My Fall Preview nap

One of the many, many ways by which I know I'm not getting any younger is that the Fall Preview excitement that the media always whips up in September doesn't excite me anymore. In fact, I find myself skipping most of the special movie/TV special supplements, since the few things I do wind up liking are usually things that fly beneath the major media radar. I have heard of a few things that I might try to catch in the next few months:

Movies:
* The Kingdom, an espionage thriller, only because it has Jeremy Piven.
* Across the Universe, the Beatles-themed coming-of-age film by Julie Taymor (see poster at left). I liked her first film, Titus, but I haven't even bothered with Beatles-music movies of the past (Sgt. Pepper, All This and World War II) because they seemed so misguided. This one may not be great art, but it sounds worth a look.
* The Golden Compass, a big-budget fantasy based on a popular young adult book, which my sweetie is looking forward to. I couldn't get past the first 30 pages, but the movie looks glittery and diverting.
* Sleuth, the essentially 2-character thriller play which was done on film by Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier in the 70's. The surprise will be gone from this remake with Caine (in the Olivier role) and Jude Law, but the acting sparks might make it worth catching.

TV:
Not much. The Big Bang Theory, about two computer geeks, is the only sitcom that looks even close to being amusing. I've liked Johnny Galecki in the few things I've seen him in. I will probably check in on Back to You, the Kelsey Grammar sitcom about TV news folks, but I can't imagine it will fly. Moonlight, a vampire detective show, is promising, as is Viva Laughlin, a "musical dramedy" (I believe that's how it was described in Entertainment Weekly) with Hugh Jackman at the producing helm (and he'll be an occasional co-star).

It looks it's going to be a good fall for catching up on the DVD boxed sets I got for my birthday!

ADDENDUM: I just read the New York Times review of Across the Universe and my hopes are up. The way Stephen Holden describes his feelings about the movie echo my own feelings about a similar kind of film from few years ago, Moulin Rouge:

"Somewhere around its midpoint, "Across the Universe" captured my heart, and I realized that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you’ve tumbled."