Your Fall Movie Preview – The New York Times

Searching for something to look forward to in the last light of summer, the fall movie schedule beckons. When the sun sets too early, what better refuge than the movies, where Annette Bening is playing Diana Nyad (October), Colman Domingo plays Bayard Rustin (November) and Timothée Chalamet is Willy Wonka (December)? Transformations! Oh, to enter a theater, see something spectacular and emerge a little transformed, too!

Will these movies arrive as scheduled? Some studios pushed their big theatrical releases to 2024 while the ongoing actors’ strike prevents stars from promoting films. For now, at least, here are the movies I’m most excited to see this fall:

This month, a movie that seems so madcap I’m surprised it exists: “Dicks: The Musical.” It’s a musical re-envisioning of “The Parent Trap” with Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally as the parents and Larry Charles (“Borat”) directing. Watch the trailer, and see what you think.

In October, the film adaptation of Kristen Roupenian’s much-debated New Yorker short story, “Cat Person,” arrives, starring Nicholas Braun of “Succession.” Its bleak portrait of modern courtship looks just excruciating.

Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei star in Rebecca Miller’s romantic comedy “She Came to Me,” about a composer who’s having trouble composing. That one’s set in my neighborhood, so I’m presold on it.

I wasn’t about to brave the ticket trenches of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour this summer, but I’ll see the concert film when it arrives next month. And I’m super interested, along with most of the cinema-going universe, in Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited “Killers of the Flower Moon,” starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in the adaptation of David Grann’s book about the 1920s serial murders of members of the Osage Nation after oil is discovered on their land.

“I’ll answer any question you wish me to answer, as truthfully as I can,” John le Carré tells Errol Morris in “The Pigeon Tunnel,” a documentary built around what’s billed as le Carré’s final interview. I can’t wait for some incredible tales of Cold War intrigue!

Speaking of intrigue, David Fincher’s “The Killer” seems suitably terrifying. Michael Fassbender plays an assassin who admonishes himself in the trailer: “Stick to the plan; forbid empathy.”

And Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” based on Priscilla Presley’s book, “Elvis and Me,” looks divine.

November sees “American Fiction,” Cord Jefferson’s adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” starring Jeffrey Wright as a Black author who, responding to criticism that his work isn’t “Black enough,” writes a satirical book that plays to racial stereotypes and achieves huge success.

I’ve been looking forward to Todd Haynes’s “May December” since Cannes. It stars Julianne Moore and Charles Melton as a couple whose age difference was a public scandal (think: Mary Kay LeTourneau) and Natalie Portman as an actress who’s portraying Moore’s character in a film. Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” in which he plays Leonard Bernstein, is already the talk of the internet, so let’s see if the movie itself proves as scintillating. And Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn,” starring Barry Keoghan as a college student who visits his fancy classmate at his family estate for the summer, looks delicious and suspenseful.

I’d watch Jodie Comer in pretty much anything, so that gives me reason to look forward to December when she and Austin Butler play motorcycle gang members in “The Bikeriders.” Also at the end of the year, Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”) returns with “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone as a reanimated corpse with the mind and id of an infant and Willem Dafoe as the scientist who resurrects her.

And on Dec. 25, two potential Christmas gifts: Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” starring Adam Driver as the carmaker Enzo Ferrari, and “The Color Purple,” the big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical version of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, starring Halle Bailey, Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo and Taraji P. Henson.

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THE WEEK IN CULTURE

CULTURE CALENDAR

🎧 “Guts” (out now): Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 debut album, “Sour,” went quadruple platinum and scored her a best new artist Grammy. For her follow-up, she told The Times’s pop editor that she’s “always loved rock music, and always wanted to find a way that I could make it feel like me.” Judging by the two singles that are already burning up YouTube — “Vampire” and “Bad Idea Right?” — it feels fair to say she’s putting her stamp on the genre.

📺 “The Morning Show” (Wednesday): This Apple TV+ series, depicting the off-camera drama of a network morning talk show, is back, more than a year after wrapping its snatched-from-the-Covid-headlines second season. There is something chaotic and irresistible about a TV show with so many big stars — Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, Greta Lee after her breakthrough performance in “Past Lives” — chewing up the scenery. This season, Jon Hamm (“Mad Men”) joins the fray. — Andrew LaVallee

Everyday Pancakes

Congratulations, you made it through the first week of September! As a back-to-school/back-to-work reward, why not treat yourself to a splendid pancake breakfast this weekend? Mark Bittman’s recipe is everything you want a pancake to be — fluffy yet crisp-edged, butter- and syrup-ready, and easy enough to make even early in the morning in a pre-caffeinated state. You can even add blueberries, pecans or chocolate chips if you feel like going all out, sprinkling them on top of the pancakes in the pan just before you flip them.

REAL ESTATE

Hyper-real: Glacé fruits, beloved by 16th-century royalty and dating to the ancient Romans, are making a return.

Seoul: Read your way through a modern city that exists “under thick layers of time.”

“Why can’t men wear tights?”: Stockings appeared on male models this season.

Sharing the load: Experts have advice for families when one parent is often away.

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

Pack better lunches

I dragged my feet on packing school lunches for years, until my mom got my kids bento-style lunchboxes with thermoses. When I realized I could simply fill the thermoses with reheated leftovers from dinner — say, last night’s Japanese curry chicken over rice — then fill the other compartments with fresh fruits or veggies, all my mental blocks started to crumble. If you feel a similar resistance, think about what easy means for you. Then decide on the best tools and containers for the task. Bonus points for lunchboxes that are dishwasher safe, which is true for many of Wirecutter’s picks. — Marilyn Ong

GAME OF THE WEEKEND

Coco Gauff vs. Aryna Sabalenka, U.S. Open women’s final: Gauff is only 19, but for years she has seemed like the successor to Serena Williams as the queen of American tennis. Her breakout win came at age 15, when she upset Venus Williams at Wimbledon; last year, shortly after finishing high school, she reached the French Open final. Now she has a chance to win her first Grand Slam. But it will not be easy. Sabalenka hits with such power that it can be hard to keep up — as the Times reporter Matthew Futterman once put it, she “swings a tennis racket like a lumberjack wields an ax.” 4 p.m. Eastern on ESPN.