Fall Films: Bond, Bush & High School

Highlights Of Hollywood's Fall And Holiday Movie Offerings

(CBS)  Love At First Bite

"Twilight" is the good-girl, bad-boy romance based on the first book in Stephenie Meyer's series about an awkward teen (Kristen Stewart) who falls for a dazzling, eternally young stud (Robert Pattinson).

OK, so he's a vampire, but a nice vampire, from a family of bloodsuckers who eschew gnawing on human necks.

"He doesn't want to be a monster, he doesn't want to kill people," said "Twilight" director Catherine Hardwicke. "He loves her, but if he gets too passionate, he will want her blood. He will want to kill her."

Other odd romances include "Ghost Town," a comedy with Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear, about a misanthropic dentist able to see ghosts who falls for the wife of one of the dead guys haunting him; and "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," director Kevin Smith's tale of destitute best pals (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks) who do a skin flick to raise cash.

Leo And Kate

Their epic love was giddy, passionate, unshakable - until the ship hit the iceberg and sank. The stars of "Titanic," Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, share a far different love story in "Revolutionary Road," playing a couple whose marriage comes undone as they seek meaning amid the stifling conformity of the 1950s.

Good pals in real life, DiCaprio and Winslet had some awkward moments in their love scenes: her husband, "Revolutionary Road" director Sam Mendes, was looking on and giving them pointers.

How weird was it?

"No more than any other situation like that," DiCaprio said. "Doing those type of scenes is always a bit strange, never mind a husband but an entire crew watching you."

Among other big-screen reunions:

- Brad Pitt reteams with "Ocean's Eleven" accomplice George Clooney for the spy-game black comedy "Burn After Reading," from Joel and Ethan Coen (who are reuniting themselves with Clooney and co-stars Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins)

- Pitt rejoins "Babel" co-star Cate Blanchett for David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story about a man who ages backward toward infancy.

- Nicole Kidman is back with "Moulin Rouge" creator Baz Luhrmann, co-starring with Hugh Jackman in "Australia," a tale of a British aristocrat and a roughneck driving cattle across the continent amid a Japanese attack during World War II.

Double-Barreled Clint

One of Hollywood's most efficient filmmakers, perpetual Academy Award contender Clint Eastwood again cranks out two movies in short order. First, he directs Angelina Jolie in "Changeling," the story of a single mom coping with corrupt police who return the wrong child in place of her abducted son.

Then, Eastwood directs himself in "Gran Torino," playing a veteran whose prejudices are challenged in encounters with his immigrant neighbors.

Awards season is crowded with other serious films featuring past Oscar winners, among them "Milk," starring Sean Penn as slain gay political pioneer Harvey Milk; "The Soloist," with Jamie Foxx as a schizophrenic music prodigy befriended by a journalist (Robert Downey Jr.); and "Doubt," with Meryl Streep as a nun who suspects a priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of abusing a boy.

Nixon/Bush

Three decades ago, Richard Nixon faced the scrutiny of David Frost in what became a television event for the ages as the British TV personality delivered a remarkably candid interview with the fallen president.

"This was two lone wolves. It's a duel. Two complicated, fascinating, really brilliant people," said Ron Howard, who directs "Frost/Nixon," adapted from the play about the TV showdown. Reprising their stage roles, Frank Langella stars as Nixon opposite Michael Sheen as Frost.

"For men with their histories, their intelligence, their egos, a contest like this really did become kind of life and death," Howard said. "They say it in the piece: There can be only one winner."

The current president, George W. Bush, comes under the scrutiny of director Oliver Stone, who previously took on White House matters with "Nixon" and "JFK." Stone's "W." - due out right before the November election - chronicles Bush's life from his Yale days through the Iraq War.

"We're telling it while he's still in office, which has never been done," said Elizabeth Banks, who plays Laura Bush. "The Bush family is a political dynasty. In America, it's the closest thing we have to a political dynasty. Other than John Adams and John Quincy Adams, we've never had father-and-son presidents like this before."

Teens And Tweens

Apparently, 12th grade was too much for your puny television. "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" takes the Disney Channel sensation to the big-screen, reuniting the unlikely singing partners, basketball jock Troy (Zac Efron) and brainiac Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), along with stage rivals Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan (Lucas Grabeel).

"The set decoration is insane and beautiful. To think, in the first movie, we only had a ladder," Tisdale says, recalling one of her numbers from the original. "Everything's bigger, from details like the wardrobe, because of how big the screen is, and the musical numbers are so much bigger."

Another Disney Channel star, Miley Cyrus, lends her voice to the animated adventure "Bolt," the story of a canine TV star (voiced by John Travolta) on a cross-country trek to get home to his human co-star (Cyrus).

Other family flicks include "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," the live-action tale of a pampered dog (voiced by Drew Barrymore) lost in Mexico; "Igor," a cartoon comedy about a humpbacked lab assistant (voiced by John Cusack) who tries playing mad scientist; and "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," reuniting voice stars Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith and David Schwimmer as zoo animals out in the wild.

The sequel sets up one of the season's weirdest love stories, between Schwimmer's giraffe and Pinkett Smith's hippopotamus.

"He has this crush on her and finally confesses," Schwimmer said. "He believes he's only got a short time to live and that he's come down with this disease, so he's kind of convinced he's got to get up the nerve to tell her how he feels before he dies."

And those pesky "Madagascar" penguins are back, crashing the gang's plane in Africa then recruiting loads of grease monkeys - meaning actual monkeys - to rebuild it.

[c-mo6]

A goerge bush movie?

[c-mo6]

A goerge bush movie?

[whiskyrokkr]

Sound''s like a good line up/

[keithle1]

I love that title! "Quantum of Solace." Just rolls off the tongue. Makes you want to be the first in line at the box office. I can imagine the godawful, instantly forgettable theme song.

[keithle1]

I love that title! "Quantum of Solace." Just rolls off the tongue. Makes you want to be the first in line at the box office. I can imagine the godawful, instantly forgettable theme song.

[bpai99]

Did George Carlin steal the reverse aging bit from F. Scott Fitzgerald''s Benjamin Button?

As Carlin said:

You should die first; get it out of the way.
Then you live in an old age home.
You get kicked out because you%u2019re too young,
you get a gold watch and you go to work.
You work forty years
until you%u2019re young enough to enjoy your retirement.
You do drugs, alcohol, you party,
you get ready for high school.
You go to grade school,
you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities.
You become a little baby,
you go back into the womb,
spend your last nine months floating
and you finish off as an ***.

[haoli25]

More turds there than after a Mexican dinner.