20 Fall Movies We Can't Wait to See

Summer's almost over, but there's a lot to look forward to at the multiplex before the end of the year; here are the coming attractions we've got high hopes for, from ''9'' to ''Jennifer's Body'' to ''Where the Wild Things Are'' to ''Avatar''

9

September 9

A post-apocalyptic adventure starring a band of nine sentient puppets fighting crazy murderous robots? Produced by Tim Burton and the dude who directed Wanted? Based on Shane Acker's Oscar-winning short? Yes, please.

THE INFORMANT!
September 18

Steven Soderbergh takes on corporate whistleblowers in this based-on-a-true-story drama, starring Matt Damon (who packed on 30 pounds and sports a '70s 'stache for the role).


JENNIFER'S BODY
September 18

Megan Fox stars as a demonic maneater in this Diablo Cody-written high school horror flick. I'm sorry, did we mention that Megan Fox is in it?


SHUTTER ISLAND
October 2

A Martin Scorsese horror film. Just let that roll around in your brain for a bit: ''Martin Scorsese horror film.'' And ''starring Leonardo DiCaprio'' doesn't hurt either.


CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY
October 2

Michael Moore continues his documentary examination of America's systemic failings with his latest.


COUPLES RETREAT
October 9

Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, together again! A cluster of couples (played by folks like Jason Bateman, Kristen Bell, and Malin Akerman) head to a tropical paradise for a little sensual healing. Wackiness ensues.


ZOMBIELAND
October 9

Woody Harrelson vs. the walking dead! It's so on!


THE ROAD
October 16

Viggo Mortensen stars as a father escorting his son through a post-apocalyptic nightmare in this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.


WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
October 16

Let the wild rumpus begin! Director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) brings his outcast sensibilities to one of kidlit's most infamous outcasts: Maurice Sendak's Max (played by young Max Records).


A CHRISTMAS CAROL
November 6

Robert Zemeckis puts the Charles Dickens classic through the 3-D CG magic machine for his take on an honest-to-goodness scary ghost tale. Plus, Jim Carrey plays, like, 87 characters in it. (Okay, he plays seven, including Ebeneezer Scrooge himself.)


PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL 'PUSH' BY SAPPHIRE
November 6

Sundance audiences (and jurors) were gaga over this story of an illiterate Harlem teenager (Gabourey Sidibe) dealing with an unwanted preganacy — Precious won both the Grand Jury and Audience prize at the festival.


2012
November 13

There are actors in this prophesy-heavy explode-athon — John Cusack, Chewitel Ejiofor, and Oliver Platt among them — but they inevitably play second fiddle to the massive property damage that director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) does so well.


THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX
November 13

Director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) is tackling a different kind of family for his first foray into stop-motion animation: a band of foxes threatened by local farmers. Luckily, this family is being voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray.


THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON
November 20

Yeah, we're pretty sure you know what this is all about. Werewolves and vampires and pretty girls, oh my.


 BROKEN EMBRACES
November 20

For the record, the ongoing collaboration between actress Penélope Cruz and director Pedro Almodóvar is right up there with De Niro and Scorsese, Depp and Burton, and Mifune and Kurosawa. We'll watch whatever they do together. Even laundry.


NINE
November 25

Wait — Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren; all in a musical directed by Rob Marshall, who all but resuscitated the movie musical with Chicago? And the Broadway show it's based on was, itself, inspired by Federico Fellinni's classic 8 1/2? Seriously, where's the queue?


THE LOVELY BONES
December 11

Peter Jackson steps back from world-spanning epics to tell an adventure of a different sort: the journey a young girl (Saiorse Ronan) takes while solving her own murder. After the fact. (Yes — SPOILER ALERT — she's a deceased detective.)


AVATAR
December 18

After 10 years of not making a narrative feature, James Cameron returns to science fiction with this mostly CG, totally 3-D mindblower — about a young man (Sam Worthington) who travels to a far-flung planet and finds alien love in the process.


DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?
December 18

Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker play an estranged NYC couple who find a new lease on their marriage when they get dumped into the Witness Protection Program in rural Wyoming.


SHERLOCK HOLMES
December 25

Few things seem as surefire — especially post-Iron Man — as Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson.

20 Fall Movies We Can't Wait to See

Summer's almost over, but there's a lot to look forward to at the multiplex before the end of the year; here are the coming attractions we've got high hopes for, from ''9'' to ''Jennifer's Body'' to ''Where the Wild Things Are'' to ''Avatar''

9

September 9

A post-apocalyptic adventure starring a band of nine sentient puppets fighting crazy murderous robots? Produced by Tim Burton and the dude who directed Wanted? Based on Shane Acker's Oscar-winning short? Yes, please.

THE INFORMANT!
September 18

Steven Soderbergh takes on corporate whistleblowers in this based-on-a-true-story drama, starring Matt Damon (who packed on 30 pounds and sports a '70s 'stache for the role).


JENNIFER'S BODY
September 18

Megan Fox stars as a demonic maneater in this Diablo Cody-written high school horror flick. I'm sorry, did we mention that Megan Fox is in it?


SHUTTER ISLAND
October 2

A Martin Scorsese horror film. Just let that roll around in your brain for a bit: ''Martin Scorsese horror film.'' And ''starring Leonardo DiCaprio'' doesn't hurt either.


CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY
October 2

Michael Moore continues his documentary examination of America's systemic failings with his latest.


COUPLES RETREAT
October 9

Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, together again! A cluster of couples (played by folks like Jason Bateman, Kristen Bell, and Malin Akerman) head to a tropical paradise for a little sensual healing. Wackiness ensues.


ZOMBIELAND
October 9

Woody Harrelson vs. the walking dead! It's so on!


THE ROAD
October 16

Viggo Mortensen stars as a father escorting his son through a post-apocalyptic nightmare in this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.


WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
October 16

Let the wild rumpus begin! Director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) brings his outcast sensibilities to one of kidlit's most infamous outcasts: Maurice Sendak's Max (played by young Max Records).


A CHRISTMAS CAROL
November 6

Robert Zemeckis puts the Charles Dickens classic through the 3-D CG magic machine for his take on an honest-to-goodness scary ghost tale. Plus, Jim Carrey plays, like, 87 characters in it. (Okay, he plays seven, including Ebeneezer Scrooge himself.)


PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL 'PUSH' BY SAPPHIRE
November 6

Sundance audiences (and jurors) were gaga over this story of an illiterate Harlem teenager (Gabourey Sidibe) dealing with an unwanted preganacy — Precious won both the Grand Jury and Audience prize at the festival.


2012
November 13

There are actors in this prophesy-heavy explode-athon — John Cusack, Chewitel Ejiofor, and Oliver Platt among them — but they inevitably play second fiddle to the massive property damage that director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) does so well.


THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX
November 13

Director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) is tackling a different kind of family for his first foray into stop-motion animation: a band of foxes threatened by local farmers. Luckily, this family is being voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray.


THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON
November 20

Yeah, we're pretty sure you know what this is all about. Werewolves and vampires and pretty girls, oh my.


 BROKEN EMBRACES
November 20

For the record, the ongoing collaboration between actress Penélope Cruz and director Pedro Almodóvar is right up there with De Niro and Scorsese, Depp and Burton, and Mifune and Kurosawa. We'll watch whatever they do together. Even laundry.


NINE
November 25

Wait — Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren; all in a musical directed by Rob Marshall, who all but resuscitated the movie musical with Chicago? And the Broadway show it's based on was, itself, inspired by Federico Fellinni's classic 8 1/2? Seriously, where's the queue?


THE LOVELY BONES
December 11

Peter Jackson steps back from world-spanning epics to tell an adventure of a different sort: the journey a young girl (Saiorse Ronan) takes while solving her own murder. After the fact. (Yes — SPOILER ALERT — she's a deceased detective.)


AVATAR
December 18

After 10 years of not making a narrative feature, James Cameron returns to science fiction with this mostly CG, totally 3-D mindblower — about a young man (Sam Worthington) who travels to a far-flung planet and finds alien love in the process.


DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?
December 18

Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker play an estranged NYC couple who find a new lease on their marriage when they get dumped into the Witness Protection Program in rural Wyoming.


SHERLOCK HOLMES
December 25

Few things seem as surefire — especially post-Iron Man — as Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson.

Ten Things Tom Cruise Shouldn't Have Done

No, Tom Cruise doesn't have a movie coming out this month, but since we don't see him becoming relevant anytime soon (nowadays his son is in the news more than he is), now is as good a time as any to pick on him. The questionably straight movie star flipped his lid a few years ago, and he's never quite recovered. All of a sudden he started running around like some kind of maniacal 14-year old who just figured out how fun it is to say really inflammatory things. This is what happens when a crazy person doesn't believe in psychiatry. We're not saying that avoiding the following missteps would have saved his

#10 
Getting Angry Over a Squirt Gun
 
Come on, Tom. It was a silly prank. You know, a prank...like starting a religion that believes the spirits of space aliens are stuck in our bodies. Pranks are silly. I'd link to the YouTube video, but Tom's PR army has taken down every copy I could find. 

#9 
Dancing on BET
 
Tom. Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. The people aren't laughing with you -- they're definitely laughing at you. Your dancing looks like somebody with Forrest Gump legs is trying to do the Air Motorcycle. Get your legs fixed, my man. Until then, don't dance, Forrest. 

#8 
Making Valkyrie
 
For some reason it never occurred to Tom Cruise that plastering gigantic pictures of himself dressed up as a Nazi all over the country might be bad for an image that already had taken a hit. And oh yeah, nice American accent, Tom. 

#7 
Opposing Medical Marijuana
 
Tom Cruise got all pissy-pantsed and decided to throw a wing-ding when somebody named some medical marijuana Tom Cruise Purple. Apparently he didn't like that there was a picture of him laughing like a total idiot on a big vial of drugs, or the implication that if you got really, really high you might act just like him. 

#6 
Eating His Baby's Placenta
 
Is it okay to eat baby placenta? Dogs do it. Really smelly hippies do it. If Tom Cruise really wanted to go to town on a pound of "food" that splashed out of his wife's vajay, that's his choice. But seriously, there was no reason to tell GQ magazine that he was going to do it. Especially when everybody thought he was crazy to begin with. And saying that he "researched" it doesn't help either - it just makes him sound like the kind of maniac who sits around looking up recipes for placenta meatloaf. 

#5 
Making A Scientology Video
 
What in God's name is he even talking about? Did he not realize there is such a thing as YouTube? At least it answers the question of who Scientologists really are - the world's best EMTs, duh, because they are the only people capable of helping somebody who's been in a car accident. So if you're laying on the street with blood gushing out of your ears, you'd better make sure that the paramedic knows who Xenu is before you let him put you on a stretcher. Otherwise you're totally screwed. 



#4 
Yelling About Brooke Shields
 
Remember that time when Tom Cruise pissed off his primary fan base (aging housewives who've never heard of Clive Owen) by saying that postpartum depression wasn't real, and that new moms just have a case of the frownsies? Surprisingly, that didn't end well. You DO NOT mass with the Brooke. 



#3 
Denouncing Psychiatry
 
Usually after making a huge PR mistake, one goes out and issues one of those really crappy "I'm sorry if anybody was offended" apologies; they don't go on 'The Today Show' and call Matt Lauer a bunch of names. Usually. Not Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise will do whatever he wants. He's freaking Maverick! He can throw a bottle of liquor into the air and catch it! He googled the history of psychiatry and read the wikipedia on it! Okay? He went to public high school. He knows things. 



#2 
Jumping On Oprah's Couch
 
Oh boy, the mistake that started it all. We know he wasn't taking any meds, since he clearly doesn't believe in them. Maybe he heard they were having an open call audition for Kangaroo Jack. Regardless, you know you've gone over the edge when all Oprah can say is "the man is gone" over and over again, and your girlfriend doesn't want to come out and greet the crowd. 



#1 
Becoming A Scientologist
 
Alright, it's not cool to persecute others because of their religion, but is anybody else noticing that all of this weird crap started happening after Tommy Boy underwent that first crucial stress test? Now he's like a Mormon missionary, only instead of turning off all the lights and laying down on your floor until he goes away, you have to keep changing the damned channel so you don't have to listen to him tell you how to change your life forever.

Ten Things Tom Cruise Shouldn't Have Done

No, Tom Cruise doesn't have a movie coming out this month, but since we don't see him becoming relevant anytime soon (nowadays his son is in the news more than he is), now is as good a time as any to pick on him. The questionably straight movie star flipped his lid a few years ago, and he's never quite recovered. All of a sudden he started running around like some kind of maniacal 14-year old who just figured out how fun it is to say really inflammatory things. This is what happens when a crazy person doesn't believe in psychiatry. We're not saying that avoiding the following missteps would have saved his

#10 
Getting Angry Over a Squirt Gun
 
Come on, Tom. It was a silly prank. You know, a prank...like starting a religion that believes the spirits of space aliens are stuck in our bodies. Pranks are silly. I'd link to the YouTube video, but Tom's PR army has taken down every copy I could find. 

#9 
Dancing on BET
 
Tom. Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. The people aren't laughing with you -- they're definitely laughing at you. Your dancing looks like somebody with Forrest Gump legs is trying to do the Air Motorcycle. Get your legs fixed, my man. Until then, don't dance, Forrest. 

#8 
Making Valkyrie
 
For some reason it never occurred to Tom Cruise that plastering gigantic pictures of himself dressed up as a Nazi all over the country might be bad for an image that already had taken a hit. And oh yeah, nice American accent, Tom. 

#7 
Opposing Medical Marijuana
 
Tom Cruise got all pissy-pantsed and decided to throw a wing-ding when somebody named some medical marijuana Tom Cruise Purple. Apparently he didn't like that there was a picture of him laughing like a total idiot on a big vial of drugs, or the implication that if you got really, really high you might act just like him. 

#6 
Eating His Baby's Placenta
 
Is it okay to eat baby placenta? Dogs do it. Really smelly hippies do it. If Tom Cruise really wanted to go to town on a pound of "food" that splashed out of his wife's vajay, that's his choice. But seriously, there was no reason to tell GQ magazine that he was going to do it. Especially when everybody thought he was crazy to begin with. And saying that he "researched" it doesn't help either - it just makes him sound like the kind of maniac who sits around looking up recipes for placenta meatloaf. 

#5 
Making A Scientology Video
 
What in God's name is he even talking about? Did he not realize there is such a thing as YouTube? At least it answers the question of who Scientologists really are - the world's best EMTs, duh, because they are the only people capable of helping somebody who's been in a car accident. So if you're laying on the street with blood gushing out of your ears, you'd better make sure that the paramedic knows who Xenu is before you let him put you on a stretcher. Otherwise you're totally screwed. 



#4 
Yelling About Brooke Shields
 
Remember that time when Tom Cruise pissed off his primary fan base (aging housewives who've never heard of Clive Owen) by saying that postpartum depression wasn't real, and that new moms just have a case of the frownsies? Surprisingly, that didn't end well. You DO NOT mass with the Brooke. 



#3 
Denouncing Psychiatry
 
Usually after making a huge PR mistake, one goes out and issues one of those really crappy "I'm sorry if anybody was offended" apologies; they don't go on 'The Today Show' and call Matt Lauer a bunch of names. Usually. Not Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise will do whatever he wants. He's freaking Maverick! He can throw a bottle of liquor into the air and catch it! He googled the history of psychiatry and read the wikipedia on it! Okay? He went to public high school. He knows things. 



#2 
Jumping On Oprah's Couch
 
Oh boy, the mistake that started it all. We know he wasn't taking any meds, since he clearly doesn't believe in them. Maybe he heard they were having an open call audition for Kangaroo Jack. Regardless, you know you've gone over the edge when all Oprah can say is "the man is gone" over and over again, and your girlfriend doesn't want to come out and greet the crowd. 



#1 
Becoming A Scientologist
 
Alright, it's not cool to persecute others because of their religion, but is anybody else noticing that all of this weird crap started happening after Tommy Boy underwent that first crucial stress test? Now he's like a Mormon missionary, only instead of turning off all the lights and laying down on your floor until he goes away, you have to keep changing the damned channel so you don't have to listen to him tell you how to change your life forever.