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OCTOBER 8: Based on the best-selling non-fiction book, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS details the 1988 season of a Texas high school football team, and how the coach (Billy Bob Thornton) and his players handled personal problems as they attempted to win the state championship... A small-town girl (Hilary Duff) heads to the big city with the dream of becoming a singer in RAISE YOUR VOICE... An inept cop (Jimmy Fallon) teams up with a ball-busting cab driver (Queen Latifah) to thwart a gang of comely bank robbers in the action-comedy TAXI.
OCTOBER 15: Rodger Dodger writer-director Dylan Kidd returns with P.S., which focuses on the romance between a Columbia University admissions officer (Laura Linney) and a graduate school applicant (Topher Grace)... The inevitable Hollywood remake of a wonderful foreign import (in this case, Japanese), SHALL WE DANCE? stars Richard Gere as a burned-out businessman who hires a dance instructor (Jennifer Lopez) to teach him ballroom moves. Susan Sarandon co-stars as Gere's wife... The creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are behind TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE, in which all the characters, from the title heroes to the terrorists, are played by marionettes.
OCTOBER 22: A remake of the acclaimed 1966 drama that cemented Michael Caine's stardom, ALFIE finds Jude Law essaying the role of the carefree womanizer who's forced to reexamine his lifestyle choices. Marisa Tomei and Susan Sarandon co-star, with Charles Shyer (the Father of the Bride remake) handling directing duties... Based on the Japanese blockbuster Ju-On: The Grudge (itself part of an ongoing series of films), THE GRUDGE centers on an ancient curse that passes among the doomed occupants of a house. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Bill Pullman star... The first of two competing Yuletide comedies (look for Christmas With the Kranks circa Thanksgiving), SURVIVING CHRISTMAS stars Ben Affleck as a lonely guy who pays a family (James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara and Christina Applegate) a substantial amount to let him spend the holiday season in the warmth of their home, insistent that they treat him as one of the clan.
OCTOBER 29: Fresh from earning strong reviews for his co-starring turn in Collateral, Jamie Foxx tackles the biggest role of his career in RAY, playing the legendary Ray Charles in a biopic directed by Taylor Hackford (Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll).
NOVEMBER 5: Writer-director Oliver Stone went further back in time than usual to bring us ALEXANDER, a large-scale epic about the conquests of Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell). The cast also features Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins and Val Kilmer... Writer-director Brad Bird, whose 1999 animated feature The Iron Giant was a critical but not commercial success, hopes to impress everyone this time around with THE INCREDIBLES, in which a band of superheroes placed in the Witness Protection Program must once again don their spandex in order to take down a master villain. Craig T. Nelson (as Mr. Incredible), Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson are among those lending their vocal chords to the cause.
NOVEMBER 10: Chris Van Allsburg's children's book becomes the basis for the animated effort THE POLAR EXPRESS, about a young boy's train ride to the North Pole on Christmas Eve. Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis re-teams with Tom Hanks, who provides the voice (as well as the visual inspiration) for the conductor... The fifth film in the Chucky series and the first since 1998's Bride of Chucky, SEED OF CHUCKY finds the devil doll (again voiced by Brad Dourif) and his equally wooden wife (Jennifer Tilly) heading to Hollywood to slaughter more humans. But their "son" (Billy Boyd, The Lord of the Rings' Pippin) disapproves of the mayhem and tries to stop them.
NOVEMBER 12: After a successful career as heist artists, two sexy thieves (Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek) settle down in the Bahamas, only to find that an FBI agent (Woody Harrelson) is breathing down their necks in AFTER THE SUNSET.
NO DATE SET: Recent Oscar winner Charlize Theron headlines HEAD IN THE CLOUDS, a romantic drama about three friends (Theron, Penelope Cruz and Stuart Townsend) whose carefree days in 1930s Paris are interrupted by the advent of war... I HEART HUCKABEES, from Three Kings writer-director David O. Russell, almost defies description, but it involves the plight of a young man (Jason Schwartzman) who becomes involved with two "Existential Detectives" (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), a corporate executive (Jude Law) and his girlfriend (Naomi Watts), and a pair of radicals (Mark Wahlberg and Isabelle Huppert)... A blend of fact and fiction (it's already been tagged The Osama Witch Project), SEPTEMBER TAPES follows a documentary film crew as they journey to Afghanistan to make a movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden... The always-interesting John Sayles throws his hat into the electoral ring with SILVER CITY, a drama about a doltish, Bush-like politician (Chris Cooper) who might be at the center of a murder conspiracy. The impressive cast includes Richard Dreyfuss, Daryl Hannah and Kris Kristofferson.
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