Fall! At Last!

All right, people, the Olympics are over and that has left me in the midst of my once-every-four-years Post Olympic Depression but, thankfully, the best time of the year for movies is almost upon us. So to try and cure my hangover I will count down the 10 movies I'm most excited to see this autumn. (But let us all remember that "Atonement" would not have been on my Top 10 list last year and, well, we know what happened.)

10. Four Christmases. Yes, I want to see a holiday rom-com with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. You got a problem with that?

9. Miracle at St. Anna. Spike Lee does WWII.

8. Changeling. Eastwood directs Jolie.

7. The Road. Based on the Pullitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy ("No Country For Old Men") this one is definitely intriguing. I have yet to read any of McCarthy's work but from everything I've heard it's not supposed to lend itself to movie adaptations very well (McCarthy did co-write this one, however). But if anyone other than the Coen Brothers is going to try, a guy fresh off directing a film written by Nick Cave seems just about perfect.

6. The Brothers Bloom. Writer/Director Rian Johnson's follow-up to his noir-in-a-high-school "Brick". Plus, you can't get a much better headlining trio than Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz. Oh, did I mention Rinko Kikuchi (of "Babel") plays an explosives expert named Bang Bang?

5. Burn After Reading. My friend Rory indicated he is "wary" of Coen Brothers comedies and that's a completely understandable reaction. They are not for everyone. They are, however, for me. "The Hudsucker Proxy" is still my favorite movie of theirs - "I'll stake my Pulitzer on it!" - and I even enjoyed "Intolerable Cruelty". So, yeah, I'll turn out for their latest foray into funny.

4. Synecdoche, New York. Screenwriter extraordinare Charlie Kauffman makes his directorial debut.

3. The Express. Yes, I've mentioned this one a couple times but, damn it, I'm a college football obsessee and we don't get a lot of movies. So I'm praying to the college football gods and the movie gods that the story of late Syracuse running back Ernie Davis doesn't get messed up. (Speaking 100% honestly, though, I'm worried to all heck it's going to follow the cliche handbook to the tee and I'll leave the theater wanting to punch out car windows.)

2. Australia. An epic romantic adventure with the backdrop of WWII? This one's got Nicholas (J.) Prigge written all over it.

1. Revolutionary Road. Winslet. DiCaprio. Reunited for the first time since "Titanic" in the big-screen adaptation of the one of the greatest books of all time. Oh, mama. Putting my anticipation level for this film into words would be an exercise of the utmost fruitlessness so I'll just say this - it's the World Cup of movie releases, only bigger.