Venice, Toronto, Telluride, San Sebastian, New York – some of the major festivals are coming soon. It’s the fall season. As usual we’ll get different kinds of movies; including a lot of Oscar hopefuls. There are so many interesting titles from all over the world that sounds interesting and here are the 15 of some of the most anticipated features that we look forward to.
15. A Star is Born
It seems every generation needs to get their own version of “A Star is Born”. We all know the story but that didn’t stop us to like many films with familiar storylines as long as the direction and approach was fresh enough.
Warner Bros company is seemingly confident in the film, so is Bradley Cooper who kept showing the movie to a lot of people including Robert De Niro, Sean Penn and Barbra Streiasnd and already got praises from them.
Cooper is certainly very passionate about the project and you can expect him to be great in this as an actor. Lady GaGa may have powerful vocals but her acting chops were a subject to mixed reviews when she was in “American Horror Story” and some complained a lot about her winning a Golden Globe over Kristen Dunst in “Fargo”. Will her performance win people’s heart this time?
14. Peterloo
Mike Leigh has yet to make a critically disapproved film. The exceptions may always exist of course, but so far currently there’s no reason for to doubt about “Peterloo”, Mike Leigh’s dramatisation of the bloody 1819 “Peterloo massacre” in Manchester that resulted in 15 deaths.
We can say it’s Leigh’s passion project, as he grew up in Salford, Greater Manchester and it’s his most ambitious and largest budget film to date. Leigh says “There has never been a feature film about the Peterloo massacre. The universal significance of this historic event becomes ever more relevant in our own turbulent times.” We’re certainly excited to see the result.
13. Beautiful Boy
Timothee Chalamet has been around for a long time but it was last year with him getting critical raves for “Call Me By Your Name” that made him a name to look for. Him playing a totally different character in “Lady Bird” also did good for his reputation. He keeps getting offers from major directors back to back (he’s gonna be in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune”) but who knows, maybe he won’t need to wait too much for his second Oscar nom as he may get it for this addiction-themed father-son drama, co-starring Steve Carell.
The film also marks “The Broken Circle Breakdown” director Felix Van Groeningen’s first English-language debut which makes the things even more exciting. Steve Carell will also appear in Adam McKay’s next political drama “Cheney” and Robert Zemeckis’ “Welcome to Marwen”. He’s sure to have a great season.
12. The Mountain
Rick Alverson is a unique director who makes films that can be hard to describe. When Alberto Barbera announced the line-up of Venice Film Festival this year, it almost seemed like he gave a particular shout out to “The Mountain” and Jeff Goldblum’s performance.
The official synopsis says it’s about “a young man who lost his mother and was raised by his emotional stunted father goes to work with his mentor, a doctor who performs lobotomies and shock therapy.” It surely is gonna be yet another interesting Alverson feature and considering how Goldblum was excited to talk about it in one of his interviews early this year, he seems to have a meaty and overall, great part in it.
11. Boy Erased
Garrard Conley’s memoir “Boy Erased” in which he recounted his childhood in a fundamentalist Arkansas family who enrolled him in conversion therapy received notable attention from public and press alike.
As of the publishing of “Boy Erased”, use of conversion therapy on minors is banned in “only a small handful of states”. Now Joel Edgerton’s film aims to shine a light on the issue, in which he also stars alongside Lucas Hedges, Russell Crowe, Xavier Dolan and Nicole Kidman who may have another hit in her hands with “Destroyer” this year. The story is important for sure; hopefully the film will be strong as well.
10. Mary, Queen of Scots
Focus Features have too many films to handle this season but “Mary Queen of Scots” is probably one of their hottest titles. Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie, fresh off from their Oscar nominations for “Lady Bird” and “I, Tonya” respectively comes face to face in this epic historical drama.
As with many of such historical films, audiences will have to take things with a grain of salt. Not everything here will be historically acurrate including the scene we saw in the trailer where Mary Stuart and Elizabeth came face to face
. Although the two queens exchanged a number of letters over the course of their lives, they never met in life but they do in the film which is understandable. It’s not a documentary overall and considering it’s coming from the creator of “House of Cards”, he probably knows what he’s doing. Also, if Saoirse Ronan will get an Oscar nom for this again, she’ll be the youngest actress in category history to have the most nominations.
9. The Front Runner
American Senator Gary Hart’s (Hugh Jackman) 1988 presidential campaign is derailed when he is caught up in a scandalous love affair. After directing series of hit films “Thank You For Smoking”, “Juno” and “Up in the Air”, Jason Reitman kind of slowed down a bit with “Labor Day” and “Men, Women and Children”.
But after some disappointments, this year with “Tully”, he proved that he still has it which is why it gave us a reason for looking forward to “The Front Runner”. Will it be as strong or better than another anticipated political drama “Cheney” is a matter of question but so far we like the sound of it. Apart from Jackman, it also stars Vera Farmiga whose previous collaboration with Reitman brought her first Oscar nomination.