Movies: Fall Film Preview

Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley look ahead to awards season

NATHANIEL ROGERS
...watches trailers through fingers (too many spoilers) and waits impatiently for the feature presentation. He blogs daily at the Film Experience.

With summer winding down and nothing thrilling opening in theaters (despite marquees suggesting otherwise), it's the perfect time to look both backwards and forwards. Now's the time to catch up with some of 2010's best in case you missed any. Some of them like I Am Love, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, The Kids Are All Right, Winter's Bone and Toy Story 3 are still in theaters. Other acclaimed first quarter releases like Fish Tank and South Korea's Mother have hit DVD. So get caught up before the Fall films hit.

As with the summer preview, we're dividing the intriguing offerings up into categories using handy film titles because You Gotta Have A Gimmick. For each month we'll look at THE CHAMP (a possible blockbuster), DIVA (fierce women),  THE PRESTIGE (Oscar hopefuls), WHERE THE BOYS ARE (for the hotness) and TRUE STORIES (documentaries or fact-based fiction). Obviously what follows is but a small sampling of what's to come. All in good time...

Have you seen Betty White and Sigourney Weaver's catfight with Kristen Bell? The ladies of You Again get their claws out AFTER THE JUMP...

News: John Forsythe, Fred Phelps, iPad, Malaysia Gay Film

John McCain's rep responds to that photo that recently showed up on Guys With iPhones: "As I'm sure you are aware, once something is posted [on the Internet] we no longer have control of how the photo is used."

Dynasty star John Forsythe dead at 92.

Tragic: openly gay wrestler Chris Kanyon took his own life yesterday.

Malaysia might get it's first mainstream gay movie. Watch the trailer here.

Anna Paquin's bisexuality crashed the Website of the organization she was promoting.

Creepy. A dead woman has washed up on the beach of George Clooney's Italian villa.

Ellen DeGeneres gets a sneak peak at the Orlando version of Hogwarts.

Adam Lambert on his reputation for being controversial: “I’m just the same Adam I’ve always been, and in the circles I run in, it’s not all that shocking."

Not everyone in the Fred Phelps clan is hateful. According to the Montreal Gazette, the Westboro Baptist Church's estranged son claims "his father regularly beat his mother and 11 siblings, used racial epithets and blamed the world’s problems on homosexuality."

Clay Aiken gets dapper for his new album cover.

LA Time piece on HIV infections among hemophiliacs: "According to the CDC, HIV is known to have been transmitted via blood products nine times from 1994 through 2007, the last year for which data is available."

Surprise drop in: Steve Jobs and his family made an appearance at the Apple store in Palo Alto on the same day the much-hyped iPad hit store shelves.

Terry Bradshaw would go gay for dreamboat Tom Brady: If I were to ever jump the fence it would be with Tom, he's such a handsome man."

J.K. Rowling: Dumbledore is a Gay Wizard Daddy

You've probably heard by now that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling outed her character Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore during a question-and-answer session at Carnegie Hall Friday night in response to a question from a 19-year-old fan. He asked, "Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?"

Rowling replied, to the reported shock and delight of the audience there: "My truthful answer to you...I always thought of Dumbledore as gay...Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald [a bad wizard he defeated long ago], and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent, but he met someone as brilliant as he was and, rather like Bellatrix, he was very drawn to this brilliant person and horribly, terribly let down by him...Yeah, that's how I always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying, 'I knew a girl once, whose hair...' I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, "Dumbledore's gay!"

The revelation had fans looking for new meaning in some of the passages.

Reuters reports: "Fans on the top Potter fan site TheLeakyCauldron.org (http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org) were divided on the news, some uncertain Rowling wasn't going to backtrack on the announcement, others saying it was unnecessary, and some welcoming the extra information on Dumbledore. 'This is even more awesome because it adds another layer to Dumbledore's character, which is already so rich and complicated. I hope he got over Grindlevald (sic) and fell in love again,' wrote Amanda."

British gay activist Peter Tatchell of the group Outrage! welcomed the news but felt Rowling should have let people know in the books. Said Tatchell: "It’s good that children’s literature includes the reality of gay people, since we exist in every society. But I am disappointed that she did not make Dumbledore’s sexuality explicit in the Harry Potter book. Making it obvious would have sent a much more powerful message of understanding and acceptance."

Others weren't so pleased. A post on the blog Red State labeled Rowling a fascist: "I wonder where her tolerance was for those readers who have beliefs different from hers. Where was the respect for them? Don't they too have a right to avoid and hide themselves away from ideas and themes they disagree with? I guess not. After all, there is no crime in creating an endearing story that is acceptable and appealing to many, and then pulling the rug out from under the readers later by revealing some disconcerting facts about a beloved character. Subversive yes, but I guess she was within her rights. (Thankfully, she kept this latest revelation out of books, so at least I can pretend it never happened)"

Rowling herself was thrilled with the reaction to the news, and said: "Just imagine the fan fiction now."