We are just about to enter the final quarter of the year, and after a less-than-stellar August and September, the buzz for what winter 2008 has to offer is starting to grow. What will be this year's No Country for Old Men? Or There Will Be Blood? Will upcoming big-budget films shine like I Am Legend or flop like The Golden Compass? What film will elope with America's heart like Juno did? And will there be any Alvin and the Chipmunks-sized shockers? These are the questions that will be asked (and answered) in the next three months. For now, however ...

If you ask most people what actor has had the biggest career resuscitation in the last year or so, the majority would probably say Robert Downey Jr., and rightly so. I daresay, however, that quite a few might also mention Josh Brolin, who, after spending most of his 20s taking roles in films that were either obscure or ultimately unsuccessful, has become one of the most bankable actors in the business. Appearing in no fewer than THREE critical giants last winter (No Country for Old Men, In the Valley of Elah, American Gangster), Brolin is starting to get calls from some of the most notable directors in Hollywood.

In November, he will appear as San Francisco Supervisor Dan White opposite Sean Penn in Gus Van Sant's Milk, which is almost certain to garner him even more praise. For now, however, he steps front and center into the title role in W., a biopic about our current Commander in Chief, President George "W." Bush. At the reins is Oliver Stone himself, the multiple-Oscar-winning director who has given us some of cinema's best films ever (Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, The Doors, Born on the Fourth of July). Of course, he also misfired with another "presidential" film (Nixon) and tanked completely in 2006 with the hugely-overblown Alexander. So, which way is the wind blowing with his current offering?

Well, if you follow politics AND cinema, all of the supporting characters, not to mention the actors who play them, should be very familiar. Here's a quick rundown: James Cromwell (George H.W. Bush), Ellen Burstyn (Barbara Bush), Elizabeth Banks (Laura Bush), Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney), Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld), Thandie Newton (Condoleezza Rice), Toby Jones (Karl Rove), Ioan Gruffudd (Tony Blair) and Jeffrey Wright (Gen. Colin Powell), among many others. Wow, that's a pretty high-powered cast, if I do say so myself.

The question we must ask ourselves, however, is ... does anyone really care about George W. Bush enough to want to know the story of his upbringing, early political career and eventual rise to the White House? Many Americans are counting down the days until he is finally replaced as the leader of the free world. How many "fans" does he have left? My guess: enough to make W. a hit, but not a huge one.

Depending on how Body of Lies, another politically-themed film, opens for Ridley Scott, W. could have its hands full. It probably won't pull in many youngsters, who will be splitting their time between Max Payne and Sex Drive, so it will have to rely on more mature audiences (especially die-hard Republicans) for its lucre. Fantasy Moguls predicts six Top 5 points, five PTA, a rating of 6.9 and $75 million in box office, which I think may be a tad high. It could finish No. 1 on its opening weekend, but only if the theater count is high and the reviews are great. If not, it could finish as low as No. 3. It will be blitzed one week later by the opening of High School Musical 3: Senior Year (and possibly Saw V), not to mention numerous other films with even more Oscar-buzz. $16 in Ultimate is a definite gamble, one that just might be worth taking, but $27 in Box Office is way, WAY too much. Tropic Thunder did very well in Ultimate, but those who paid $55 for it in the Box Office leagues were left clutching their ankles. W. feels like that to me.

Full-length movies based on video games are nothing new. When I was growing up (in the '80s), very few video games, be they arcade or home-based, attempted to tell a coherent and engaging story. With the macroscopic leap that technology, and with it the computer-gaming industry, has made in the last two decades, however, it now seems that you can't really have a successful video game WITHOUT a compelling story. I was never much into the "combat" video games even then, and the only movie I have ever seen that was based on a video game that I actually PLAYED was Super Mario Bros. (and the less said about that film, the better, ugh).

There have been some successes in this genre (like the Resident Evil and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider films) but there have been far more failures (flicks like Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat, Doom, Hitman and everything Uwe Boll ever put his name on). So which group will Max Payne end up joining? That's a tough call. Hitman started strong last November with a $21 million opening weekend, but bottomed out very quickly and failed to even reach $40 million overall. Of course, Max Payne has two things on Hitman: a cooler premise and a much more bankable lead actor. (I mean, Timothy Olyphant? WTH?)

The lead actor in question is Mark Wahlberg, who gained much critical acclaim with his performance in the Oscar-winning drama The Departed in 2006, but gave quite a bit of it back this past summer in the absolutely dreadful The Happening. He is joined by Mila Kunis (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Beau Bridges, Donal Logue, Chris O'Donnell and rapper/actor Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, a cast that beats the roster for Hitman to a bloody pulp (star-power-wise, that is).

When I saw the trailer for this movie, with its otherworldly tone and somber music, the first thing I thought was Constantine. One has to hope that Wahlberg will surpass Keanu Reeves's post-Matrix misfire, and I'm confident that he can. Marky Mark plays the title role, a DEA agent who teams up with an assassin (Kunis) in order to avenge their families, while they are being "hunted by the police, the mob, and a ruthless corporation". Hmm. The trailer isn't very forthcoming about details, but I'll reserve judgment until I see it.

Going head to head with Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott, does Max have a chance to stand out? The target audience is most certainly the mid-teens-to-mid-20s, a slightly older demographic than the ones that will be seeing Beverly Hills Chihuahua and City of Ember. Fantasy Moguls has it pegged for five Top 5 points, 2 PTA, a rating of 6.0 and $40 million, and I would say that that is the minimum that it will do. It could very well beat W. to the punch and finish its opening weekend in the Top 2, which makes its asking price of only $8 very tempting. $14 in Box Office is iffier, especially given that this film might very well peter out quickly, just as Hitman did, but it might be worth taking if its reviews are fair or better.

A film that is almost certainly NOT destined to get good reviews is Sex Drive, but this isn't the kind of movie you read the reviews for anyway (unless you're looking for a good laugh). It stars Josh Zuckerman (Kyle XY) as Ian, a lonely high school senior who decides to "borrow" his jock brother's car (a 1969 GTO) for a road trip with his two best friends in order to meet a girl that he hooked up with on the Internet, a girl who presumably has no idea what a loser he is in real life. (Uh, his quote, not mine.)

It just occurred to me: How many movies, this year alone, have featured "road trips?" Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys, The Lucky Ones and, of course, College Road Trip come to mind. To this film's credit, however, the trailer actually looks pretty funny, especially that bit with Seth Green as a wiser-than-you-might think Amish guy.

My prediction? This is not going to be Superbad, but I don't think it'll be College, either. For obvious reasons, this film has been given the lowball price of $4 in the September Ultimate leagues, and only $5 in Box Office. This may be one to consider, and I'll tell you why: If you take a look at everything on the September-November docket from this point on, there is almost nothing left that is this cheap. In Ultimate, there are only two films left that are $5 or less (those being The Haunting of Molly Hartley and Repo! Genetic Opera), which means that last-minute changes are going to be incredibly difficult in the final month of the season. There are, of course, many $2 and $3 films in Box Office, but pretty much all of them are certain to be limited-release films, and therefore not worth it. This just might be a very shrewd pick. It'll probably be advertised better than College was, and bow in a lot more theaters ... plus, it has the benefit of NOT having been postponed three times (only once, in this case), so there's that.

I have no idea how large the release platform will be for The Secret Life of Bees, but most of my sources tell me that it's coming out widely, so I'll devote a few paragraphs to it here. My guess is, if it IS a wide release, it'll get a platform comparable to Miracle at St. Anna (about 1,200 or so), which puts in the "too big for PTA, too small for serious bucks" category.

What's it about? Well, it's based on the best-selling book by Sue Monk Kidd, and it tells the story of Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning), a girl in 1964 South Carolina haunted by the memory of her late mother. She decides to run away from her abusive father (Paul Bettany), and she takes her caregiver, Rosaleen (Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson), with her. Eventually, she ends up at the residence of three eccentric African-American beekeepers (Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo). There, she must try to "piece together the secrets of her mother's past.

This film is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball), and it very well looks like the kind of film that a parent could take their daughter(s) to see. It will run you $14 in Ultimate leagues, which, if my surmise about the release schedule is correct, is way too much. It will not get the four PTA points Fantasy Moguls predicts, which makes it an unworthy pick. It could, however, pull in about $8 million to $12 million at the ticket counters, which would definitely make it a solid eighth pick in Box Office for only $2.

Well, that will do it for me for yet another week. Please return next week as I chronicle three films set to bow on the weekend of Oct. 24, including what will likely be the biggest hit of the fall season: High School Musical 3: Senior Year, featuring Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay and the rest of the Wildcats as they sing and dance their way into the hearts of teens everywhere; postponed cop drama Pride & Glory, featuring Edward Norton and Colin Farrell as brothers in the NYPD who find themselves on opposite sides of a growing scandal of corruption; and finally, Saw V, the fifth installment of this millennium's No. 1 Halloween staple, featuring a whole new slew of grisly gadgets.

TTFN!

Shrykespeare once stole his brother's car for a babe-bagging road trip, but it was only a lime-green '81 Dodge Dart, so he didn't score. Also, he didn't meet any kinky Amish folk, or dress up as a giant Mexican donut. Well, duh. No wonder the whole thing fell through. Confess your own youthful shenanigans to shrykespeare42@gmail.com.