"It was summer. Now it's autumn..."
-New Order ("Crystal")
Just this week, I skimmed over an article in USA Today recapping the box office tallies for the summer of 2011 movie season. Surprisingly, the article stated that despite studios raking in even more loot than last year, actual movie theater attendance showed its second lowest performance in more than a decade. While the financial facts and figures are more than a bit confounding to me, I am also surprised to read this news because, at least for my eyes and ears, this past summer was the best summer movie season I have had at the movies in many, many years. Yes, there remained the overabundance of sequels, re-boots, remakes and such but any summer can that boast films of the level as "Bridesmaids," "Super 8," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two," "Beginners," "Midnight In Paris" and for the love of Pete, "The Tree Of Life," is more than a little remarkable.
But now...summer is over and the Fall Movie Season is set to begin. While life responsibilities will undoubtedly occupy my time heavily I still plan of trying to get out to see a couple of flicks. This month will see the return of several of my favorite filmmakers, two of whom are currently courting retirement.
1. Steven Soderbergh re-enters the cinematic arena before his promised retirement with the virus outbreak thriller "Contagion." Typically, this is the sort of film I would avoid like the...ahem...plague but the trailer have me hooked.
2. Kevin Smith, at long last, arrives with his political horror film, "Red State," a huge stylistic change from all of his previous films.
3. At the other end of the directorial spectrum is my beloved Cameron Crowe, who not only shows no signs of slowing down but is actually speeding up his creative process with the release of his new documentary "Pearl Jam Twenty," the first of three newly or almost completed films. Words cannot fully describe how anxious I feel for a new work from this man who has enriched and inspired my life in countless ways for so much of my life.
4. Recently, at my local Sundance movie theater, I was thrilled to view a trailer for Michael Rappaport's music documentary "Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest," a film that has been slowly making its way across the country. If this lands in my city, you will not be able to stop me from getting there!!!!
Those are my plans, which are always subject to change or even grow so stay tuned...
I'll see you when the house lights go down...
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