As the long, hot summer wilts into the dog days of August, while hunkering down for the hurricane breezes that hit us around Labor Day, let us dream instead of the upcoming fall and the cool movies that will be released.
The University of Tampa is a screening partner for the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers and will bringing six films throughout the fall and spring semesters — selected by UT faculty — and their directors to UT. The whole purpose of the Southern Circuit is to connect audiences in a communal film viewing experience, so each screening will also provide for audience interaction with Q&A. Get out of your cocooned life and experience movies with others, and talk to the director too. All screenings are free at various locations on the UT campus. For more information and a complete list of films, starting with The Unafraid (personal lives of DACA students in Georgia explore what it means to grow up both American and undocumented) on September 18, read this article at cltampa.com and look for the link.
And as for the cineplex offerings for the fall, can there be any comic hero and his story not yet filmed? Sure, there’s Aquaman, the DC Comics hunky underwater superhero who tries to save Atlantis. And there’s Venom, a Spider-Man spinoff wth Tom Hardy as an alien parasite. But forget the huge blockbusters of fantasy, science fiction and steroid-stuffed superheroes. What I’m looking forward to are movies of real people with real stories. Here’s what I’m anticipating the most.
September 14: Operation Finale, wherein Mossad agents track down Adolf Eichmann (Ben Kinglsey) and Mandy, starring Nicholas Cage and a batshit crazy action-horror story.
September 28: Little Women comes out on the 150th anniversary of the original Louisa May Alcott novel, updated for the 21st century.
October 5: A Star is Born comes back again, this time with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.
October 19: In Serenity, Matthew McConaughey is a fishing boat captain hired to murder ex-wife’s second husband; Can You Ever Forgive Me? has Melissa McCarthy as real-life journalist/literary forger, and we get to see yet another live-adaption of The Jungle Book with Mowgli.
November 2: Bohemian Rhapsody is an biopic of Freddy Mercury and Queen.
November 7: In The Front Runner, Hugh Jackman is a scandalized Gary Hart in the 1988 presidential race
November 9: The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the sequel to Girl with Dragon Tattoo, stars Lisbeth Salander.
November 16: Widows is a heist film with four women, led by Viola Davis, all in debt because of dead husbands’ criminal activities
December 21: Welcome to Marwen ends the year with Steve Carrell playing a victim of violent assault who constructs a miniature WWII village in his yard to help recovery.
