It’s time for Oscar bait!

Though the explosions of summer still echo, we are approaching the brief period where Hollywood pretends to care about making art. For the next few months they’ll give us serious comedies and clever dramas, until the cold weather brings out a public appetite for Christmas pap. Enjoy it while it lasts.


W. (Oct. 17)

Director Oliver Stone tackles politics again with “W.” In typical Stone fashion, it is a controversial movie about the life and career of America’s favorite president: George W. Bush. With an ensemble cast including Josh Brolin in the title role, the film promises to be a thought-provoking, humorous and compelling account of Bush’s life. Of course, Stone has stated that he wants the film to be fair and accurate, but he is not known for subtlety. The film is, more than likely, destined to be immediately divisive.

    — Max Chavez


Synecdoche, New York (Oct. 26)

Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, heartwarming and heart-wrenching all at once, “Synecdoche” follows Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a theater director who builds a replica of New York City for a stage production. While trying to balance work and his turbulent personal life, Cotard loses his sense of reality and starts living in the diorama he’s created. Like much of Kaufman’s work, “Synecdoche, New York” mystically combines love with insecurity, fantasy with fiction and dreams with reality.

    — Allie Miller


Quantum of Solace (Nov. 14)

James Bond last returned in 2006’s “Casino Royale,” and since the final moments of that well-received, high-energy poker drama, fans have awaited “Quantum of Solace.” (A silly title no sillier than women named Christmas Jones or Pussy Galore.) The film follows Daniel Craig’s leaner, meaner 007 as he attempts to foil the plot of a mad eco-terrorist. Production was overshadowed by reports of numerous stuntmen getting injured, but the teaser trailer, released with “The Dark Knight,” managed to recaptivate audiences with a slick yet gritty style.

    — Jack Manley


Twilight (Nov. 21)

The “Twilight” novels are divisive. Are they overhyped trash, deliberately aimed at “Buffy” devotees, or is the tale of forbidden love between a human girl and a swoon-worthy vampire an epic romance? In any case, the chemistry cackling between Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) in the upcoming film adaptation will leave fans breathless and give haters plenty to mock. For everyone else, it should fill the void left by “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” which has been moved back to July 2009.

    — Kadeen Griffiths


Australia (Nov. 26)

The entire film industry of Australia is resting on the success of this film, reportedly the most expensive the country has ever made. Director Baz Luhrmann rounded up Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman to make an epic period drama about cattle farming in World War II. The film apparently climaxes with the Japanese attack on Darwin, an event called “Australia’s Pearl Harbor.” That’s a phrase you’ll probably hear again.

    — Nate Jones


The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Dec. 25)

Part dark fantasy, part historical drama and part epic romance, David Fincher’s visually sumptuous “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is an adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald story of the same lengthy name. The titular Button is born as an 80-year-old man in 1920 and begins to gradually grow younger. Aging backwards is all well and good until he falls in love with a temporally typical young woman named Daisy (Cate Blanchett). Although all of Fincher’s films — “Seven,” “Fight Club,” “Zodiac” — are curious, Button could be the most unusual and emotionally gripping of them all.

    — Mikhail Skoptsov


Revolutionary Road (Dec. 26)

Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio — reunited for the first time since 1997’s “Titanic” — star in this adaptation of the Richard Yates novel by the same name, which chronicles a marriage degrading under the pressures of 1950s suburban Connecticut. If it sounds like the “Mad Men” version of Sam Mendes’s “American Beauty,” that could be because Mendes helms this too. The Oscar bait is officially in the water.

    — Daniel Levinsohn