Most anticipated films of autumn 2022 (from Peter Bradshaw, GUARDIAN)

[Chris Knipp]

From Wakanda Forever to Don’t Worry Darling: the best films to see in autumn 2022

Source and verbiage: Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian HERE. Release dates have been changed to the US ones and already US-released films omitted, lowering the number here to 18 films. No info on home viewing availability but many now are simultaneous theater and online releases. The title above is also from the GUARDIAN and does not represent my opinion, though some of these look promising.


AVATAR; THE WAY OF WATER

Three Thousand Years of Longing (George Miller)
This film’s director, George Miller, called it “the anti-Mad Max”, the precise opposite of his futurist gonzo action classics. Instead, it’s a wry fantasia, a meditation on stories and myths. Tilda Swinton plays a professor of narratology, who is in Turkey for a conference. She opens a glass bottle in her hotel and a genie comes out: Idris Elba, keen to grant her a wish or two.
26 August

Blackbird (Michael Flatley)
Michael Flatley fans and masochists worldwide are talking excitedly about making a special pilgrimage to Dublin for the premiere of a film that has become a legend – produced, directed, written by and starring Riverdance hoofer Flatley as a supercool secret agent. This action-thriller technically premiered at Raindance film festival in London in 2018, but snarky journalists were excluded by Flatley, who was displeased by people using the phrase “vanity project”, and its mythic reputation grew. The trailer has shown us something bafflingly wooden and weird.
2 September.

See How They Run (Tom George)
The runaway success of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out and the Agatha Christie revivals Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express proved there’s still a market for the classic, tongue-slightly-in-cheek all-star period whodunnit. Britcom writer Mark Chappell has scripted this mystery set in 1950s London theatreland about a murder of one of the crew working on a Mousetrap-type production. Saoirse Ronan plays Constable Stalker and Sam Rockwell is Inspector Stoppard (perhaps named after the author of The Real Inspector Hound).
16 September.

Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg)
David Cronenberg’s new film (not a remake of and not to be confused with his 1970 movie of the same name) is a body-horror atrocity exhibition in the Ballardian style he gave us in Crash. In a bizarre future world, evolution and medicine have caused bodies to grow many new organs. Viggo Mortensen plays a performance artist whose girlfriend, Léa Seydoux, removes his extra organs and tattoos them in front of a live audience – to the fascination of a government inspector played by Kristen Stewart. Fuh-reaky.
? June release [but where?], not yet available for home viewing.

Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen)
A glorious shapeshifting epiphany/freakout of a documentary about David Bowie. It’s a montage of archive material, live-performance footage, Bowie’s own experimental video art, paintings, movies and stage work, together with his elegant – and invariably polite – interviews with various normcore TV personalities who don’t exactly get it.
23 September.

Ticket to Paradise (Ol Parker)
A classy, old-school romantic comedy is on offer here, featuring above-the-title movie stars, not just IP monsters and superheroes. George Clooney and Julia Roberts play a divorced couple who learn that their daughter, played by Kaitlyn Dever, is about to get married to a guy in Bali that she has only just met. This marry-in-haste scenario was exactly the mistake they themselves made as teenagers: now this middle-aged couple head to Bali on a mission to thwart the wedding. But could it be that they might fall back in love?
21 October

It Is in Us All (Antonia Campbell-Hughes)
The actor Antonia Campbell-Hughes showed her directorial talent with last year’s eerie short film Acre Fall Between and now she makes a feature debut with It Is in Us All, a disquieting meditation on death and destiny centring on a car crash on a lonely road in Ireland. It involves two people: a 17-year-old local played by Rhys Mannion and a London visitor played by Cosmo Jarvis, whose existence is mysteriously upended by the tragedy.
23 September.

Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde)
TRAILER
Olivia Wilde directs this psychological horror-thriller from a story by Carey Van Dyke. Florence Pugh and Harry Styles play Alice and Jack, a young married couple living an apparently idyllic and prosperous existence in a 1950s US town called Victory, which is economically dependent on a single company whose business is a very disturbing mystery.
23 September.

In Front of Your Face (Hong Sang-soo)
The exquisitely delicate, underplayed, low-budget chamber dramas of Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo have become a delight on the festival circuit. In this new film, Korean star Lee Hye-young plays Sangok, a once famous Korean actor who has returned to her homeland from the US. She tours around all her old haunts and everything seems calm – until there is a terrible revelation.
? Maybe no US showings other than festivals.

The Woman King (Gina Prince-Bythewood)
Viola Davis stars in this expansive historical epic directed by Gina Prince Bythewood. Davis is General Naniscal, leader of an all-female military unit called the Agojie in the 19th-century African kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin), who fights against the European colonial powers who seek to enslave them. John Boyega plays the real-life ruler King Ghezo.
16 September

The Lost King (Stephen Frears)
The discovery in 2012 of Richard III’s remains cried out for a British cinema treatment and now Steve Coogan has co-written a comedy, directed by Stephen Frears, about the struggle of the real-life amateur historian Philippa Langley to get the academic and historical establishment to pay attention to her hunch that the king might be buried beneath a Leicester car park. She is played by Sally Hawkins and Coogan is her husband, John.
7 October UK. No US release yet.


DECISION TO LEAVE

Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)
Park Hae-il and Tang Wei in Decision to Leave.
Classy noir … Park Hae-il and Tang Wei in Decision to Leave. Photograph: CJ ENM Co Ltd/Moho Film
A stunning black-widow noir romance from the Korean director Park Chan-wook, who has recently pivoted away from gonzo revenge violence to super-classy suspense thrillers. Chinese star Tang Wei plays the beautiful wife of a businessman whose smashed body is found at the bottom of a well-known climbing rock. Was he pushed? The investigating officer (Park Hae-il) begins to suspect the widow … and to fall in love with her.
14 October.

The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Writer-director Martin McDonagh, the creator of In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, can be relied on for high-octane black comedy. Now, he has reunited his stars from In Bruges, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, two friends on a remote Irish island who find themselves in a dramatic situation when one suddenly ends their relationship.
21 October.

Amsterdam (David O. Russell)
The mercurial and controversial film-maker David O Russell is back with a quirky, high-concept 30s-set drama starring Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington as three friends who witness a murder and then become suspects themselves, in the process uncovering a bizarre conspiracy at the heart of American government. It co-stars Chris Rock, Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rami Malek and Mike Myers.
7 October


BILL NIHY IN LIVING

Living (Oliver Hermanus)
This deeply felt and beautifully acted movie from screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro and director Oliver Hermanus is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1953 classic Ikiru, or To Live. Bill Nighy plays a buttoned-up civil servant who, approaching the end of his 30 years’ joyless bureaucratic employment, is diagnosed with stomach cancer and becomes obsessed with a single mission: to get a modest little children’s playground built before he goes.
23 December

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Black Panther was a sensational smash and instant Afro-futurist classic for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2018. Here is the keenly awaited sequel, although with changes. Chadwick Boseman, who played the lead, T’Challa, died in 2020; his character has not been brought back and Daniel Kaluuya has indicated that he does not reprise his role as W’Kabi. But Lupita Nyong’o is back as T’Challa’s former lover, Nakia.
11 November.

She Said (Maria Schrader)
An investigative-journalism procedural in the tradition of All the President’s Men and Spotlight, with Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan. They play Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, two reporters from the New York Times working on the story of Harvey Weinstein’s abuse and their long, complex struggle to face down Weinstein’s legal attack dogs and to persuade his victims to go on the record.
18 November.

Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron)
When James Cameron brought out his massive, immersive sci-fi smash Avatar in 2009, with its weird, blue Smurfy creatures, everyone thought that 3D must surely be here to stay. But 3D vanished, and Avatar became an embarrassing craze of yesteryear, though many kept the faith. Now there is this sequel set 10 years on, with Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña reprising their roles.
16 December.

[Chris Knipp]

Cross checking with the NYFF Main Slate. Other coming releases of interest.


HARRY STYLES IN MY POLICEMAN

The NYFF Main Slate tends to contain a high percentage of must-see new films, so let's cross-check those for theatrical releases and Bradshaw's GUARDIAN list. Bradshaw omits Joanna Hogg's THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER, probably because so far only "September" is given for a release date. Bradshaw includes only one NYFF 2022 Main Slate film, Park Chan-wook's procedural romance, DECISION TO LEAVE.

The NYFF includes Paul Schrader's THE MASTER GARDENER, though that releases Sept. 3 (or later in some regions). Main Slate film TAR (Todd Field) is to come out October 7.

Noah Baumbach's WHITE NOISE will come out later this year after its August 31 Venice premiere and NYFF September 30 featuring. James Gray's NYFF special 60th anniversary feature ARMAGEDDON TIME comes out in theaters October 28. Laura Poitras' double documentary ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED, about the downfall of the Sackler family and the life of photographer Nan Goldin, the NYFF's centerpiece film, has no release date but "2022" so far. The NYFF closing night film, Elegance Bratton's INSPECTION, releases November 18.

Much of the Main Slate has no definite US release date yet. More will be revealed. The NYFF60 Main Slate is on Filmleaf HERE.

Andrew Dominik's BLONDE based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel and with a lead by Ana de Armas that has been complimented comes out September 23.

In addition to Bradshaw's listed DON'T WORRY DARLING with the interesting Florence Pugh, the former One Direction boy band star Harry Styles is in another new movie coming out soon, Michael Grandage's MY POLICEMAN - and meanwhile he continues his success as a solo singer, performing for 15 days straight at Madison Square Garden.