Happy autumn! Today marked the fall equinox for the Northern hemisphere, and while the season can be a depressing one for mainstream moviegoers (at least until Thanksgiving ushers in the holiday blockbusters and Oscar-bait releases), it is otherwise a wonderful time of the year. Having grown up in New England, I’ve always had a great appreciation for the changing leaves, the brisk weather, the pumpkin and apple picking and the foodie holidays (as a rather chunky kid, I really only liked Halloween for the candy and Thanksgiving for the stuffing of my face). I even looked forward to going back to school every September.

But autumn can be a great season for cinephiles, too, despite the significant lack of worthwhile theatrical releases. For one thing, the colder weather, particularly the colder nights, keeps us indoors more often for DVD watching. For another thing, the season has lent itself nominally and spirtually to some great films by the likes of Ozu, Bergman and Rohmer, among others. Personally, I think movies set in the fall tend to look the most beautiful, although I recognize that part of my aesthetic appreciation comes with my general love for autumnal landscapes and activities.

To get myself in the mood, and share the spirit with fellow fans of the fall, I’ve found ten scenes that will help us to welcome the season:

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• I’m skeptical about James Franco portraying Allen Ginsberg in the courtroom-set biopic Howl (can anyone but David Cross be cast after I’m Not There?), but now that Paul Rudd, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Alan Alda and David Straithairn are also aboard, it could at least be a decent ensemble piece.
• Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, U2 and now … Blue Man Group? The painted trio is the latest group to be given a 3-D concert film. I wonder if David Cross just blue himself in the hopes of getting a part in it.
• New Line has acquired an upcoming novel from Richard Doetsch about a man accused of killing his wife and his trip back in time — in one-hour increments — to save her. Titled The Thirteenth Hour, Variety says it’s being described as The Bourne Identity meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, but obviously it’s more like The Fugitive meets Memento (meets — hopefully — David Cross).
• New Line is also making a romantic comedy that’s an obvious cross between Slap Shot and The Devil Wears Prada. And, not obviously, it’s based on a true story.

Last October, we learned that David Wain (beloved director of Wet Hot American Summer) would be taking over the helm of Universal’s Little Big Men, a pre-packaged comedy starring Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad’s “McLovin”). For all of us who love WHAS, The Ten, The State, Stella, Wainy Days and anything else having to do with Wain, it was great news. The script was re-written by Wain and Rudd and Ken Marino, who also co-wrote The Ten, and was adapted (I’m guessing) from the earlier screenplay by Timothy Dowling (George Lucas in Love). And it features some of Wain’s regulars, including Kerri Kenney, Joe Lo Truglio, and A.D. Miles. According to a recent interview with Wain on IESB.net, the film is currently in post-production with hopes of an August release.

But according to MTV Movies Blog today, Wain claims his latest film, which is supposed to be getting a new title, won’t be as absurdist as his fanbase is used to. Wain hints that we should actually be prepared for some tears, in fact. The blog notes that he was being sarcastic, but considering the disappointingly un-Stella-ness of Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black’s solo writing and directorial works, it wouldn’t be that surprising if Little Big Men is actually more tame and straight-forward that we want from a Wain picture. Oh well, I’m sure he was just joking with MTV, and I have nothing to worry about. I mostly just wanted an excuse to write about Wain and the film. Also, I wanted to note that in that IESB interview, which is about a month old, Wain admitted that he and the gang are currently working on a State movie. Fortunately, there’s no possible way that one could be sappy. I’ll still bring the Kleenex, though, because I’m sure to tear up from laughing so hard. Check out the video above for some classic State-era Wain.

I can just imagine how the pitch went for this one. Writer Jeff Lowell (John Tucker Must Die) says, “I’ve got this idea for a movie that’s like Ghost except that in the end Demi Moore falls in love with Whoopi Goldberg. Nah, just kidding, I’ve got this really serious project in mind, very artsy, something that will lift me out of my sitcom-based pattern.” And then the New Line execs say, “Umm. Yeah, so we want to do your Ghost movie, but it has to be more heterosexual.” And Lowell says, “Oh, that was just a fake idea that I was going to propose as a parody to be used on Family Guy or The Simpsons.” Then New Line flashes a suitcase full of money at Lowell, says they’ll even let him direct the movie, and the deal is done. The result: Over Her Dead Body, a movie that seems so ridiculous that it just might work as a parody of itself.

And I hope that Paul Rudd sees how silly the movie is and decided to star in it ironically (just as he appreciates the irony of how his bride died). Because, really, the guy is better than this Ghost meets The Heartbreak Kid kind of paranormal situation comedy. Aren’t there about a hundred Judd Apatow movies in the works that he can at least do a supporting role in rather than play the lead in a movie that features the old chestnut of a scenario in which somebody walks in on another character who seems to be talking to themselves but who is actually conversing with a ghost/angel/etc.? OK, I’ll admit that the “here, catch” scene is pretty funny, despite also being an old joke, and I always enjoy a good mustard and ketchup on the nice dress gag, and I’m glad to see nobody fell in a ditch or walked into a pole in this trailer. But despite the continued appeal of slapstick and discomfort humor, will the public really be interested in yet another ghostly romantic comedy — they didn’t seem too interested in Just Like Heaven, and that starred American sweetheart Reese Witherspoon — especially one that treats the recently deceased so disrespectfully?

How esteemed is Judd Apatow right now? Apparently enough that he can manage to get blow job jokes — visual and verbal ones — on national television. The new trailer for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which Apatow produced, premiered this week on Access Hollywood, and has the most obvious fellatio gestures I’ve ever seen permitted on anytime NBC, let alone pre-primetime NBC. Did nobody at NBC/Universal (which is also distributing the movie) notice? Or did they think the old ladies who watch Access Hollywood wouldn’t notice? Well, the execs didn’t really have to worry, because if you actually look at the version of the trailer shown on the air, it ends before the blow job jokes. Regardless, people who watch the show may have decided to go to the Access Hollywood website and watch the trailer again. This time wondering what’s so funny about a newly acquired necklace.

So, did nobody at the MPAA notice or get the jokes? This trailer may not be put on television in its entirety, but it’s certainly going to be playing to theater audiences comprised of all ages. I guess in relation to the general content of Apatow’s movies, as well as his R-rated viral videos and red-band trailers, this ad is considered pretty tame.

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Eventually Judd Apatow’s schtick will no longer be fresh. But it may continue to be funny, even after the viral marketing backlash. Case in point: this new sketch/advertisement for Walk Hard, which takes Apatow’s viral brand to a mega-meta level. As much as the idea of fake fights involving Apatow and his actors is now a tired concept, the video is hilarious. And as much as Apatow’s self-referential jokes about being self-referential about being self-referential are as obvious as they are mind-wrapping, the video is still hilarious.It helps that this time around, there’s more funny guys involved and more going on at once. It’s not simply funny to watch Craig Robinson chasing after Judd Apatow because he’s pissed about being in another one of his “fucking commercials”, but it’s comedic gold to inter-cut it with Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill and Justin Long realizing they no longer have to talk about Apatow’s movies and can freely discuss their desire to see Michael Clayton.

Funny is funny, regardless of the situation or the motive.

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• It’s t-minus 16 hours until the all-but inevitable WGA strike, but the studios aren’t sweating as much as you might think. According to this story in Variety, the majors and indie arms have been preparing for this all year, and everybody has at least 5 solid scripts that they could put into production without the consultation or aid of a WGA member. Quoth an unnamed “veteran industry player”: “For now, it’s a television strike, not a movie strike.”
• Meanwhile, while New York indie players are generally optimistic that the strike will have little immediate negative impact on their productions, there is a fear that if the strike continues through January, it could make for a manic buying season at Sundance. “Because,” says Tom Quinn of Magnolia,  “If you can’t fill your slate with enough production titles, you’ve got to go out and get finished films.”
• Speaking of buying, the weakened dollar is making it a lot easier for foreign buyers to attend the American Film Market, which gets underway tomorrow in Los Angeles.  But the exchange rate is unlikely to spark irrational spending; as one foreign sales guy tells the Hollywood Reporter, “a lot of what’s at the AFM is very bad U.S. product — a lot of bad horror films and such.” That comment was presumably in regards to the finished films in the market; as Gregg Goldstein reports, this year’s market for as-yet-un-produced properties is full of star studded projects.
• David Wain is directing Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott in an untitled comedy about “party-hearty energy-drink salesmen forced into the roles of big brothers to fulfill a community-service obligation who end up bonding with their assigned kids.” Rudd and Wain wrote the script with Wain’s longtime collaborator, Ken Marino.