Goats, foxes, zombies

Just a quick roundup of the films scheduled to be released the rest of the year whose impending arrival excites me (!), interests me, with reservations (?), or appals me (0).

Opening Friday: If I were the part-of-the-solution person I'd like to believe I am, I'd be way more excited about Fuel (?), which promises to be the Inconvenient Truth of the year. As it is, I'm in, but I can't help feeling like I'm eating my vegetables. . . . Way more eager to see the new Soderbergh, The Informant! (no, really, !), with Matt Damon looking his squirrelliest.
. . . Then there's the new Diablo Cody script, a grrrl-empowered horror flick, Jennifer's Body (?).

25 September: No, haven't seen the Theo van Gogh original, and I'm not sure about the couple-mourning-dead-daughter-trying-to-renew-relationship premise, but all you have to say is Stanley Tucci and My Future Wife Patty Clarkson, and I'm in for Blind Date (!). But, geez--check out IMDb: I think that title has been used enough now, please. Just this year there are Australian and U.S.-Korean shorts, and next year there's a Polish one (not clear whether short or feature), though you probably know it until its native title, Randka w ciemno. . . . I loved and mourn David Foster Wallace, whose Infinite Jest, I've decided, has superseded The Great Gatsby as my favorite novel of the 20th c. But I hated hated hated (so much so that I'm not even providing a link) Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and I can't believe that letting John Krasinski extract a single plot from it and direct is the way to save the film (0).

2 October: If anyone can make the premise of The Invention of Lying work, it's Ricky Gervais. If (?). . . . Ordinarily, the new Coens film would get an automatic screamer, but the trailer for A Serious Man is so insistently disorienting and annoying that I'm (?). . . . Saw Toy Story and Toy Story 2 while visiting a friend and his kids a few years ago, and I'm (!) over the prospect of a 3D double-feature rerelease. . . . Zombieland: plus: Woody Harrelson, with overacting carte blanche; minus: ditto (?).

9 October: Michael Sheen + English football (soccer to you) = hell, yes: The Damned United (!). . . . An Education gets a (?) not because of the Times focus on Carey Mulligan but because I noticed that the screenplay is by Nick Hornby.

16 October: Paris, je t'aime was less than met the eye, so I'm (?) about New York, I Love You, but it's hard to imagine missing it. Fewer directors whose work I'm excited about, but it will be interesting to see what Natalie Portman, Joshua Marston, and Mira Nair have to show us. . . . Where the Wild Things Are (!). My daughter said something very perceptive yesterday about this: that the makers of the trailer have tried very hard to make it seem all warm and fuzzy and Disneyesque, but that what Spike Jonze has given them to work with makes that impossible.

23 October: Nobody's trying to make Lars von Trier's trailer warm and fuzzy, I'll bet! Antichrist, with Cannes best actress Charlotte Gainsbourg--very nearly (!), but finally (?).

6 November: Heck, just the title of The Men Who Stare at Goats is worth (!), and then Clooney?

13 November: Wasn't hot for Fantastic Mr. Fox from the trailer, but now I see that Wes Anderson directs, so (?). Could be a hell of a season for the kids. . . . Likewise, I'm (?) on Me and Orson Welles on the basis of Richard Linklater's direction, and in spite of Zac Efron's being "me." . . . The Boat That Rocked is now being called Pirate Radio, which suggests that the studio will do everything it can to fuck it up, but the trailer is irresistible (?).

20 November: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, a regionally reset remake? One word: Herzog (?). . . . Los abrazos rotos (Broken embraces): one word: Almodóvar (!). . . . Planet 51 sounds just goofy enough for a (?).

4 December: Up in the Air (!). Clooney again; am I just kidding myself about liking girls?

11 December: Invictus: Morgan Freeman as Mandela--what took 'em so long to figure that out (?)?

16 December: Panique au village (A town called panic). Plot summary lifted from an anonymous post on IMDb: "Animated plastic toys like Cowboy, Indian and Horse have problems, too. Cowboy and Indian's plan to surprise Horse with a homemade birthday gift backfires when they destroy his house instead. Surreal adventures take over [! after that?] as the trio travel to the center of the earth, trek across frozen tundra and discover a parallel underwater universe where pointy-headed (and dishonest!) creatures live. With panic a permanent feature of life in this papier mâché town, will Horse and his girlfriend ever be alone?" And dishonest (?)! Hey, triple feature w/ the Toy Stories?

18 December: If Did You Hear About the Morgans? is not the worst film of the season, its trailer cutter should be taken out and shot; otherwise, the same applies to everyone else concerned, including Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker (0).

Christmas: Two (?s) with double-plus casts but minus directors: It's Complicated (Streep + A. Baldwin - Nancy Meyers) and Sherlock Holmes (Downey Jr. + Law - Guy Ritchie).