Flightplan's Jodie Foster is concerned about the quality of this year's fall movie previews (Photo: Touchstone Pictures)

As sure as it brings leaves' changing hues, gripping pennant races and a life-draining barrage of political ambition, autumn boasts the promise of new films bold enough to erase the summer film season's cloying aftertaste. This is supposedly the time of year when distributors get serious, unveiling whatever half-masterpieces or dramatic flourishes they have timed for an Oscar quest or, in Miramax's case, will not fit in the moving van and are thus unceremoniously dumped on you, the humble moviegoer.

But that is the least of the dark trends that symbolize fall, at least for film fans. September marks the return of the dreaded Fall Movie Preview--a sprawling pastiche of hype, supposition and trivia that emerge around this time to detail all the marvelous things happening in theaters between now and the end of the year. And while many editors defend their fall previews as a service to their readers, The Reeler has always seen through this myth to the more functional effect at hand: Like their summer counterparts, most fall previews serve little purpose beyond pages and pages of filler, offering nothing new about film and, worse yet, postulating liberally about movies and performances most of their authors have not yet seen. It is a chance for studios' publicity apparatuses to score gallons of ink at low or no cost, and the result symbolizes publications' ugly tendency to indulge themselves before their readers. After all, you cannot beat pages of easy content and ready-to-wear press releases when you are an editor just trying to milk those last days of summer for all they are worth?and like the higher-ups at McDonald's or Budweiser, they know that you have no idea how stale the product is that you are consuming.

So with the hopes of providing a real service to New York filmgoers, The Reeler has parsed a cross-section of the city's more voluble fall preview offerings to screen useful from useless, trenchant from tragic, helpful from hyperbolic. Because if you must waste your time with gratuitous filler, only the best filler will do.

New York Daily News
FOCUS: In their preface to what amounts to excruciatingly capsulized calendar of fall releases, Jack Mathews and Elizabeth Weitzman want the hoi polloi to know that "spectacular fantasy films" are the order of the season. Of course, the authors are obligated to name check early Oscar possibilities like Munich and Memoirs of a Geisha, as well as nod to shitty fall comedies like The Man and Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

HIGH POINT: The authors get all fanboy on us with their emphatic mention of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:

There have been some grumblings that Mike Newell, the director of Four Weddings and a Funeral, will not stay true to the daringly dark tone set by his predecessor, Alfonso Cuar󮮠As Dumbledore tells Harry, "We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy." Here's hoping Newell chose wisely.

Yeah, well, Newell also directed the exquisite working-class dramas Dance with a Stranger and Donnie Brasco, and he is the first British director to get a crack at the Potter franchise. Nevertheless, the NYDN's unshielded crush on Harry is awfully cute.

LOW POINT: About Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist: "If ever there were a story that suited Roman Polanski's dark sensibilities, it's Charles Dickens' classic saga of an orphan whose fate falls and rises at the mercy of others." Memo to Mathews and Weitzman: The guy fucked a 13-year-old. Perhaps they would have preferred his "dark sensibilities" for Harry Potter, but Emma Watson is still underage?and we all know that would only end in tears.

BEST LINE: About the Robert Rodriguez-scripted Curandero: "Director Eduardo Rodriguez is apparently no relation."

EGREGIOUS HYPE: In all honesty, the authors remain reasonably reserved in their praise, sticking nearby the distributors' press kits in most cases.

VALUE BEYOND FILLER: Low, unless you plan out your fall movie going two to three months in advance. Although I have to say, the list of films is admirably exhaustive. Which, of course, means exactly nothing to 95 percent of Daily News readers.

Entertainment Weekly
FOCUS: Higher- to medium-profile releases and plentiful star interviews. The magazine ranks Harry Potter and the since-bumped-to-spring V for Vendetta at the top of its list of the fall's most-anticipated releases, which is convenient since both are being released by EW's sister company Warner Bros. (No. 3 on the list, Rent, has its soundtrack distributed on Warner Bros. Records). So get out your grain of salt.

HIGH POINT: Gets through its entire capsule review of Everything is Illuminated without mentioning Elijah Wood's role as Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, which is rarer among the film's write-ups than a solid actor like Wood deserves.

LOW POINT: Asking it readers (in reference to Flightplan), "Are post-9/11 audiences finally ready for movies where horrible things happen on airplanes?" Moreover, is EW ready for straight-up terrorist films like Paradise Now and The War Within, neither of which score a mention in the preview?

BEST LINE: About George Clooney's weight gain for Stephen Gaghan's Syriana: "Syriana will also forever be known as the film that turned the former Sexiest Man Alive into a walrus."

EGREGIOUS HYPE: "Even right after the release of the new book, it's impossible to get enough Harry, and we've been waiting a year and a half since the last movie." Well, then, assholes, walk across the hall to Warner Bros. and grab a DVD screener, just like you did for Batman Begins.

VALUE BEYOND FILLER: Moderate, since such garish, skin-deep hype is EW's modus operandi. As such, the magazine has refined it to a science, and there are a succession of original interviews that override the monotony of "burning questions" like, "Is (Walk the Line) the Ray of 2005?" You could read worse on the train or while waiting in your therapist's lobby.

Believe me: It looks better in B&W (Photo: WETA Digital/Universal Pictures)

The New York Times
FOCUS: In classic, overbearing Times tradition, it is not a "fall movie preview"--it is "The New Season." Offers highly cerebral takes on everything from Reese Witherspoon's affinity for Tennessee to choreographers-turned-filmmakers Susan Stroman and Rob Marshall. Also features DVDs and performances to watch for, while adding a few pages in the back for a full list of the season's upcoming releases.

HIGH POINT: Ross Johnson's fascinating piece about the politics of marketing King Kong, detailing how Universal and Peter Jackson are working to "generate hype without the appearance of hype." The six-column photo of Kong is the first effects image I have seen from the film that doesn't look like something out of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

LOW POINT: Giving Tony Scott the front page for his tired epistemological ramblings (Sample: "The achievements of costume and set design ... are far from incidental pleasures. They help seal us into a state of nostalgic reverie and make past hardships available for aesthetic delectation.") while poor Stephen Holden is reduced to 12 hackneyed inches about Woody Allen's comeback.

BEST LINE: Manohla Dargis on David Cronenberg's A History of Violence: "Mr. Cronenberg knows the frenzy of blood."

EGREGIOUS HYPE: Who else but Scott, with his Hall-of-Fame-caliber assertion that "(t)he biopic and the costume drama seem to be enjoying an extraordinary ascendance in the world of prestige filmmaking, perhaps to a greater extent than ever before." Right, Tony, because the 1930s--from Disraeli through Laughton's Henry VIII, Queen Christina, Mutiny on the Bounty, Wuthering Heights and Gone With the Wind--just were not quite ascendant enough, especially for the first full decade of film with sound. Erin Brockovich, The Pianist and Ray disgrace all that shit.

VALUE BEYOND FILLER: Fairly high, in fact. It offers the penetrating insight you would expect from The Times' better film writing, while avoiding too much throwaway-quality press-release rehash. Also includes a nice two-page catalogue for the New York Film Festival, which possesses perhaps more value than any single feature of the other previews.

The Village Voice
FOCUS: Rather short at two pages, but comprises a typically abstract Atkinsonian survey of the season's indies (and some edgier studio fare), a top-ten list for the fall and a few bit players of varying potential.

HIGH POINT: The Voice's top-ten list features a nicely anarchic range of things to look forward to, virtually all of which have some basis in either history (the Alfred Hitchcock series at Film Forum) or experience (Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, which its [p]reviewers have actually seen).

LOW POINT: Atkinson's inclination to pump up Terrence Malick's The New World based on some mysterious mathematical formula--not once but twice: "It's only Malick's fourth movie but it has the foretaste of a miracle; if it holds to even 25 percent of the factual record, it'll be all the political readjustment we need," and in the top-ten list, "If Terrence Malick's fourth feature is even half as good as his first, second, or third, it'll be the best American movie of the year."

BEST LINE: Atkinson's bon mots usually leave me cold, but I kind of like his prediction that Spielberg's Munich will "explode every driplet of empathy into an operatic seizure of vengeance."

EGREGIOUS HYPE: A tie between Atkinson ("David Cronenberg's latest ... confirms its maker as the greatest director working in the English language today.") and Dennis Lim ("Isabelle Huppert and Gena Rowlands, two of the greatest actresses movies have known, are feted at MOMA and BAM, respectively.")

VALUE BEYOND FILLER: Low, although its brevity implies that Voice editors may have played it conservatively to avoid the appearance of simply calling it in. Too late for that, though, especially considering even Anthony Kaufman's sources do not have much use for his quickie about the industry's anemic 2005:

"God forbid we should add to the pile of ink about the box office slump," says Focus Features' James Schamus. "The sample size is way too low. We have no idea what this means in terms of the long term. If this extends into spring of next year, we'll be having a very different conversation, but right now, it's just a bunch of movies that haven't worked."

And believe me: If it works as a pull quote here, it would work as a pull quote in the Voice.

Never a slouch on the photo end, New York blows it anyway with Capote (Photo: Sony Pictures Classics)

New York Magazine
FOCUS: Pretty New York-centric, obviously, with a few big-name quasi-indies (Everything is Illuminated and Capote) sharing the stage with A-listers Gwyneth Paltrow and Meryl Streep. Mix in some fancy design and a quirky sidebar or two, and its quintessential NYM back-of-the-book pap--but, you know, in the front of the book.

HIGH POINT: The feature's "Hollywood East" map, outlining the New York connection to 16 of this fall's upcoming releases (it makes more sense in print).

LOW POINT: Neither the "Hollywood East" map nor the selective "Best of the Rest" list include the astonishing Keane, which was shot largely around Port Authority by native New Yorker Lodge Kerrigan.

BEST LINE: An ironic tie between film student Swati Kapila's film tastes ("A story is good if it could really happen, if it's plausible. My favorite movie is Good Will Hunting.") and the "Best" list's blurb on Oliver Twist ("An accused child molester directing a kid's film. Well, it made sense to Roman Polanski.").

EGREGIOUS HYPE: Logan Hill creams over the outgoing Gwyneth Paltrow:

Her recalcitrance can seem like arrogance, but that hard surface may just be self-possession--the defining trait in screen icons, from Garbo on. At a time when so many young starlets seem too eager to please, Paltrow has perhaps soaked in the ethos of her husband's business: Like a rock star, she's walked offstage at the height of her powers, certain that her fans will beg for an encore.

I don't know, Logan--between you and The Times and the Web in general (of course this godforesaken site has done its worst) she seems a little overexposed. Maybe a break would do all of us some good.

VALUE BEYOND FILLER: Very low--as in "kill yourself before reading it." The representation of New York films is borderline commendable, but to say it is thorough, fresh, well-written or even remotely intriguing is to overstate its worth. It ran a picture from Capote with Catherine Keener's back turned to the camera, for Christ's sake. Keener and Hoffman have got to be the only reason to sit through that fucking movie.