The fall season looks exceptionally juicy for independent film, with remakes of Shakespeare and Chan-wook Park works and a film about the Beat poets before they became icons. The best of Britain’s young actors make appearances, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender and Daniel Radcliffe. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes his directing debut. Opening dates are subject to change.
‘Thanks for Sharing’
Movies about families too often turn out to be wrapped in layers of clichés. “Thanks for Sharing” makes the list because it boasts clever screenwriter Stuart Blumberg, debuting as a director. The cast is populated with Oscar winners and nominees Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins and Mark Ruffalo. The story follows three seemingly successful professionals who turn out to be addicts whose love lives are affected by their bad habits. Sept. 20.
‘Enough Said’
The poster alone is enough to prompt tears. There’s James Gandolfini with that sweet smile and those crinkly eyes that made him the most lovable thug ever. He is seated next to a coquettish Julia Louis-Dreyfus in an ad for their romantic comedy. Expect Gandolfini’s fans to line up for this quirky romance, one of the last films he made before his death in June. Louis-Dreyfus plays a single mom who becomes attracted to Gandolfini – until she learns he’s her girlfriend’s much-maligned ex. Sept. 27.
‘Don Jon’
There is an inevitability about Gordon-Levitt directing his first film, although the subject matter – pornography – you might not see coming from this most amiable of actors. Gordon-Levitt also wrote and stars in “Don Jon,” playing a Romeo who has his choice of women – Scarlett Johansson among them – but finds himself night after night watching triple-X videos. The film is billed as a comedy but sounds like a dark one. Sept. 27.
‘Romeo and Juliet’
In between working on “Downton Abbey,” screenwriter Julian Fellowes got the idea to freshen up “Romeo and Juliet” for the big screen. The words are sharper and more suited to a modern ear, and contemporary songs play in the background. Most important, when the film was made, the actors playing the title characters – Hailee Steinfeld (“True Grit”) and Douglas Booth – were teenagers, as the Bard had intended. A cast includes Damian Lewis as Lord Capulet. Oct. 11.
‘Kill Your Darlings’
The movie “On the Road” was meant to show the Beats on the cusp of becoming a movement. It failed, but just a year later, along comes “Kill Your Darlings,” which critics have pronounced the real deal at sourcing the nascent counterculture movement of midcentury America. It is based on a real-life murder case that brought together the original New York Beats. In 1944, poet Lucien Carr fatally stabbed David Kammerer, a friend Carr said was making a sexual advance. Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs were material witnesses, and several of the Beat poets wrote about the event. Michael C. Hall stars as Kammerer and Ben Foster as Burroughs, while Radcliffe, who is determined to have a career beyond Harry Potter, plays Allen Ginsberg. Oct. 11.
‘A.C.O.D.’
Even family dramas don’t seem to reflect reality anymore. Their stories are entirely too preposterous. But this fall movie – the title is an acronym for adult children of divorce – has such a real feel you wonder if it is based on the filmmaker’s life. Adam Scott (“Parks and Recreation”) stars as a grown-up who has never gotten over his parents’ divorce. Trying to resolve matters in his own mind, he discovers he was part of a study on children of divorce and has been enlisted to participate in a follow-up. Featuring Richard Jenkins and Catherine O’Hara as the still-sparring exes and Jane Lynch as a shrink. Oct. 11.
’12 Years a Slave’
A jam-packed cast – including Fassbender, Cumberbatch, Paul Dano and Brad Pitt – tells the true story of a free black man (Chiwetel Ejiofor, getting early Oscar buzz) subsequently sold into slavery and his attempts to keep his head high. Oct. 18.
‘Blue Is the Warmest Color’
Audiences at Cannes seem to take most things in stride. But this film was an exception. The lesbian scenes were described as “explosive,” “graphic” and “very long.” But no word so far about slashing this controversial film, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Adele Exarchopoulos plays a 15-year-old whose dream of being a schoolteacher is interrupted after meeting Léa Seydoux, as an art student with blue hair and a passion for the aspiring teacher. Nov. 1.
‘How I Live Now’
Scottish director Kevin Macdonald is back with a sci-fi thriller set in Britain and starring an almost grown-up Saoirse Ronan. She plays an American, living with relatives in the English countryside, who becomes enthralled with a dashing Briton (George MacKay). Their romance is played out against the fall of England into a chaotic military state. Nov. 15.
‘Oldboy’
Spike Lee remakes Chan-wook Park’s indelible story of a man who is kidnapped and held in solitary confinement for 20 years. Suddenly released, he goes after his captors. Josh Brolin stars. Nov. 27.
Ruthe Stein is the San Francisco Chronicle’s senior movie correspondent.
From www.chron.com