FALL SNEAKS : Faces to Watch

October is Spike Jonze’s kind of month. On the 1st, the award-winning commercial and music video director hits the big screen as Pvt. Conrad Vig, a redneck soldier in David O. Russell’s adventure caper “Three Kings,” acting alongside George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube. Opening on the final Friday of the month is Jonze’s feature directorial debut, “Being John Malkovich.” The artistically daring film, which stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener and yes, John Malkovich, recently debuted at the Venice Film Festival. .

After several scene-stealing sidekick roles in such movies as “Out of Sight,” “Forces of Nature” and “That Thing You Do,” Minnesota-born actor Steve Zahn finally gets to cut up in a major role in the indie comedy “Happy, Texas.” Zahn plays Wayne Wayne Wayne Jr., an escaped felon who, along with his comrade (Jeremy Northam), poses as the swishy director of a beauty contest in the Lone Star State. Miramax, which won the bidding war for the Sundance hit, will release the film.

Don’t call it a comeback! After all, she’s only 17, but Thora Birch, the curly-topped moppet memorable as Harrison Ford’s daughter in “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger,” is making her big-screen, er, return, in DreamWorks’ “American Beauty.” Birch plays the sullen but vulnerable teen daughter of leads Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening in the scathing dissection of the suburban nuclear family. She also has an uncredited role as--what else?--a teenager in “Anywhere but Here.”

New in Town

From now until Nov. 5 (our Fall Sneaks window), DreamWorks is releasing one film; Paramount and Warner Bros. are releasing three each; Disney and Columbia, which have fairly heavy slates, five apiece. But in the next seven weeks, USA Films is releasing six movies, including prestige pictures from such foreign directors as Emir Kusturica (“Black Cat, White Cat”); this year’s Palme d’Or winner (“Rosetta” from brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne); and offbeat films like Allison Anders and Kurt Voss’ “Sugar Town” and the surreal comedy “Being John Malkovich.” But what is USA Films? It’s the specialized distributor media mogul Barry Diller created when he forged October Films and Gramercy Pictures.

Animosity?

When it comes to animated features, nobody sells tickets like the Disney brand. Sure, “Tarzan” opened to lovely reviews, and it’s grossed more than $170 million. But try explaining that to the Warner Bros. brass. Their animated “The Iron Giant” opened to rave reviews, but it has yet to crack $20 millionCK at the box office. Paramount’s raunchy “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” also got (sometimes reluctantly) glowing notices but fell short of two other Paramount animated hits: “Beavis and Butt-head Do America” and “The Rugrats Movie.” Now Miramax is trying something different. The Disney-owned “indie” has taken renowned Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s much-loved “Princess Mononoke” (in its native Japan, only “Titanic” was more successful), dubbed it with the voice talent of popular English-speakers Claire Danes, Minnie Driver and Billy Bob Thornton, and repackaged it for a late autumn release. Can Miramax really take on its parent company in the animation arena? We’ll see.

Movie Title Mayhem

Warner Bros. plans a pre-Halloween release of the horror thriller “House on Haunted Hill.” Sound familiar? It’s a remake of the 1958 William Castle horror-fest that starred Vincent Price. This version stars Geoffrey Rush and Taye Diggs and is not to be confused (Warner hopes) with DreamWorks’ summer release “The Haunting” (which was based on Shirley Jackson’s novel “The Haunting of Hill House” and was made before in 1963 by Robert Wise, also as “The Haunting”). OK, is everybody clear?

Holiday Buzz

You want holiday movie buzz? You’ve got it. But Capt. Lightyear is just one of the stars coming your way Nov. 7 in Calendar’s Holiday Sneaks, your guide to the films for the rest of 1999.