Release Date: Release date not yet set
Distributor: Miramax
Directed By: Massy Tadjedin
Quick Thoughts: There’s a question mark surrounding everything in the now defunct name of Miramax as there’s no telling when these films will hit theaters, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss the films as a result. One of those films is Massy Tadjedin’s Last Night starring Keira Knightley, Guillaume Canet, Eva Mendes and Sam Worthington. It’s quite the international cast and one of the first films we’ll see Worthington working with something not in the action epic genre since breaking out in 2009.
Release Date: Release date not yet set
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Directed By: Edward Zwick
Quick Thoughts: Ed Zwick’s Love and Other Drugs is already earning plenty of buzz with many saying Anne Hathaway is a surefire Best Actress nominee. Hathaway plays a woman who has Parkinson’s and co-stars opposite Jake Gyllenhaal who’s character falls in love with Hathaway. Many will see it’s another one of those performances gaining attention due to the fact it involves a handicap or disease, and with Hathaway’s continued support among the Academy ranks if the performance holds up it could be her first win, which many thought would come in 2009 when she lost to Kate Winslet for The Reader. It’s a reunion for the two Brokeback Mountain stars and with the film’s supposed critical eye of the pharmaceutical industry it could earn additional sympathy from all corners. It will be interesting to see what screenwriter Charles Randolph can pull off considering his previous screenplay for The Life of David Gale and The Interpreter weren’t exactly praised.
Release Date: Release date not yet set
Distributor: Still looking for distribution
Directed By: Taylor Hackford
Cast: Helen Mirren, Scout Taylor-Compton, Joe Pesci, Bryan Cranston, Gina Gershon, Taryn Manning, Gil Birmingham, Bai Ling, M.C. Gainey
Love Ranch is inspired by the story of Joe and Sally Conforte, proprietors of the Mustang Ranch, the first legalized house of prostitution in Nevada, and Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci are going to star as said proprietors with Mirren’s Oscar-nominated husband Taylor Hackford (Ray) directing the film. On top of sounding like an entertaining picture it also has serious Oscar prospects. Paul Hirsch, the Oscar-winning editor of Star Wars will edit the feature and considering we are talking about a film set in the mid-1970s I would expect art direction and costumes will be up for grabs.
Release Date: Release date not yet set
Distributor: Still looking for distribution
Directed By: Olivier Dahan
Quick Thoughts: Olivier Dahan follows up La vie en rose, which won Marion Cotillard an Oscar, with My Own Love Song with a film about a wheelchair-bound former singer and her friend on a roadtrip to Memphis. With Renée Zellweger playing the wheelchair-bound character and a supporting cast including Forest Whitaker and Nick Nolte I’d say this fits all the necessary elements to make up an Oscar contender.
Release Date: November 19, 2010
Distributor: Lionsgate
Directed By: Paul Haggis
Cast: Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, RZA, Brian Dennehy, Ty Simpkins, Olivia Wilde, Jonathan Tucker, Liam Neeson, Aisha Hinds, Lennie James, Daniel Stern
Quick Thoughts: Lionsgate is looking at a November release for Paul Haggis’s The Next Three Days starring Russell Crowe as a teacher whose wife is arrested and convicted of a murder she says she did not commit. The film is a remake of the 2007 French feature Pour Elle and with Crowe starring alongside Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson among others this is an obvious contender. Haggis adapted the screenplay and has brought in A Prophet cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine and his In the Valley of Elah editor Jo Francis.
