After a summer of amazingly high quality (and high-grossing) films, fall looks a little uncertain. The teen formulas that supported the industry for the last several years have clearly lost their potency, but as yet no new formulas have popped up to replace them. The stage is set for either a season of newfound freedom and fruitful experimentation, or a period of aimless drift.
The list of new films that follows is as complete as we could make it, though a few of these titles will drop out and a few left-field entries will take their place. The release dates, as always, are highly tentative.
”The Accused”: Helped by a district attorney (Kelly McGillis), a rape victim (Jodie Foster) brings to trial the men who witnessed the assault but did nothing. Jonathan Kaplan directed. (Oct. 14)
”Alien Nation”: In a future America paralyzed by the presence of 300,000 extraterrestrial ”newcomers,” cop James Caan and alien Mandy Patinkin team up to solve a murder. Gale Anne Hurd (”The Terminator”)
produced; Graham Baker (”Impulse”) directed. (Oct. 7)
”Amsterdamned”: A series of underwater sex killings disrupts the Dutch tourist industry in a thriller directed by Dick Maas. With Huub Stapel and Monique Van de Ven. (Oct. 28)
”Another Woman”: Another serious film by Woody Allen, about a college professor (Gena Rowlands) who finds her life falling apart. With Gene Hackman, John Houseman, Martha Plimpton, Blythe Danner, Mia Farrow, Sandy Dennis and Harris Yulin. (November)
”Backfire”: Gilbert Cates directed this thriller about a traumatized Vietnam vet (Keith Carradine), whose wife (Karen Allen) is trying to put him out of the picture. With Dean Paul Martin. (November)
”Bat 21”: Gene Hackman is a career officer with no combat experience shot down in a Vietnamese jungle; Danny Glover is the experienced pilot who takes charge of his rescue. Directed by Peter Markle; with Jerry Reed and David Marshall Grant. (Oct. 21)
”The Beast”: The plight of a Soviet tank crew caught behind enemy lines during the 1981 invasion of Afghanistan. With George Dzundza, Jason Patric and Steven Bauer; Kevin Reynolds directed. (September)
”Big Time”: Tom Waits in a concert that incorporates dramatic scenes, or, as the publicists put it, ”a musicotheatrical experience played in dream time.” Chris Blum directed. (Sept. 30)
”Bird”: Clint Eastwood directs a dark, contemplative biography of jazz great Charlie Parker, who is powerfully interpreted by Forest Whitaker. With Diane Venora, Michael Zelniker and Sam Wright. (Oct. 14)
”Burning Secret”: In the chaos of postwar Austria, a young boy (David Eberts) witnesses a love affair between his glamorous mother (Faye Dunaway)
and a mysterious baron (Klaus Maria Brandauer). Andrew Birkin directed from a story by Stefan Zweig. (November)
”Cheerleader Camp”: Someone is killing the nubile young women gathered for a summer cheerleading clinic, and it`s up to Betsy Russell to find out who. John Quinn directed. (November)
”Child`s Play”: The clues in a series of unsolved murders point to the young son of Catherine Hicks. Chris Sarandon co-stars. (mid-October)
”Clara`s Heart”: A Jamaican housekeeper (Whoopi Goldberg) becomes a substitute mother to the 12-year-old son (Neil Patrick Harris) of her employers (Michael Ontkean and Kathleen Quinlan). Robert Mulligan directed;
with Spalding Gray and Beverly Todd. (Oct. 21)
”Cocoon: The Return”: Much of the original cast-including Don Ameche, Brian Dennehy, Steve Guttenberg and Tahnee Welch-of the 1985 fantasy adventure returns for this sequel, in which the fleeing seniors must reconsider their decision to leave Earth forever. Daniel Petrie Sr. directed. (Nov. 23)
”Crossing Delancy”: Will the glamorous career woman (Amy Irving) have an affair with the famous novelist (Jeroen Krabbe) or return to her Lower East Side roots and marry a pickle merchant (Peter Riegert)? Joan Micklin Silver
(”Hester Street”) directs; with Reizl Bozyk and Sylvia Miles. (Sept. 23)
”Crusoe”: A revised ”Robinson Crusoe,” in which the shipwrecked hero is an American slave trader (Aidan Quinn) who learns the meaning of civilization from an African warrior (Ade Sapara). Caleb Deschanel directed.
(October)
”A Cry in the Dark”: Meryl Streep in the true story of Lindy Chamberlain, an Australian woman unjustly accused of the murder of her infant daughter. With Sam Neill; directed by Fred Schepisi (”Plenty”). (Nov. 4)
”Cyborg”: Martial artist Jean Claude Van Damme battles bad guys in the post-nuclear future. (Nov. 4)
”Dead Ringers”: Jeremy Irons as twin brothers, who work together in a Toronto fertility clinic, fall in love with the same woman (Genevieve Bujold) and get into deep trouble. Directed by David Cronenberg, here departing from the horror genre (”The Fly”) for a psychological thriller. (Sept. 23)
”Distant Thunder”: A traumatized Vietnam vet (John Lithgow) emerges from self-imposed isolation to make contact with the son (Ralph Macchio) he barely knows. Rick Rosenthal directs. (Sept. 30)
”Ernest Saves Christmas”: Commercial spokesman Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) is drafted as Santa`s sleigh driver in a family comedy directed by John R. Cherry III. (November)
”Far North”: Four generations of a sprawling family are reunited in the north country in a drama written and directed by Sam Shepard. With Jessica Lange, Charles Durning, Tess Harper and Donald Moffat. (October)
”Feds”: Rebecca DeMornay and Mary Gross face the rigors of the FBI Academy in a comedy directed by Dan Goldberg. (Oct. 28)
”Fresh Horses”: The obsessive love affair of a young couple-Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy-derived from an off-Broadway play by Larry Ketron and directed by David Anspaugh (”Hoosiers”). (Oct. 7)
”Full Moon in Blue Water”: The habitues of the Blue Water Bar-including Gene Hackman, Teri Garr and Burgess Meredith-become the subjects of a romantic comedy directed by Peter Masterson (”The Trip to Bountiful”). (Oct. 21)
”Gleaming the Cube”: A young skateboarder (Christian Slater) sets out to avenge the murder of his adoptive Vietnamese brother. With Steven Bauer;
Graeme Clifford directed. (Nov. 4)
”The Good Mother”: Leonard Nimoy directs an adaptation of Sue Miller`s 1986 novel, about a divorced woman (Diane Keaton) with a romantically troubled daughter (Asia Vieira) and a vengeful ex-husband (James Naughton). With Liam Neeson and Jason Robards. (October)
”Gorillas in the Mist”: Sigourney Weaver as anthropologist Diane Fossey, crusading to save the mountain gorillas of Africa. With Bryan Brown, Julie Harris and John Omirah Miluwi; Michael Apted directed. (Sept. 23)
”Hannah`s War”: Menahem Golan directs the true story of a 23-year-old woman (Maruschka Detmers) who gave her life fighting the Nazis in Budapest. With Ellen Burstyn and David Warner. (Oct. 28)
”Hard Cover”: A murder mystery fan (Jenny Wright) finds situations from her favorite book turning up in real life. With Clayton Rohner; directed by Tibor Takacs (”The Gate”).
”Heartbreak Hotel”: Elvis Presley (David Keith) pays an unexpected visit to a small-town rock musician (Charles Schlatter) and his mother
(Tuesday Weld). Directed by Chris Columbus (”Adventures in Babysitting”).
(Oct. 7)
”High Spirits”: The efforts of Irish hotel owner Peter O`Toole to promote his establishment as a haunted house produce a ghost (Daryl Hannah)
real enough to fall in love with an American tourist (Steve Guttenberg). Neil Jordan (”Mona Lisa”) wrote and directed this romantic comedy. (November)
”Hotel Terminus”: A brilliant documentary by Marcel Ophuls (”The Sorrow and the Pity”) that uses the life of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie to explore the struggle of good and evil in the 20th Century. (October)
