SYRIANA
The oil industry provides the backdrop for interlocked storylines involving a disillusioned CIA operative (George Clooney), an oil broker (Matt Damon) contending with a personal tragedy and a corporate lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) experiencing a crisis of conscience. Director Stephen Gaghan, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, loosely based his script on Robert Baer's book See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism.
DECEMBER 14
KING KONG
The great ape walks again, first through his familiar haunts on Skull Island and then through that concrete jungle known as New York City. Nobody can accuse Peter Jackson of thinking small: The man who brought the wildly profitable Lord of the Rings trilogy to the screen has now elected to remake a landmark motion picture that didn't really call out for an overhaul (see also: Gus Van Sant's Psycho or Dino de Laurentiis' 1976 King Kong). The cast is headed by Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody, while the CGI ape's movements were based on those of actor Andy Serkis (who provided similar duties as Gollum in LOTR).
DECEMBER 16
THE FAMILY STONE
A neurotic New Yorker (Sarah Jessica Parker) reluctantly agrees to spend the holidays with her boyfriend (Dermot Mulroney) and his New England family, a decision that leads to various personality clashes. Originally slated for a November 11 release, this has been moved into the thick of the holiday season. The large ensemble cast features Diane Keaton, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes and red-hot Rachel McAdams (Red Eye, Wedding Crashers).
DECEMBER 21
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2
The Bakers (Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt) and their 12 kids head to the wilds for a summer vacation, where Dad finds himself competing for attention against a more skilled outdoorsman (Eugene Levy). The 2003 Cheaper By the Dozen earned a spot on my 10 Worst List for that year, and this new film's dreadful trailer hints at a comparable outcome. This looks like a retread of John Hughes' The Great Outdoors, not exactly a movie that cried out for an update.
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE
An upper-middle-class couple (Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni) decides that the only way to deal with sudden bankruptcy is to turn to a career as masked robbers. This is a remake of a feeble 1977 comedy starring Jane Fonda and George Segal; presumably, Carrey and Leoni will be more comfortable providing some laughs.
DECEMBER 23
MUNICH
Terrorists assassinate 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics, leading a special outfit to track down those responsible. Steven Spielberg directs this dramatization of the real-life tragedy, with Angels In America scribe Tony Kushner serving up the script. The cast includes Troy's Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush and Daniel Craig, who just a couple of weeks ago was announced as the next James Bond.
THE RINGER
A loser (Johnny Knoxville) heavily in debt pretends to be mentally challenged so he can enter (and win) the Special Olympics. Here's one of those holiday movies, like Dumb and Dumber and Dude, Where's My Car?, that emphatically proves that not everyone is out for an Oscar at this time of year. Barry W. Blaustein's previous directorial credit was the tepid pro wrestling documentary Beyond the Mat.
DECEMBER 25
THE PRODUCERS
Unscrupulous producer Max Bialystock (Nathan Lane) and mild-mannered accountant Leo Bloom (Matthew Broderick) hit upon a surefire way to make millions. Three words: Springtime for Hitler. This is based on the record-breaking Broadway musical, which in turn was based on Mel Brooks' classic (and non-musical) film version from 1968. Lane and Broderick reprise their stage roles; new to the production are Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell.
RUMOR HAS IT
A young woman (Jennifer Aniston) is shocked to learn that her family was the inspiration for the characters in The Graduate — and that her own grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) was the real Mrs. Robinson. It's a risky business for a movie to invoke the spirit of a bona fide classic, but director Rob Reiner makes a go of it. The exemplary cast also includes Kevin Costner, Mark Ruffalo and Mena Suvari.
Limited Release
The following films, scheduled to open in limited release in New York and Los Angeles over the course of the next few weeks, will either reach us later this year, in early 2006, or not at all: The versatile Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is back in the award race with BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, based on Annie Proulx's story about a love affair between two cowboys (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal)... Heath Ledger (again) stars as CASANOVA, the legendary lover who's stunned when a Venetian beauty (Sienna Miller) turns down his amorous advances; Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) directs... Based on Richard Price's novel (itself inspired by the Susan Smith case), FREEDOMLAND stars Samuel L. Jackson as a detective who investigates a mother's (Julianne Moore) claim that her son was kidnapped by a black man... THE MATADOR stars Pierce Brosnan as the anti-Bond, an unkempt, foul-mouthed assassin who strikes up an unlikely friendship with an American businessman (Greg Kinnear)... Woody Allen tries his hand at a Fatal Attraction-styled thriller with MATCH POINT, a London-set drama about a femme fatale (Scarlett Johansson) who drives a wedge between a philandering husband (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his wife (Emily Mortimer)... MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS casts Judi Dench as the missus of the title, the head of a '30s-era London theater in which actresses performed in the nude... THE NEW WORLD is director Terrence Malick's fourth film in 32 years, and his first since 1998's The Thin Red Line; it centers on the romance between colonist John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Native American Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher)... An Israeli woman tries to dissuade two Palestinian suicide bombers from carrying out their mission in the import PARADISE NOW... Director Marc Levin (Slam) discusses the current state of anti-Semitism with everyone from white supremacists to Holocaust survivors in the documentary PROTOCOLS OF ZION... Comedienne Sarah Silverman, whose extended scene in The Aristocrats was one of the movie's funniest, brings her off-Broadway act to the big screen in SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC... Tackling the sort of role that generally wins awards, Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) plays a transsexual who meets the son (Kevin Zegers) she fathered while still a man in the road trip odyssey TRANSAMERICA... The latest from writer-director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), WHERE THE TRUTH LIES stars Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth as the members of a popular comedy team whose involvement in the death of a fan is investigated years later by a budding novelist (Alison Lohman)... The final film completed by the Merchant-Ivory team before the former's death this past May, THE WHITE COUNTESS is set in 1930s Shanghai and details the relationship between a blind former diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) and a Russian refugee (Natasha Richardson) who had to leave her royal life behind.
