Tom Hanks war epic; with "American Beauty" director Sam Mendes at the helm, "Jarhead" is a gritty, stylistic film undercut by Mendes's trademark irony.
"Capote" (Sept. 30), a look at the intersection of life and art of famed author Truman Capote, stands to recapture the genius of last year's "Ray," but the biopic that will surely steal the limelight is Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line" (Nov. 18). Charlize Theron goes for her second little golden statue with the her turn as a modern-day women's rights crusader along with Frances McDormand and Sissy Spacek in "North Country" (Oct. 14).
"The White Countess" (Nov. 23) and "Pride and Prejudice" (Nov. 18) hope to capture the Academy's attention by duking it out for best period piece. Ralph Fiennes comes off a compelling performance in August's "The Constant Gardener," so his portrayal of an American diplomat to Shanghai in "Countess" will likely trump the umpteenth remake of the Jane Austen's nineteenth century novel.
Of course, there are always the dark horse fringe-hangers who fit in with no one, but capture everyone's attention. The ensemble cast of "Rent" (Nov. 11) will shatter its chance at an Oscar, but in an era when Broadway remakes tend towards the archaic and nostalgic, this hip film will finally make musicals cool.
"The Libertine" (Sept. 16) has received virtually no publicity, but the pairing of onscreen oddities Johnny Depp and John Malkovich in colonial England should create a buzz. And, finally, "Ice Harvest" (Nov. 23) features another promising duo; John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton team up in a dark mob comedy, though their collaboration may be the film's only redeeming quality.
