By Lubna Abdel-Aziz As "night increases", with the pale twilight of the year, and sweet November winds shake the yellowing leaves off their branches, we are reminded that "the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" is upon us. It is the bountiful season of Autumn, rich and generous in its endowment, the time to reap the delights of the summer crop. The Harvest Feast commences as apple orchards yield their blossoms, and the earth offers its bounty of grains and nuts and ripened fruit. The Seventh Art has its own bounty to offer. With over 50 films on hand this season, much is at stake in the art and industry of film. It is a game played by two sets, them and us. On the one hand the investors play to win and the artists strive for excellence. On the other hand we the viewers, decide the winners and losers. There will be many a long winter night, when snug and cozy in Granny's crocheted slippers, nothing will induce us to venture out in the cold angry winter night. But there will be other nights when we thirst for amusement, to breathe the common air, out where the kingdom of popcorn and celluloid awaits us. With passionate devotion to refinement and talent, we seek artistic marvels in stories of lords and rings, of knights and dragons, of bold lovers and coy maidens, of silent dark streets hiding mysteries and miseries. First on our list should bring cheers from the many legions of George Clooney fans. Now an established superstar, Clooney again joins his favourite Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brokovich, Traffic) after last year's box office hit Ocean's 11. The spaceship "Prometheus" is experiencing strange happenings amongst its crew as it orbits the planet Solaris. They are committing suicide, hallucinating and being haunted by life-like visions. Astronaut psychologist Chris Kelvin (Clooney) is called in to investigate, when he too is haunted by visions of his dead wife. Based on a sci-fi Russian novel by Stainslaw Lem, this is a fantastic account of strange happenings from outer space. Earthlings beware "something wicked this way comes" from the planet Solaris. If you are a fan of devilish diva Madonna, she will be back at the tutelage of husband Guy Ritchie (Snatch), in a new version of Lina Wertmuller's 1975 account of gender struggle in a romance at sea in Swept Away. Ritchie hired Adriano Giannini the son, to reprise the role father Gian Carlo played in 1975. This impetuous torrent of sensuality with husband directing and wife acting will pique many a viewer's curiosity. Director Stephen Daldry's cup runneth over this fall with three of the most talented women assembled on the playbill in his next film The Hours. The ladies are Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. Adapted from Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize- winning novel, it recounts the events of one day in June in the life of 3 women in 3 different periods of the 20th century. Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) as she writes Mrs Dalloway in 1923. Pregnant Los Angeles housewife Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) as she reads Mrs Dalloway, in 1949, and Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) herself a modern day Mrs Dalloway, as she prepares for a party for a friend dying of AIDS in New York city in the 1990s. Kidman so disguises herself to look like Virginia Woolf, hiding her sexy curves in a shapeless housedress and shrieking in a deep scratchy British accent. With a prosthetic nose, her disguise is complete, but her maturing talent is unmistakable. Another female trio of super star status appear in White Oleander. For the first time ever, dreamy Michelle Pfeiffer plays the villain Ingrid, an obsessive poet, who in a jealous rage kills her boyfriend with poison from oleander flowers. Her daughter Astrid, is sent to a series of foster homes with Robin Wright Penn and Renée Zelwegger. Based on Janet Fitch's harrowing bestseller, director Peter Kominsky came by the book while watching Oprah Winfrey one balmy afternoon. He bought it, read it, loved it, and produced it. Miss Pfeiffer, travelling on publicity tours, sighed: "The acting is fun. It is the publicity you get paid for!" Bond is having a party and we are all invited. This is 007's 40th birthday on screen and the producers are serving his 20th film for our viewing pleasure with a very new and appetizing touch. For the first time in its franchise history, Bond's girl is an Oscar winner -- Halle Berry (Monster's Ball, 2001). Halle plays an FBI agent in Die Another Day with Pierce Brosnan in his 4th outing as Bond. No matter who played 007, Bond was always a winner. If you have missed the fiery gaze of his pretty blue eyes, you are in luck. Leonardo Di Caprio, eyes and all, is back this fall in Catch Me If You Can, and if that were not enough he is joined by the "star of the era", Tom Hanks under the direction of the master filmmaker himself Stephen Spielberg. With so much talent busting at the seams, queues will be miles long from London to Bombay. Based on the autobiography of con-man turned FBI agent Frank Abagnale Jr, Di Caprio plays the chameleon-like crook who robs banks, writes $6 million worth of counterfeit checks, impersonates a pilot, a pediatrician, a history professor, and becomes associate attorney-general of the State of Louisiana. Hanks plays the FBI agent who is assigned to track him down. Their cat and mouse game results in a bond developing between hunter and hunted. It was Carl Hanratty (Hanks) who suggested that Abagnale be released after 5 years in prison to work with the FBI. If you laughed at De Niro and Billy Crystal hamming it up in Analyze This (1999), you will laugh even louder at Analyze That, their upcoming sequel. Director Jonathan Demme, is either very courageous or very foolish in attempting a remake of Stanley Donen's Charade (1963), performed by Hollywood royalty Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. No one today can fill those royal shoes. Psychology scholars and lovers of unusual torture and gore, will be thrilled one more time at the return of the man-eating monster, Hannibal Lecter. Anthony Hopkins was talked into cooking another meal to go with a fine bottle of Chianti in The Red Dragon a prequel to the Hannibal saga, based on the eponymous novel by Thomas Harris. Just when we thought the musical was dead, Baz Luhrman offered us the froth and effervescence of Moulin Rouge (2001). Now Chicago reprises some of the frothiness and much of the sombreness of Moulin. Another impressive cast is headed by Richard Gere as the attorney who defends Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta- Jones) and Roxy Hart (Renée Zelwegger), both nightclub singers who stop at nothing to outdo each other in their obsessive pursuit of fame and fortune. Last season's No 1 and 2 films at the box office are back again in their second episodes, and likely to claim No 1 and 2 positions again, in this season's viewing game. JRR Tolkien's great adventure of middle-earthlings is back with largely the same cast of hobbits, goblins, dwarves, and elves in The Two Towers. It promises to be darker and more menacing than its predecessor. So does JK Rowling's Book II Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. A little older and wiser Potter and friends keep the magic going, promising to be an even bigger pleaser for both critics and children. The late Richard Harris brings his patrician elegance as Professor Dumbeldor. He will be sorely missed in future Potter films. The whole world awaits its 15 November release. The rest is all up to you -- you roll the dice! If this sumptuous cornucopia of colours, styles and tastes, of this striking array of quality and talent, of artistic gifts floating in a pleasant autumnal sky does not suit your fancy, so be it! Time spent in the company of knowledge and wisdom, lends a purer air to breathe. The quiet joy of a good book by a cozy fireplace can be replaced by no other.
