As summer draws to a close, it's nice to remember what's in store for moviegoers as the autumnal equinox approaches: films with characters you care about. Deliver me from the superheroes, sweet season! As part of our extensive fall preview, we've picked the five most promising-yet-under-the-radar performances to anticipate in the coming months. Please straighten your tie when approaching the cross-dressing Glenn Close.
Seth Rogen in 50/50
Of all the Apatow players, Seth Rogen is the one whose knack for dry punchlines and snark seems to conceal layers of interesting depth and sensitivity. (Take for instance, his character Ken Miller from Freaks and Geeks, who became a powerhouse in the last few episodes.) In 50/50, he plays the buddy of a cancer-stricken Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Hopefully he'll lend the same amount of self-aware cynicism to the character that he brought to Funny People.
Alan Alda in Tower Heist
Though Alda is lovely in lite romantic comedies like the old Bernard Slade adaptation Same Time, Next Year, he is even greater as a total bastard. Who can deny that his greatest screen moments are in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, where he plays the pompous Lester, and The Aviator, where he plays the blowhard Senator Owen Brewster (and received his only Oscar nomination)? We'll be seeing more of the dickish Alda in the upcoming comedy/actioner Tower Heist, where he'll play a Bernie Madoff type who screws his Trumpian underlings (Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, among others) out of their life savings. Bring on the condescending sneers!
John Goodman in The Artist
The grandeur of Michel Hazanavicius's silent, black-and-white ode to classic Hollywood is dazzling enough -- as, apparently, are the lead performances by Gable-lookalike Jean Dujardin and Claudette Colbert-conjurer Bérénice Bejo -- but it's John Goodman pounding his fist as Al Zimmer that really brings back a lost world of screen stars. His grit is very Charles Laughton -- an Oscar winner with no true contemporary parallel. Unless, of course, the flawless Goodman is up to the task.
I can't say that the angle Clint Eastwood is taking on J. Edgar Hoover's sexual orientation sounds fascinating (or even worth filming), but I'm still intrigued by the part of Hoover's alleged paramour, Associate FBI director Clyde Tolson. While DiCaprio is sure to give us scrunched-up face acting as Hoover, the part of Tolson seems destined to be more subtly complicated; a little more knowing. Armie Hammer's turn as the entitled Winkelvi in The Social Network may set him up for the poised nature of Tolson, but I'm thrilled to watch him add sensitivity and '50s polish to that act.
Mia Wasikowska in Albert Nobbs
We've thought long and hard about the implications of a Best Actress faceoff between Meryl Streep, for her trailer-mesmerizing turn in The Iron Lady, and Glenn Close, who is seriously gunning for her first statue with the gender-bending star role in Albert Nobbs. We haven't dwelled on Close's co-star Mia Wasikowska yet, who plays the male-disguised Nobbs' lady friend Helen. Wasikowska's been verging on true critical acclaim with fine performances in The Kids are All Right and an astounding arc on In Treatment, and now it appears she may have the august, difficult part to pull that adulation together.