After a particularly bad season of summer movies, the time has come to cater for grown-ups again. The line-up at Irish cinemas between now and the end of the year features some highly-promising material, including a couple of updated Shakespeares, some notable foreign-language pictures, an interesting mix of new Irish cinema, and a strongly-praised Edith Wharton adaptation which promises to transform the career of X Files star Gillian Anderson.
Coming attractions also include a trio of controversially crude US comedies, the much-hyped film version of Charlie's An- gels, and the prospect of Pete Postlethwaite being turned into a rat, Arnie Schwarzenegger being cloned (will we be able to tell the difference?) and an invisible Kevin Bacon. And Irish viewers will get to decide for themselves if the Cannes jury's awards to Dancer in the Dark were justified - or if the movie is just as awful as some critics claimed.
Here is how the schedules look, month by month. Please note that release dates are subject to change for any number of reasons.
September
Opening on Friday is the low-budget Scary Movie, the biggest surprise hit of the year in the US, where it has taken more than $150 million. It is a knowing and often outrageous spoof on movies such as Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Due on the same day are Marleen Gorris's Nabakov adaptation The Luzhin Defence, set in late 1920s Italy, with Emily Watson as a Russian aristocrat drawn to a chess grandmaster played by John Turturro, and two very different pictures of Irish life - Fintan Connolly's picture of a small-time Dublin hash dealer in Flick and the whimsical Donegal-set romantic comedy, The Closer You Get.
The new movie from the Coen brothers, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, (very) loosely based on Homer's The Odyssey and starring George Clooney as a vain, Depression-era chain-gang escapee, is set for September 15th, as is Edward Norton's first film as a director, Keeping the Faith, in which he plays a Catholic priest vying with his Jewish best friend (Ben Stiller) for the love of the same woman (Jenna Elfman).
Opening on the same day are Neil LaBute's quirkily charming comedy, Nurse Betty, with Renee Zellweger as a soap-fixated waitress pursued across the US by her husband's killers; John Singleton's remake of Shaft, with Samuel L. Jackson taking over from Richard Roundtree in the title role; and Saffron Burrows in Mike Figgis's experimental Hollywood-set Timecode, which splits the screen in four for its duration.
The 1971 original of Shaft and Mike Figgis's Strindberg adaptation, Miss Julie, again with Saffron Burrows, both arrive at the IFC on September 22nd, on the same day as the national release of Bobby and Peter Farrelly's low-taste comedy, Me, Myself & Irene, with Jim Carrey as a Rhode Island police officer with a split personality, and Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys, in which Eastwood is joined by fellow veterans Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner and Donald Sutherland as retired fighter pilots called back into service to defuse a deadly Cold War-era satellite.
A bumper line-up of at least seven new releases on September 29th includes: Lars von Trier's divisively-received Palme d'Or winner, Dancer in the Dark, starring Bjork and Catherine Deneuve; Irish playwright Conor McPherson's first feature film as a director, Saltwater, with Peter McDonald, Brian Cox, Conor Mullen and Brendan Gleeson; the British football yarn, There's Only One Jimmy Grimble, with Robert Carlyle; and, from China, Zhang Yimou's Venice prize-winner, Not One Less. Plus Paul Newman faking senility to get out of prison in Where the Money Is; Paul Verhoeven's hitech Hollow Man in which a scientist (Kevin Bacon) becomes invisible; and Stephen Daldry's cherishable and moving picture of a Durham schoolboy who switches from boxing to ballet in Billy Elliot.
Two films at present without scheduled dates but likely to open in late September or early October are: Julie Taymor's radical, vibrant and violent Shakespearean treatment Titus, with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, and Jennifer Lopez as a scientist who ventures inside the mind of a serial killer in the psychological thriller, The Cell.
October
The month's new films kick off on the 6th with two new comedies: Steve Barron's entertaining Rat, wittily scripted by Wesley Burrowes, with Pete Postlethwaite as a Dublin bread-delivery man who is turned into a rat; and a sequel, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, with Eddie Murphy back to play multiple characters and singer Janet Jackson cast as his bride-to-be.
New releases set for October 13th are Kevin Liddy's beautifully-crafted Irish rural drama, Country, with Des Cave, Lisa Harrow and Gary Lydon; Amos Gitai's strong Israeli drama about the dilemmas faced by women in a strictly patriarchal society in Kadosh; and Karyn Kusama's Sundance prize-winner Girlfight, with the impressive Michelle Rodriguez as a headstrong young Hispanic woman who takes up boxing at a Brooklyn gym.
There's a strong whiff of American Pie off the provocative teen comedy Road Trip with Breckin Meyer and MTV's Tom Green, also due on the 13th, as are Nicholas Hytner's picture of a love-triangle between ballet dancers in Centre Stage; Hong Kong action-ace Jet Li starring in Romeo Must Die; and a remastered, reissued This is Spinal Tap.
Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer team up for Robert Zemeckis's Hitchcock-influenced thriller, What Lies Beneath, which is due on October 20th, as are Disney's hi-tech animation movie, Dinosaur, about an orphaned iguanodon; the children's fantasy, The Little Vampire, starring Jonathan Lipnicki (from Stuart Little); and the US indie, Twin Falls Idaho, dealing with Siamese twins.
One of the season's most eagerly awaited films, The House of Mirth, offers the intriguing prospect of an Edith Wharton adaptation set in turn-of-the-20th-century New York and filmed in Scotland with Terence Davies directing and X Files star Gillian Anderson in the leading role. It's due here on October 27th, as is Wong Kar-Wai's stylish Hong Kong love story involving cheated neighbours, In the Mood For Love. Arriving on the same day is David McNally's Coyote Ugly with Piper Perado as a New York cocktail waitress and aspiring songwriter . . . and it's back into the woods of Maryland for Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, in which a group of college students goes to find out what happened to the protagonists of the original.
October releases yet to be dated are Christopher Nolan's Memento, with Guy Pearce as a man afflicted with short-term memory loss and trying to track down his wife's killer; and, with more family murders, Michael Almereyda's contemporary spin on Hamlet, with Ethan Hawke in the title role.
November
Director Curtis Hanson follows L.A. Confidential with his film of Michael Chabon's novel, Wonder Boys, starring Michael Douglas as a hard-living novelist suffering from writer's block, along with Frances McDormand, Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr. It's scheduled for November 3rd, as are The Skulls, with Joshua Jackson as a scholarship student who joins a sinister secret society; American Pie star Jason Biggs and American Beauty discovery Mena Suvari as would-be college lovers in Loser; and Mark Herman's bittersweet picture following the often comic attempts of two wily close friends (Chris Beattie and Greg McLane) to raise the price of season tickets to Newcastle United FC in Purely Belter.
Set for release on November 10th are James Gray's gritty, simmering drama of two close New York friends (Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix) who are driven apart when one gets deeper into crime in The Yards; and Cannes discovery Domink Moll's sly, teasing and thoroughly intriguing thriller, Harry, He's Here to Help, with Sergi Lopez as an enigmatic character who inveigles his way into the lives of a former schoolmate and his wife. On the same day there's Bruce Willis discovering his inner child in Disney's The Kid; Natalie Portman as a pregnant 17-year-old stranded in a small Oklahoma town in Where The Heart Is; Penelope Cruz as an extraordinarily talented chef in Women On Top; and David Twohy's science-fiction thriller Pitch Black, in which the passengers of a crash-landed spacecraft become the prey of mysterious creatures.
The inexplicably popular Adam Sandler will probably chalk up another big hit with Little Nicky, in which he's cast as the good son of Satan (in turn played in a scenery-chewing opportunity by Harvey Keitel). It's due on November 17th, as is The Watcher, in which a burned-out FBI agent (James Spader) is stalked by a long-time nemesis (Keanu Reeves); and the digitally-shot US indie Chuck and Buck, in which a gay man stalks his soon-to-be-married childhood friend.
The subject of more than a few on-set squabbles, the big-budget, big-screen treatment of Charlie's Angels, starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, is due on November 24th, along with Elizabeth Hurley and Brendan Fraser in a remake of the forgettable 1967 Peter Cook/Dudley Moore comedy, Bedazzled; Woody Allen's caper comedy, Small Time Crooks, in which Allen is joined by Hugh Grant, Tracey Ullman and Elaine May; and Ken Loach's didactic picture of the problems faced by immigrant office cleaners in Los Angeles in Bread and Roses.
December
The big Christmas movie arrives early, on December 1st - Ron Howard's Dr Seuss adaptation, The Grinch, with Jim Carrey covered in green fur to play the curmudgeonly recluse who strives to deny the spirit of the season from the plain people of Whoville. Opening on the same day, Duets finds Gwyneth Paltrow directed by her dad, Bruce.
A welcome 10-day season of French movies at the IFC (beginning on November 24th) will be followed on December 4th by the release of Bruno Dumont's 1999 Cannes prize-winner, L'humanite, dealing with a protracted investigation into a woman's rape and murder, and of Regis Wargnier's fiercely anti-Communist drama, East-West, chronicling the horrific experiences of a Russian doctor (Oleg Menchikov) who returns home from Paris with his French wife (Sandrine Bonnaire), and their young son in 1946.
Peter Sheridan's film of Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy, featuring US actor Shawn Hatosy as the young Behan in an English reform school, opens on December 8th, as does the sequel 102 Dalmatians, with Glenn Close wearing another wild wardrobe as Cruella De Vil and joined by Gerard Depardieu as a Parisian fur peddler.
Ben Stiller plays a nurse, with Robert de Niro as his horrific future father-in-law, in Jay Roach's comedy, Meet the Parents, which is set for December 15th, as is The 6th Day, a futuristic thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a helicopter pilot who begins to realise he has been cloned. And this year's second movie mission to Mars is Red Planet, starring Val Kilmer, CarrieAnne Moss and Tom Sizemore, which is due for release on December 22nd.
Happy Christmas!