This season is prime time for cinematic outliers—from Bad Education, Pedro Almodóvar’s Cannes-adored film about a homicidal, transvestite-loving priest, to Primer, a Texas indie about computer geeks who learn to time-travel. David O. Russell’s bizarre I (heart) Huckabees casts Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin as “existential” detectives. “It used to be that weird movies didn’t get stars,” says director Wes Anderson. “Now it seems like in order for strange movies to happen, you have to get a huge star.” That’s just fine for Anderson, who hired Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, and Willem Dafoe to don wetsuits for The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. “Bill plays a kind of oceanographer-filmmaker-showman,” promises Anderson. “Somebody who thrives on leading people into wild situations, but is not an expert in getting them out of them.”
Bad Education, Sony Pictures Classics; opens November 19.
Primer, ThinkFilm; opens October 8.
I (heart) Huckabees, Fox Searchlight; opens October 1.
The Life
Aquatic … , Touchstone; opens December 10.