"Elementary" and "Revolution"

Some quick thoughts on pilots for two new shows that will be premiering later this month, NBC's "Revolution" and CBS's "Elementary."

Let's deal with the bad news first. "Revolution," the new post-apocalyptic adventure show that takes place fifteen years after all electricity stops functioning, is this year's "Terra Nova." Created by Eric Kripke and produced by J.J. Abrams, it imagines society falling apart, and the survivors ruled over by an evil militia. Those who are lucky live in peaceful agrarian villages, like Ben Matheson (Tim Guinee), his teenage son Danny (Graham Rogers), and daughter Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) who is in her early twenties. The arrival of the villainous Captain Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) and his men one day leaves Ben dead, Danny captured, and Charlie on a dangerous road to Chicago to find her uncle Miles (Billy Burke).

The only two characters that are remotely interesting in the pilot are Aaron (Zak Orth), a former Google employee who serves as good-natured comic relief, and Maggie (Anna Lise Phillips), Ben's doctor girlfriend who invites herself along on the trip to find Miles. Have you noticed the female love interests are always doctors in shows like this? "Revolution" is one cliché after another. Charlie has a rebellious attitude and spouts a lot of ideals, but she's pretty useless. I think her pushy naïveté would have worked better if she was cast about a decade younger. Of course they give her a love interest, Nate (J.D. Pardo), who is temporarily on the wrong side. Miles drowns his sorrow in drink until Charlie shows up on his doorstep with a reason for him to reclaim his inner badass. I was looking forward to Giancarlo Esposito's involvement, but his evil Captain Neville is a few degrees too evil, and the real big bad is someone else. To top it all off, the premise of a future without electricity gets completely subverted when we find out that the whole point of the series is going to be to find a way to turn the electricity back on.

I think I've been spoiled by recent cable series with their high production values, because "Revolution" looks pretty lackluster. The pilot was directed by Jon Favreau, but the budget limitations are very obvious in spite of some flashy special effects and scenic destruction. And then there are the content limitations that come with being a network television production, which means "Revolution" never gets nearly as dark or intense as this kind of material really needs. After "The Walking Dead" and so many other apocalypse themed media properties lately, this one feels very derivative and underwhelming. It's certainly more competent and more promising than "Terra Nova." The later parts of the episode involving Graham Rogers were decent, probably they didn't come across like they were trying too hard to impress. However, "Revolution" is already telegraphing far too many familiar plot arcs that I have no interest in following.

"Elementary" is CBS's modern day version of "Sherlock Holmes" that is a completely different animal from "Sherlock," the BBC's modern day version of Sherlock Holmes. "Elementary" is a crime procedural, and the irony is that despite Holmes being the progenitor of so many crime solving eccentric detectives that appear in these shows, like Patrick Jane in "The Mentalist," and Dr. Lightman on "Lie to Me," "Elementary" feels derivative of them, rather than the other way around. The new Sherlock Holmes, played by Jonny Lee Miller, is a former consultant to Scotland Yard, currently residing in New York City after a stint in rehab. The performance is decent. Miller's borderline manic, often inconsiderate Sherlock Holmes is a little softer and more vulnerable than either the Robert Downey Jr. or Benedict Cumberbatch takes, though it borrows bits from both.

The biggest departure is the show's other lead. Lucy Liu plays Dr. Joan Watson, a former surgeon carrying some emotional scars who is hired by Holmes' unseen father to help with the transition from rehab back to normal life. However, this immediately sets up "Elementary" to follow in the footsteps of couple-based detective shows like "Bones" and "Castle." Fortunately, "Elementary" doesn't appear to be going in that direction. Though there's clearly going to be a lot of focus on the developing relationship between Holmes and Watson, it's not clear at all that this relationship is going to be a romantic one. Lucy Liu is a good match for Jonny Lee Miller because she underplays so much, but can sell the big moments, especially when she's dressing him down. I like the rapport that the two actors are building and I expect it to get even better as the show goes on.

Otherwise, I don't think there's anything particularly distinctive or interesting about "Elementary." The crimes and the crime solving are pretty typical of any other crime procedural on the air right now. The New York setting is so familiar, I wouldn't have batted an eye if they turned a corner and came across a few "Law & Order" alumni. Holmes piecing together elaborate fact patterns from tiny, disparate clues is something we've seen many, many times before and "Elementary" doesn't really offer any new twists on them the way that "Sherlock" did. However, familiarity doesn't necessarily mean tedium. The execution of the show is very good, and the actors are strong and add a lot to the mix. The show is not breaking any new ground, but it's clearly not trying to. If you're generally a fan of these kinds of slick hour-long whodunits, you'll probably be perfectly satisfied with "Elementary."
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Tales From Development Hell

I used to be a much more voracious reader when I was younger, especially of genre material, so I became intimately acquainted with the Young Adult, or YA category of books that you usually read in junior high, and which is currently Hollywood's favorite place to turn to in search of new film franchises. After the success of "Harry Potter," "Twilight," and "Hunger Games," it seems like every YA novel of any popularity is under consideration for the feature treatment. However, a word of warning to young fans: the vast majority of the projects that are announced will never make it to the big screen, and will stay stuck in development hell. I've spent years tracking potential films based on various books that I liked as a kid or teenager, that ultimately amounted to very little. A few related cases below.

"Maniac Magee" - I learned about this one in the Disney Adventures magazine, of all places, way back in the early 90s when I was just hitting junior high and not supposed to be reading Disney Adventures magazine. The promise of a "Maniac" movie came with a cute little anecdote about how cute little child actor Elijah Wood had read the Newberry Award winning book and liked it so much, he offered to play the role of Maniac if Disney would make a movie version. Disney and Paramount did buy the rights, but never moved forward with the movie. However, I took the announcement face at face value and expected to see "Maniac Magee" in theaters in a year or so, and was already plotting ways to get the parents to take me to see it. For a couple of years afterwards, I was genuinely puzzled that it didn't emerge, and Elijah Wood kept showing up in other movies. Nickelodeon eventually made a television movie version of "Maniac Magee" in 2003, long after I had grown out of the target audience and stopped caring.

"The Sandman" - Right around the time the Internet became a real movie fan resource was also around the time I was in high school reading Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comic book series and loving it. There was all kinds of chatter about an impending film version online, including full scripts that people were passing around the links to. This was really the first time I could track and follow the development of films as they were going on, so I was on top of every news item and every rumor about "The Sandman" movie. It never got out of the script stage, which was something it never quite occurred to me could happen. Surely if Warner Brothers was paying all these different writers, including Roger Avary, Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, to turn out all these different drafts, that meant they were fully intending to make the movie, right? Several of the scripts and descriptions of scripts remain online, but "The Sandman" is still stuck in development hell. Last I heard, Eric Kripke tried to turn it into a television show a few years back.

"The Last Unicorn" - After the success of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, there was a brief period when everyone thought that fantasy movies were making a comeback. One shiny new project that turned some heads was Continent Films' proposed adaptation of Peter S. Beagle's fantasy novel, "The Last Unicorn." You might be familiar with the 1982 animated feature, but this was going to be a live action production with all the trimmings. There were some clear warning signs that the would-be filmmakers were promising things they couldn't deliver, but I got caught up in the excitement anyway. They had an official website! And they had a script and a director and all these actors attached! Well, it turned out the involvement of all the talent was wishful thinking, and all the big and even not-so-big names were scrubbed from the website after a redesign in 2006. And it turns out the Continent Films has never actually produced anything. All they have are the rights to make a "Last Unicorn" movie, which thankfully will expire in 2014. Then hopefully someone else can take a real shot at it.

"The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" - I was so sure this one was going to happen, and maybe it still might if we're lucky. Danny Devito is writing and directing the film, based on Avi's gripping maritime adventure novel I adored as a kid. Back in 2008 DeVito had a cast in place, featuring Saoirse Ronan, Pierce Brosnan, and Morgan Freeman, he had backers lined up, and he was spotted scouting for locations out on Lake Erie. But now one of his backers has sued him, Ronan's no longer attached, and the production has been moved to Ireland where it is supposed to start shooting next year. That said, there's still no news of who's replacing Ronan, there's no fixed start date, and we're coming up on ten years since Danny DeVito last directed a feature film. This has all the earmarks of a passion project gone terribly wrong. I'm still rooting for it, but I'm not going to be excited about "Charlotte Doyle" again until I see a real release date scheduled.

"The House of Stairs" - William Sleator was one of my favorite authors in junior high, because he wrote YA science fiction novels that were a little darker and headier than average. I always wondered why nobody ever tried to adapt his books, since they're right in the vein of what Hollywood has been hot for lately. And then yesterday I stumbled over an announcement from last November. My favorite of Sleator's works, "The House of Stairs," is supposed to be the inaugural film of the newly formed Canadian outfit, Zest Productions. They've hired a competent writer to tackle the script and director Martin Villeneuve, whose first film opens in October, is attached. However, Villenueve's next film is supposed to be whale tale "Aquarica," and there hasn't been a peep about the state of "House of Stairs" since the original announcement.

Oh boy. Here we go again.
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Now is the Time for "Vacation"

There are always those movies that fall through the cracks, that it makes no sense for a rabid movie fan of a certain age not to have seen at least once. In my case, many comedies of the 1980s passed me by, including one particular cultural touchstone about the epic journey of a nuclear family traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles to visit a theme park during their two-week vacation. I was bereft of its unique take on the American experience, one whose influence I knew was strong. I learned about the Griswold family and Walley World secondhand from copious references and spoofs. I could recognize the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, even though I didn't know its name. But aside from a couple of minutes of "Christmas Vacation" that I stumbled across on television at some point in the early 90s, the "Vacation" franchise was unknown to me.

No more. Yesterday I brought home the original 1983 "National Lampoon's Vacation," directed by Harold Ramis, written by John Hughes, and starring Chevy Chase in his 1980s prime as Clark Griswold. Beverly D'Angelo played his wife Ellen, and Anthony Michael Hall and Dana Barron would be the first in a long line of actors to play the Griswold kids, Rusty and Audrey. It was like finding a time capsule from my youth, bringing back memories of endless car trips with the family across the western United States, sharing hotel rooms with my brother and grandmother, and especially of my father, who had a tendency to take detours miles out of our way to discover some forgotten tourist attraction he could pose us next to for pictures. And Walley World? The dressings were different, but all the rides were obviously from Six Flags Magic Mountain, practically my own back yard! Sure, the Griswolds had more risqué adventures - I'm always caught off guard by the amount of swearing, nudity, and drug references I routinely find in what I thought were family films from the era - but I knew them all too well.

One thing that struck me was how utterly, ridiculously simple the film was. Aside from a few shots at the beginning and toward the end, nothing looked fabricated. It looked like the cast and crew simply went on the road and shot scenes wherever it was convenient for them. A similar film made today would be much more elaborate and cost millions in set dressing. Chevy Chase's Clark Griswold is only a slightly caricatured take on the average family man up until he snaps. Today, the studios would get Robin Williams and you end up with "RV," or Zach Galifianakis, and you end up with "Due Date." "Vacation" is the nightmare car trip where everything that can go wrong does go wrong, but I think the secret is that everything goes wrong the way it actually tends to go wrong, and the movie only strains credibility a little bit here and there. There are no complicated schemes or major relationship troubles to distract us, no outsized obstacles to overcome aside from unsavory relatives and the inability to read a map. The story remains relatable because for a majority of the time the Griswolds are operating in reality, and reality is aggravating enough for most of us.

I don't think that "Vacation" was meant to be a parade of cameos, but I couldn't help ticking off the names as it went along. There was Eugene Levy as the unscrupulous car salesman who sells the Griswolds the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, Imogene Coca as poor Aunt Edna, Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie, and a very young Jane Krakowski as Cousin Vicki. Christie Brinkley was the girl in the red Ferrari, of course, and I cheered at the appearance of John Candy as the hapless Walley World security guard. And it tickled me to no end that "Vacation," the source of so many references and in-jokes I was finally privy to, made its own brief pop culture references. Walley World and its creator are clearly inspired by Disneyland and Walt Disney, and Marty Moose is a stand-in for Mickey Mouse. The sprint across the parking lot is set to the "Chariots of Fire" theme, and the cops arrive to a "Dragnet" style musical sting.

No surprise, I enjoyed the heck out of "Vacation," and I think I'll be poking around in 80s comedies for a little longer. "Fletch" is next on the list, and I am very tempted to go and finish "Christmas Vacation." Of course a new "Vacation" reboot/sequel is on the way next year with Ed Helms as the latest Rusty Griswold, and I welcome it. Some 80s movies would only work in the 80s, but "Vacation" is a concept that should easily transcend the decades. After all, my father has yet to tire of long car trips, and Six Flags Magic Mountain is still going strong.
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A Grim "Snow White"

Kristen Stewart has picked up some bad habits, hasn't she? I've purposefully avoided the "Twilight" films and didn't manage to catch her in anything else in the last couple of years, so I didn't realize how poor her acting had gotten. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she didn't seem to be paying attention half the time in "Snow White and the Huntsman." I'm still trying to decide if she was miscast or if she just didn't have it in her to play the role. To be fair, it wasn't much of a role. If you've seen the posters, you've got a good idea of what the filmmakers were going for in this version of "Snow White." What we have here is a dark and gloomy action movie doused in CGI imagery, where the princess is obliged to strap on plate armor and ride into battle alongside her Prince Charming and a hunky Huntsman.

The evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) marries and murders Snow White's father as a prelude to her conquest of his kingdom. Thanks to magic, she can stay young and beautiful forever by draining the life out of others. She keeps Snow White as a prisoner for years until she comes of age, intending to consume her pure heart to gain immortality. When the girl escapes into the Black Forest, Ravenna sends her loathsome brother Finn (Sam Spruell) and a drunkard Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) they have forcibly recruited, to go after her. Snow White is intent on reaching the castle of her father's ally, the Duke (Vincent Regan), to rally his army against Ravenna. Meanwhile the Duke's son William (Sam Clafin), Snow White's childhood friend, learns of her escape. He joins Finn's group incognito to find and rescue her.

Director Rupert Sanders has a great visual eye. He pulls off some absolutely gorgeous fairy-tale visuals that should put him in high demand with the studios for future effects spectaculars. However, the visuals are about all he's got. "Snow White and the Huntsman" is very weak in other areas. The dialogue is dull, the editing is uneven, and the pacing is awful. There are several segments where the film slows to a crawl, usually when it's trying to advance the lukewarm romances between Snow White and her suitors. The Huntsman and the Queen are the most compelling characters of the lot, thanks to the efforts of Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron. The Queen in particular is probably going to be what the film is remembered for, especially Theron's scenery-gnashing, over-the-top performance. That approach didn't really work in "Prometheus," but it's a good fit here.

Oh, the dwarves? They show up very late in the picture, but they do show up, and they're some of the film's better special effects. A digitally shrunken Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Ray Winstone, and Nick Frost, among others, lend their support to Snow White's cause. They're a rough bunch, but do add some much-needed moments of humor and fun in a movie that is too often lacking both. And considering the caliber of the acting talent, I don't understand why the dwarves aren't in more of the movie. I can see the logistical problems of having all seven throughout, but how about just one of them? As is, the dwarves just show up suddenly without any forewarning, and because of the changed dynamics of the plot, they never get as much attention as they should. Even the "Mirror, Mirror" dwarves are better differentiated and get more of the spotlight.

Speaking of "Mirror, Mirror," the two adaptations don't have much in common at all. "Mirror, Mirror" is aimed at a younger crowd and their parents, while "Snow White and the Huntsman" wants to appeal to the same action-hungry audience that went to see "Clash of the Titans" and the Russell Crowe "Robin Hood." "Snow White" pays lip service to the romance, but it's much more concerned about fights with CGI creatures, battle sequences, and badassery. There's very little blood, but a lot of violence and stony-faced intensity. The Queen's transformations and attack spells may also be too much for younger kids to take. "Snow White" has a few places where it shows off typically beautiful fantasy visuals, but on the whole it's much grimmer and bleaker.

And this brings us back to Kristen Stewart, who I'm sorry to say does not carry the film the way she should. Visually she fits the style, and she's not actually required to do much acting for most of the film, but when Stewart is put front in center, her choices are so odd and so lacking, her performance becomes more of a distraction than anything else. Like the film, she's very pretty, but seems awfully confused, and ultimately does not deliver.
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So Mindy Kaling Got Her Own Sitcom

The pilot of Mindy Kaling's new sitcom "The Mindy Project" popped up in various places last week, so I gave it a look. I'm rooting for Kaling on principle, and I'll admit that went in wanting to like it, and trying to give it every possible benefit of the doubt. I'm not much of a sitcom watcher anymore, so I knew there were probably going to be some hurdles, but the old Asian solidarity compulsion is a strong one. And it was easy for me to relate to Mindy's character on the show, Dr. Mindy Lahiri. Here is a professional minority woman in her early thirties, surrounded by white people, with a disastrous personal life. The obsession with pop culture and the probability that she spent most of her twenties consumed with academic and career advancement were certainly familiar. Some might argue that Mindy seems a little old to be fixated on romantic comedies and hampered by their unrealistic ideas about love, but I still know a few holdouts in real life. I'm sure most people do.

But does that mean I want to watch a sitcom built around this character? Let's add a few more details here. Dr. Lahiri is a recently minted OB/GYN whose last boyfriend just married someone else, plunging her back into the dating pool. Her life is hectic, so dating often has to take a backseat to work. However, she has two potential love interests at the hospital, Dr. Reed (Ed Weeks), the one with a British accent who is a walking open invitation for casual sex, and the caustic Dr. Castellano (Chris Messina), who mocks and challenges Mindy's notions about romance and relationships. Oddly, the two actors look almost the same, and their matching scrubs don't help. Minor players include Mindy's best friend Gwen (Anna Camp), an older mentor figure, Dr. Shulman (Stephen Tobolowsky), receptionist Zoe (Betsy Putch), and office manager Shauna (Amanda Setton), who was way, way, way too made up to be manning a hospital station in the pilot.

Most of the cast members only have an introductory line or two, and the overwhelming majority of the time is spent following Mindy around during a busy day, so it's far from clear how the ensemble is going to shape up. I think I got a good sense of the character of Mindy, however, and the primary impression that I came away with is that she's exhausting. The pilot has her literally sprinting to the hospital twice, getting herself into multiple trysts and almost-trysts, and then there are her drunken escapades at her ex's wedding, which land her in jail for the night. I like that she's awfully self-centered, that she doesn't put her ethnicity front and center immediately, and that her social skills need some serious work. On the other hand, I think her personality needs to be toned down a few notches in future episodes, because her casual rudeness and never-ending drama was really starting to grate after twenty minutes. Kaling is smart and charming and talented, and not enough of that is coming through in her character, who has the emotional maturity of a twelve year-old.

And frankly, "The Mindy Project" is not my kind of show. I don't mind a little romance, but it's hammered home multiple times that romance is the major selling point here, and we should be expecting lots of "Grey's Anatomy" style, will-they, won't-they romantic tensions. Of course there's nothing wrong with "Grey's Anatomy." My cousin, an actual, real-life OB/GYN watches and enjoys "Grey's Anatomy." I, however, do not. I like my medical professional-themed sitcoms to be workplace comedies first and relationship shows second. I was hoping for something with a humor/romance ratio more like "Becker" and less like "Ally McBeal." Okay, my references are out of date, but you get the point. "The Mindy Project" is aimed right at the typical romantic comedy crowd, and features all the cliches that tend to drive me up the wall. In abundance. There are signs that we're going to see some subversive, anti-rom-com themes here as well, but I'm not holding my breath.

Also I find the whole premise weirdly unchallenging for a rare sitcom starring a minority woman. Why is Kaling the only member of the regular cast with a noticeably darker skin tone? Why are her views on love and marriage so unsophisticated and why is the hunt for a mate dominating her life to such an extent? It's not that I expect Mindy to be some kind of trailblazing standard bearer for modern women, but this seems like a step backwards from the single working-gal travails of "Ugly Betty" and "30 Rock." That said, I want "The Mindy Project" to succeed. I like Mindy Kaling from her appearances on "The Office." She's written herself a nice, positive, non-stereotypical role that has a lot of potential. But I think it could be a lot better, and I hope it'll improve.
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Facing the Endgame of "Breaking Bad"

Spoilers ahead for all episodes of "Breaking Bad" that have aired so far.

This has certainly been the showiest season, or half-season of "Breaking Bad," with the train robbery, the magnet heist, and giant piles of money. There have also been several major, ambitious transitions, from Walt being Gus Fring's employee and rival, to a shaky partnership with Mike and Jesse, to a new arrangement with Lydia and Todd after the prior situation implodes. While it's certainly been a lot of fun week to week, and watching Walter White go full Heisenberg at last has been satisfying, there have also been some aspects of this run of episodes I've found worrisome.

The most obvious change in this year has been the pacing, which has picked up significantly from the slow burns of seasons three and four. Suddenly major developments were happening every week, character arcs were being accelerated, and some of the show's biggest constants were no longer there. This meant that events felt increasingly orchestrated, and sometimes weren't as logically sound as they'd been in the past. Several developments concerning Mike Ehrmantraut and his downfall undercut the image of the cool, collected, smart professional we'd gotten to know. While he certainly went out on a high note, shouldn't he have known better than to make the stupid mistakes that ultimately cost him his life?

Walt's ascension to the meth kingpin of Albuquerque was also accompanied by a lot of foolhardy risk taking and displays of arrogance, though it was more believable behavior from him. I was concerned during some of the earlier episodes that they were making Walt into too much of an over-the-top villain. The plot clearly needed Skyler and Jesse to break away from him, and to tease that Walt was inviting his own destruction, but I wish it didn't require Walt having to become quite so obviously unpleasant so quickly. I was glad that in last night's episode, Walt did learn for himself that success wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and come back down to earth. He's still terrifying, but has become sympathetic enough to root for again.

And I think it's going to be necessary to want to root for Walter White in the next set of episodes, because the show is pushing past the "Scarface" phase of his career, and seeing what might lie beyond it. We still haven't caught up with the flash-forward from the season premiere, where Walt was heading back into town after a long absence, under a different name and heavily armed. I think it's very possible that he could be going up against Declan or Todd for some skirmish, but the in the long term, Walt's final opponent will almost certainly be Hank. Good old Agent Schrader has often been overshadowed by the show's flashier villains, including Gus Fring, Tio Salamanca, and Mike, but we've seen Hank slowly but surely come into his own as a major figure in this universe. And in the last episode, his beef with Walter has gotten very, very personal.

It was probably the best season so far for Skyler, and the way the series is going, I’m worried that this is going to be as good as it gets. Since Walt has decided to quit the meth business and Skyler seems willing to patch things up, all the interesting tensions between them may end up buried for good. I was expecting that she or Jesse would have to take down Walt if he got really monstrous, but this is looking less likely. Walt has backed off from the abyss himself, after proving that he could be just as ruthless and successful as he always wanted. This was also a very good year for the advancement of Jesse's character. He got fed up enough with Walt's tactics to break off their partnership for good, in some of the best scenes of the season. I'm sure he'll end up involved in the finale, but how it will happen remains a mystery.

Plus, we have a few new players on the board who have to be factored in. Laura Fraser's twitchy, high strung Lydia Rodarte-Quayle is the most entertaining female character "Breaking Bad" has come up with so far, a baddie who enables Walt and clearly cannot be trusted. Then there's Todd, played by Jesse Plemons, who has mostly remained a question mark so far. Everything about him points to trouble, but how much trouble? Someone who could shoot a child without a thought surely wouldn't hesitate to resort to blackmail, extortion, or worse if Walt crosses him.

Best of all, I have no idea what's going to happen next. Most of the predictions and theories I came up with at the beginning of the season have been subverted. I didn't think Walt would survive without Jesse and Mike. I didn't think Skyler would stay long enough to consider reconciliation. Of course, the brief taste of success is surely just setting Walt up for the final fall, but the tantalizing hope that he could get away with everything – that's what the season needed and what the last episode provided.

It's going to be a long wait for next year.
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The Unscheduled Contenders

So, we're four months from the end of the year, and there are already "Best of 2012" compilations and lists starting to float around. The Venice Film Festival is currently in full swing, and the Toronto International Film Festival is just around the corner, meaning that we're at the beginning of awards season, but it doesn't mean that we know who all the contenders are yet. Anybody trying to make predictions now based on the existing film slate is jumping the gun because there are still several anticipated titles that aren't on any release schedules yet. A couple of the big ones to keep an eye out for below:

"To the Wonder" – Terrence Malick's latest film debuted yesterday at Venice to divisive reviews, and most of the news coverage has focused on how most of the marquee names associated with the production have seen their roles drastically reduced or cut out completely. In the wake of complaints that "To the Wonder" is too esoteric, it is clearly not going to be the crowd pleaser that "The Tree of Life" was, to the degree that you could call "Tree of Life" a crowd pleaser. The chances of it finding a US distributor are likely, but a big Oscar push doesn't seem to be in the cards.

"The Sapphires" – The Weinstein Company picked up "The Sapphires," about an Australian singing group of indigenous women who performed for the troops in Vietnam, after its debut at Cannes. It has all the earmarks of a feel-good foreign comedy that's not too foreign for American audiences. It's been scheduled to screen at Telluride and Toronto, but there's no release date yet. There's every reason to expect that "The Sapphires" will show up sometime in the fall, but then the Weinsteins do have the frustrating habit of sitting on some of their acquisitions if their chances at awards time don't look good.

"The Place Beyond the Pines" – Derek Cianfrance's action film follow-up to "Blue Valentine" will also star Ryan Gosling, and is set to premiere at Toronto. Open Road films will distribute, but hasn't landed a release date yet, and the film has been largely staying under the radar so far. However, this is the only film Ryan Gosling potentially has in the race, since "Gangster Squad" was delayed and Nicolas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives" has been moved to next year. Open Road may want to take advantage of the opportunity and push for a Best Actor nod, though it's a pretty crowded field this year.

"The Company You Keep" – Robert Redford's latest political thriller will be premiering at Venice, with a cast full of heavy hitters including Susan Sarandon and Julie Christie. Redford himself will be in the lead role, as a former Weather Underground member on the run from the FBI. It will be his first appearance on screen in five years. Sony Pictures Classics has the US distribution, but a release date will probably depend on how the film's awards chances are perceived. Redford keeps attracting amazing talent to his projects, but his track record hasn't been great over the past few years.

"Great Expectations" – You'd think that a new adaptation of "Great Expectations" directed by Mike Newell, starring Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter would have attracted more attention. Lionsgate is releasing the film in the UK in November, but no deal for US distribution has been announced yet. Then again, this year is going to be crowded with costume dramas like "Les Miserables" and "Anna Karenina" so getting lost in the holiday rush may be a concern. There's not much information available yet, but we'll probably hear more after it screens in Toronto.

"Mr. Pip" – We go from "Great Expectations" to a longshot entry, about a white schoolteacher living in Papa New Guinea who bonds with one of his students over the work of Charles Dickens during the country's civil war in the early 90s. No distribution and no release dates yet, but "Mr. Pip" does have the benefit of being based on an award winning novel by Lloyd Jones, and will star Hugh Laurie.

"Imogene" – Kristin Wiig stars in a comedy about a woman whose fake suicide leads to unintended consequences, directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman. Not too many major comedic heavyweights this year amid all the prestige pictures, so this one may get snatched up to fill the niche. Female led films are always stealth contenders, and I wouldn't be surprised if this grabs some acting nods.

And finally, we can clear a few names off the list of contenders, who have all been delayed until at least next year: The Coen Brothers' "Inside Llewelyn Davies," Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby," Brian DePalma's "Passion," Nicolas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives," Ruben Fleischer's "Gangster Squad," Michael Hoffman's "Gambit," and Park Chan-Wook's "Stoker."
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