Fall movies enter the dread zone

“American Gangster” (Nov. 2)
It’s got Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, both of whom can stop filling up screens with their big A-list blowhard movie star personas and submerge themselves into a character whenever they feel like it. The problem is that they don’t feel like it much lately. Then sprinkle it with Cuba Gooding, Jr., as consistent a filmic curse of doom as any Oscar-winning actor since… since I don’t even know, and you’ve got a movie that will be well over two hours long. The important ones always are.

“Lions For Lambs”  (Nov. 9)
Robert Redford, like Paul Haggis, plans to spend his fall lecturing audiences about war. And unlike Haggis, he can get Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise to be in his movie. Cruise plays a psychiatrist who prescribes Ritalin to soldiers. Okay, just kidding. Cruise plays a snaky Republican senator going blah-blah to Meryl Streep about how Republicans love war. He’s hilarious in the trailer, pulling several “nominate me” faces, saying stuff like, “Do you want to win the war on terror? Yes or no?” In my fantasies, a “Shining”-era Jack Nicholson makes a cameo and busts his head through a door yelling, “You can’t handle the truth!” to anyone who’ll listen.

“Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium” (Nov. 16)
Dustin Hoffman is Robin Williams as a 200-year-old Willy Wonka-esque toy wizard. With a lisp. And lots of product to make his hair go sproing! Parents will be drawing straws and cursing their fertility.

“The Christmas Cottage” (Nov. 30)
Jared Padalecki from “Supernatural” plays Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light that my mom (and your mom, and everyone’s mom who wasn’t Peggy Guggenheim) adores. Did you know that “cottage” was also old British slang for public toilet?

“The Bucket List” (Dec. 25)
Nothing says “holiday warmth and cheer” like cancer. “Stepmom” proved that. And no one can make cancer warmer and cheerier than director Rob Reiner. And who would you like to see get cancer at Christmas more than Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson? I know, hard to pick, right? Anyway, the pair respond to their impending departure from Earth by riding motorcycles and skydiving and other stuff that most cancer patients you’d meet in real life simply don’t have the energy to deal with. Now, in Rob Reiner’s defense, all this chemotherapeutic “It’s A Wonderful Life” trip has to be is better than his own low-bar-setting films “North” and “Rumor Has It,” and he’s totally safe. This, of course, also means that he could be in major trouble, unless he cuts that scene where Nicholson accidentally swallows chipmunk poop.

Dave White is the film critic for Movies.com and the author of “Exile in Guyville.” Find him at www.imdavewhite.com.

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