Handicapping Hollywood’s Yule Dash

“Cinema Paradiso.” Note the title, write it down on your Christmas calendar, consider it a little surprise gift that you can unwrap yourself during the holidays. Do it now because once the onslaught of advertising and publicity for the major studio Christmas fare begins, it will be hard for independent movies--even those of gem quality--to shine through.

“Cinema Paradiso,” or “Paradise Theater,” is the story of a successful Italian filmmaker who is led by the death of an old friend into reflecting on his childhood in a small town in Italy where the lone movie house served as both the community’s social center and its window on the real and romanticized worlds outside.

The movie focuses on the relationship between a young boy and the man who runs the theater, but it is more a tribute to the allure and power of film itself. It’s a reminder of those seminal moments when those of us who have come to love movies first felt the tug. “Cinema Paradiso” was one of the hits of this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is being delivered on these shores by independent Miramax Film just in time for Christmas.

Meanwhile, Hollywood has a whole new generation of moviegoers to romance and this Christmas, major studios are sending out more than a dozen movies aimed at seducing them. Sixteen pictures are now set to open nationally between Nov. 17 and Christmas. More than a half-dozen others will be given limited send-offs in order to qualify for the next important event, the Oscar Derby. A scattering of others--”Cinema Paradiso” and Cinecom’s “Handmaid’s Tale” among them--will try to be heard above the din.

Much weeping and gnashing of teeth occurs in studio suites whenever attempts to handicap the Christmas field make their way into print. But given the amount of horse manure that accompanies the release of most movies, and the frequency with which marketing people go to their whips during the holiday run, a horse race is pretty much what it has become.

So, with the educated opinions of well-placed industry experts, plus eyewitness reports from a handful of early screenings, the careful reading of career curves and the usual seat-of-the-pants guesswork, here’s one touter’s look at how Hollywood’s last Christmas of the ‘80s will finish at the box office.

Back to the Future II, (Universal Pictures, release date, Nov. 22): Time travel has always been an intriguing theme for film makers, but rarely has it worked as well as in the 1985 “Back to the Future,” in which Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) went back in time to help his parents fall in love so they could get married and have him. The series could go on forever, and may. In Part 2, Marty goes into the future for his time-warped adventure. Part 3 (all three episodes are directed by Robert Zemeckis) is currently being shot in northern California.

Harlem Nights (Paramount, Nov. 17). Eddie Murphy is one of the modern screen’s only true movie stars, a star being defined as someone who can draw crowds even to a bad movie, which most of his have been. Murphy is the writer, director and executive producer of this film, as well as its star, and is working with what he says is a personal passion--the music and people of 1930s Harlem. The story is set in a Harlem nightclub that is run by Murphy and a partner/mentor played by Richard Pryor, with help on the floor from a croupier played by Redd Foxx, and challenged from the outside by racketeers and crooked cops. There’s a fresh score from Herbie Hancock, and plenty of classics from the likes of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. The soundtrack, at least, ought to be great.

Always (Universal, Dec. 15). Steven Spielberg directed this remake/adaptation of Victor Fleming’s 1942 “A Guy Named Joe,” and when Spielberg directs, people watch. Part romantic adventure, part fantasy, it stars Richard Dreyfuss as a daredevil pilot who flies to his death while fighting a forest fire in the Northwest, only to be returned to duty as the guardian angel for a young pilot played by newcomer Brad Johnson (Van Johnson was discovered in that role the first time around). Holly Hunter (“Broadcast News”) plays Dreyfuss’ wife; the part was originally played by Irene Dunne.

The Little Mermaid (Disney, Nov. 17) and All Dogs Go to Heaven (MGM, Nov. 17). The studios won’t like it, but we’ll pair them here as an entry since they represent the complete resurgence of classical animation and will undoubtedly scoop up more than $100 million in box office receipts between them. “Little Mermaid,” based on the Hans Christian Anderson story about a mermaid who falls in love with a man (shades of “Splash!), is Disney’s first animated fairy tale in 30 years, and the studio was so excited about it that it began screening the film in rough cut form for critics months ago. Credit for part of the new revived commitment to animation at Disney goes to former Disney animator Don Bluth, who led an animation department mutiny at the Burbank studio 10 years ago, and eventually set up a studio in Dublin. “All Dogs Go to Heaven” is the third Bluth film sent home from Ireland (“An American Tail” and “The Land Before Time” preceded it) to compete head-to-head with his old studio.

She-Devil (Orion, Dec. 8). Meryl Streep and Rosanne Barr--an elegantly serious actress with limited box office appeal and a slovenly comedian with immense TV ratings--are both cast against type in a dark comedy about a discarded wife (Barr) plotting revenge against her husband (Ed Begley Jr.) and his new toy (Streep). The film could move way up or way down on the box office list, depending on how well the casting takes. Orion, which had no hits during Hollywood’s recent record-shattering summer, badly needs one now.

Steel Magnolias (Tri-Star, Nov. 17). Robert Harling’s hit stage play about the events in the lives of six Southern women who congregate at a residential beauty parlor has, under the direction of Herbert Ross, become a movie with the sentimental aspirations of “Terms of Endearment.” The high-powered cast includes hairdresser Dolly Parton, her assistant Daryl Hannah, the diabetic beauty Julia Roberts and her baleful mother Sally Field, grumpy neighbor Shirley MacLaine and the proper widow Olympia Dukakis. Dukakis and Field share the kind of scene in the final reel that usually brings Oscar nominations.

War of the Roses (Fox, Dec. 8). After 18 years of a seemingly perfect marriage, Washington, D.C.’s most enviable couple--Oliver and Barbara Rose (Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner)--decide they have in nothing in common except their mutual admiration for their house. With Oliver’s law school buddy (Danny DeVito) serving as his divorce lawyer, the house becomes a battleground. DeVito, reunited here with his “Romancing the Stone” co-stars, also directs the dark comedy adapted from a Warren Adler novel.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Warner Bros., Dec. 1). For whatever reason, Chevy Chase is a star (see above definition) and this formula comedy, in which Chase’s well-intentioned bumbling dad Clark Griswold leads his family into a series of sit-com disasters, has found a large audience. Its steady customers will get it off to a fast start, but it should fade quickly.

Blaze (Touchstone, Dec. 13). Paul Newman and newcomer Lolita Davidovich co-star as Louisiana Governor Earl Long and the stripper, Blaze Starr, who brought him down. Ron Shelton had the hot land last summer, as writer and director of the baseball comedy “Bull Durham,” but sex scandals are a whole new ball game.

Family Business (Tri-Star, Dec. 22). Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick are the grandfather, father and grandson who plan a low-risk, high-return robbery in this drama directed by Sidney Lumet. Lumet has been hot and cold in recent years, but he’s still one of the most gifted directors of drama around and the cast is certainly hot.

Tango and Cash (Warner Bros., Dec. 15). Does Sony know about this? Before producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters signed their five-year pact with Warner Bros., and before they agreed to run Columbia Pictures for its new Japanese owner, long before Sony and Warner Bros. began suing each other over the rights to Guber-Peters, the celebrated producers hatched this oddly cast prison drama co-starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell. As negotiations went on behind closed doors at Sony and Columbia, “Tango and Cash” was reportedly going wildly off track. Director Andrei Konchalovsky (“Runaway Train”) was replaced three months into filming by Albert Magnoli (“Purple Rain”), reportedly after refusing to sacrifice major scenes in order to make the Christmas deadline, and sources say the budget has escalated past the $50 million mark.

The Wizard (Universal, Dec. 15). This road story about a young teen-ager (Fred Savage from TV’s “The Wonder Years”) who discovers that his dysfunctional half-brother (Luke Edwards) is a genious at video games sounds like an adolescent version of “Rain Man.” It also sounds like an attempt to tap that shrinking youth audience that has begun to let Hollywood down.

We’re No Angels (Paramount, Dec. 1). Robert De Niro and Sean Penn together in a comedy? Don’t laugh. De Niro was hilarious in last year’s “Midnight Run” and Penn, in his break-out performance, was a riot in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” With a script by David Mamet and the direction of Neil Jordan (“Mona Lisa”), this chase film about two escaped cons and the Molly (Demi Moore) they encounter on the road is the dark horse of the Christmas field.

Prancer, (Orion, Nov. 22). Family films are hot, and a family film with a holiday hook could be very hot. Newcomer Rebecca Harrell stars as a young girl who rescues a wounded reindeer thinking it belongs to Santa and tries to nurse it back to health before the all-important Christmas Eve flight. Sam Elliott plays her father and Cloris Leachman is the (rhymes with witch) who runs the local park.

Among the films going into limited release before Dec. 31 to qualify for the Academy Awards:

Valmont (Orion, Nov. 17). Milos Forman’s first film since “Amadeus” will inevitably be compared to Stephen Frears’ “Dangerous Liaisons,” which earned an assortment of Oscar nominations last year. Eyewitnesses say Forman’s film is vastly richer in texture to Frears’ film, but the performances--Colin Firth as Valmont, Meg Tilley as Madame de Tourvel, and newcomer Annette Bening as the Marquise de Merteuil--will be unfairly weighed against those of John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Glenn Close in last year’s film.

Glory (Tri-Star, Dec. 13). Edward Zwick directs this historical Civil War drama about the North’s first black infantry regiment which was led into battle against the South by a white officer (Matthew Broderick). The ensemble cast also includes Denzel Washington and Jane Alexander.

Enemies, a Love Story (Fox, Dec. 15). Co-writer and director Paul Mazursky adapts Isaac Bashevis Singer’s 1972 post-World War II novel about a Jewish emigree (Ron Silver) whose new life in New York City is complicated by the three women--two wives (Anjelica Huston and Margaret Sophie Stein) and a mistress (Lena Olin)--he simultaneously loves.

Driving Miss Daisy (Warner Bros., Dec. 22). Director Bruce Beresford directs this adaptation of Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play that chronicles the changing American South through the relationship of an elderly Jewish matron (Jessica Tandy) and the black man (Morgan Freeman) who becomes her chaeuffeur and companion.

Born on the Fourth of July (Universal, Dec. 22). With “Platoon,” writer-director Oliver Stone relayed the day-to-day hell that was Vietnam; in this adaptation of Marine veteran Ron Kovic’s award-winning autobiography, he takes on the hell that Vietnam vets found when they got home. Tom Cruise, in a performance that will make or break the film, plays Kovic.

Music Box (Tri-Star, Dec. 22). Jessica Lange stars in this Costa-Gavras conscience drama as a criminal lawyer defending--while not quite sure of his innocence--her immigrant father who faces charges of having committed war crimes.