Your 2011 Fall/Winter Movie Preview - Part 2

​You know the drill: the fall movie season starts today, my pretties (my review of Contagion will be up soon...there's a reason it didn't make the preview). Yesterday we covered the first half of 2011's most anticipated upcoming releases, determined through a rigorous scientific analysis consisting of how likely I judged my chances of staying awake through the film's entirety were,

Today we finish out the year. Hopefully in this sampling of spies, heads of state, Muppets, and carnivorous fish you'll find something to tickle your fancy.

Next week, we look at the fall movies you'll probably want to avoid like the plague. Not that there's any way in hell the first installment of the Twilight finale won't earn eleventy zillion dollars opening weekend.

The Rum Diary
Release Date: October 28
Starring: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart
Plot: A journalist grows disenchanted with America under Eisenhower and relocates to Puerto Rico, where he drinks and gets drunk. There's also a woman involved.

As much as I love Hunter S. Thompson, there's a reason it took almost 40 years for The Rum Diary to get published. Written by a 22-year old HST still trying to find his voice, it's no Great American Novel, but the movie is written and directed by Withnail and I's Bruce Robinson, and with Depp, Eckhart and Richard Jenkins (as his editor) it could still deliver.

Anonymous
Release Date: October 28
Starring: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson
Plot: If Shakespeare wasn't the actual author of all those plays and sonnets attributed to him, would we still have to read Julius Caesar?

Kicking around for over ten years, Anonymous will finally bring the long-simmering conflict between Stratfordians (those who believe in Shakespear's authorship), and Oxfordians (those who maintain the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, did the writing). And to paraphrase Bill Hicks, I'd hate be a dustbin in the vicinity of these two groups of ruffians when they start in on each other.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
Release Date: November 4
Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, NPH
Plot: Harold and Kumar, having grown estranged from each other since the last movie, reunite unexpectedly and get into more wacky, cannabis-fueled adventures.

These are guilty pleasures, and it's always nice to get your hot beef injection of Neal Patrick Harris.