Ah, autumn! It’s like good movies go into hibernation over summer - but as the night curls back in, the warmth of those sitting in dark rooms lets them know it is time to return. Here's the cream of the coming crop, so take it as a warning: expect to be invited to any or all of these in a month near you.

Sherlock Holmes

You already know how excited I am about this. I adore my Victoriana, and this could only be more so if Dracula, Jack the Ripper and Alan Quartermain fought with sword-canes in corsets on the set of Ghost Light while each smoking a pipe. I'll pause to let you digest that mental image. Lovely, lovely Victoriana. A buddy movie set in sepia is always going to float my boat - add in cravats, London and the promise of violence, and it really has to be very shoddy for me not to have fun:



I am less hopeful since seeing the trailer. It looks more blockbustery and less classy than I had hoped. It's honestly not just distaste at them getting a woman involved, and fogging up my invisible slash goggles. Honestly. It's the black magic and world ending which makes me rather more sceptical. To my mind, this can go two ways. It could be awesome, and if it isn’t, it’s bound to be awesome in that other way. I like the Sherlock Holmes books a lot, but am not a fangirl. Therefore, while I’ll have sympathy if cinema shits all over it, it won’t touch me personally (but see below…). One thing to be sure: it is not going to be dull.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam makes films by turns. For every Tideland, there is a Brother's Grimm (or if you are a fan of mainstream movies, or my mum, for every Brother's Grimm there is a Tideland) - in other words, he alternates between good ones and bad ones. He is due a bad one. Despite that, he is still my favourite director, and I can't help but be excited about anything he produces. Particularly when it features the word "doctor" in the title:




Disreputable fact of the day. Mr Gilliam also has a reputation for films going belly up on him. His Watchmen went nowhere, and illness and flooding conspired to kill The Man Who Killed Don Quxiote. I am ashamed to confess that my first reaction to hearing about Heath Ledger's death was "Oh no! What about The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus!", not something more humane, like "what about his family and his daughter?". Obviously I did think that next, but I hope as a professional, he would understand my priorities. As you doubtless know, his character has been recast with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel and Jude Law, and it can't help but give one a shiver up the spine to hear Depp say "nothing is permenant, not even death".

As I've already commented, it's time for Terry Gilliam to make another bad movie. My feelings on it are much like that of Sherlock Holmes. It might not be good, indeed probably won't be, but it will be very entertaining. All the visual flair, the cartwheeling imagination, the scenes of inappropriate violence towards cats will be there - even if it doesn't hang together into a satisfying whole.

Alice in Wonderland

One of the most hotly anticipated upcoming films, and I couldn't be less excited if I tried. Watch the trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeWsZ2b_pK4&feature=fvw

I have seen Tim Burton movies, I've seen Alice in Wonderland, and I already feel like I've seen this. Yes, it will be beautiful and creative - I like the design of the White Queen in particular - but I am having difficulty caring.

The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan is my other favourite director, and I am excited for this like you wouldn't believe. Not in a good way either. I have come to understand that a great director must work across genres, not just remake the same movie for his entire career. Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott - yes, I confess Steven Spielburg too. The same level of quality and style, but telling different stories. To an extent, you do want to see what you saw in the film that made you love them repeated - one of my frustrations with Tarantino is that he never made anything else with the rawness, the tension or emotion that I appreciated in Reservoir Dogs. So I have been lucky with Shyamalan - but even I must draw the line at having seen the one about the unhappy man living in Pennsylvania who rediscovers his faith through the supernatural four times. I enjoyed Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Lady in the Water and Signs, but I didn't bother seeing The Happening because I knew exactly what it'd be like. Even if he set it somewhere else, it'd seem different.

So I have high hopes for The Last Airbender, because it is so drastically different to what came before. If he cinches this, he'll be freed up to work on anything, and back on the road to acclaim as a great director. And even if it isn't good, James Newton Howard is doing the music. In terms of plotting, characters, all I' ve heard about this film is casting controversy. In brief: the actors are too white. In theory I have no problem with this. In theory. I passionately believe in colourblind casting (and, incidentally, genderblind casting...), and I believe in having the best actor for a role even if the look isn't right. But that's for the future, when true equality has been achieved - and it's clear this isn't about integrity but paranoid companies dabbling in a bit of casual racism on the assumption no one will notice. It's a shame to have that overhanging the movie, and it's a shame that Hollywood is insistant on casting causican actors even when doing so is really stupid. It's not excusable, but perhaps understandable, that they want a white-straight-American man to head up their movies and TV shows. After all, most of the world is white, straight, American and male, right? I don't like it, but for now that is just how the world works. It's sad that, given an easy chance to make things better, they still aren't brave enough to do so.

If you're interested in all that, a nice easy primer is here:
http://www.racebending.com/v2/about/
http://www.racebending.com/v2/why-does-racebending-com-exist/

If you don't care two hoots and just want to watch the moive (and believe me, I would be happier if I didn't care...), here is the trailer. It sent a shiver up my spine.


The Vampire's Assistant

I have blogged at length about the Cirque du Freak series of books: their sensitive treatment of adult concepts, their suprisingly mature attitude towards character, their engagement with darkness and refusal to patronise their young audience. And also about the way I would do it. I don't want this to be a normal kids movie, because these weren't normal kids books, and I cared about them so very much. Of course, as a fan of cinema I do understand that changes must be made, and I am open to the idea so long as the tone remains the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPC-5VoCkNE

Possibly the most positive reaction to a trailer I've seen all afternoon. The look is perfect, perfect, perfect. Not exactly as I imagined, but close enough. You can't really judge a film by it's trailer but this looks good. A tad concerned by the implication Darren is enthusiastic to become a vampire. Boy that's going to screw things up when they get to movie number 4. I'm actually...looking forward to it?

Dorian Gray

I have left this one till last.

I am fairly sure you know why.



In case you had any false impressions, I am not unbiased on this film and I am not trying to be. Au contraire, I fully intend to nitpick. Little things like the fact Ben Barnes' voice is all wrong and, while his face is good, still fundamentally wrong. I have faith he can act the role, but he looks too evil. The whole point is that he's angelic. Like the design, with all those cold blues, is just strange, or the choral trailer music. Like the fact I've always been concerned about Colin Firth's casting, and always will be unless they go 100% for the homosexual undertones and feature a big shagging scene. (Digression: Although Henry is clearly interested in Dorian, to my reading it's a mutually obsessive relationship, but never a sexual one. Partly because of Henry's ultimate belief in Dorian's innocence and good behavior, and partly because Dorian is a cruel fiend and denying him would be such deliberately tormenting thing to do. Still, I need a reason to dislike this film, and that trailer (with its bevys of hot young women, and absence of hot young men)
makes it look uncomfortably mainstream...in other words, if the two tumble into bed, to my mind it'll be more out of character than in. But it'll demonstrate that the film has a committment to being properly dark and is engaging with the source material.)

Like the fact that at moments in that trailer, it looked like a good film - every now and then, I started getting excited, and then remembered it couldn't possibly live up to my understandably ludicrous expectations. Even the fact that Basil wasn't featured in the trailer. What's that about?
Some of what I said about Sherlock Holmes stands: Victorian London + cravats + debauched gentlemen = a certain amount of enjoyment. But I am resigned to the fact there is no sane way I will enjoy this film.

I don't even know if I will watch it. I'll enjoy complaining about it more than seeing it, and yet my complaints will be basically meaningless. Because I am sure it will be acceptable and enjoyable to 98% of the population, and I won't be arguing for the majority - merely myself. I've never seen an adaptation before because I've never wanted to risk my imaginings of the book. It'd be too high a price. My main quandry is this: do I buy a copy of the tie in novel for my collection of 43+ Dorians?





And that ends the anticipointment. Anticipointment is when something turns out to be exactly as bad as you expect it to be. I am looking forward to these films, but it doesn't necessarily mean I have high hopes for them. The most any of these films can hope for is a good soundtrack. At the point a film becomes beautiful, both visually and aurally, I forgive just about anything. Peversely, post-trailer, it is Vampire's Assistant which I think will be the best, which is odd considering I'd basically written it off. What do I do about Dorian Gray? Anyone feel like going to see it first, to see whether it's safe? I worry if I go to the cinema I might walk out.