Fall Movies We Can't Wait to See

Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln." — Photo by David James SMPSP/DreamWorks

The Sessions (Oct. 26) Oscar winner Helen Hunt doesn't make nearly enough movies, so we're looking forward to this challenging story of a quadriplegic man (John Hawkes) who wants to lose his virginity to a professional sex surrogate, played by Hunt. Overcoming the Ick Factor will be the trick, but with William H. Macy along as Hawkes' confidant/priest, at least we know some interesting social issues will be raised.

Flight (Nov. 2) For more than a decade, director Robert Zemeckis has immersed himself in lushly animated movies (Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol). Now the director of Forrest Gump and Back to the Future returns to live action with what seems like a doozy of a story: An airline pilot (Denzel Washington) makes a miraculous landing after a total system malfunction. But when it's discovered that he had too much alcohol in his blood at the time, he faces life in prison.

Lincoln (Nov. 9) Poor Honest Abe. Movies have either portrayed him as a monument waiting to be carved (Abe Lincoln in Illinois) or a revisionist fantasy (Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer). Now Steven Spielberg is trying to get him just right. In this exploration of the last months of Lincoln's life, Spielberg attempts to show Lincoln the politician and war president, simultaneously commanding his troops to victory and trying to forge the peace to follow. With Daniel Day-Lewis as Abe, the movie itself could prove monumental.

Skyfall (Nov. 9) I've always liked my James Bonds a bit more stirred than the Daniel Craig version. His cool detachment may be closer to Ian Fleming's vision of the superspy, but he's just a lot less fun than his relatively carefree predecessors. Still, the director of this latest 007 outing, Sam Mendes, has brought us both the blood-soaked Road to Perdition and my favorite comedy of 2009, Away We Go. So maybe there's hope for a Bond that strikes a delicate balance between fun and function.

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