Arbus, Capote, Iwo Jima -- and Mark Ruffalo!

The groundbreaking 1960s photographer Diane Arbus -- whose haunting portraits of American families, freaks and misfits inspired a generation of artists -- has been a tantalizing subject in Hollywood for years, with Diane Keaton at one point mentioned as the actress most likely to play her. But Nicole Kidman got the part, and before you say, "Huh?" remember what people said when they first heard she was going to play Virginia Woolf.

There are many reasons to look forward to "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus," the movie about the photographer's early life and career that will arrive in November. One, surely, is to see whether Kidman can successfully morph into yet another famously complicated, troubled woman (Arbus took her own life in 1971). But another is director Steven Shainberg, whose 2002 "Secretary" starred Maggie Gyllenhaal as a masochistic clerical assistant. The film -- funny, scary, provocative and finally kind of sweet -- was a small triumph of formal virtuosity and tonal control. With Shainberg at the helm, "Arbus" promises to transcend the usual formulaic tripe of the Hollywood biopic.

-- Ann Hornaday

And, fellow sufferers of the Mark Ruffalo Problem will be cheered to know that our mutual obsession is returning to the big screen twice in the coming season, first in the highly anticipated "All the King's Men" but even more enticingly in "Margaret."

The story of a New York high school student convinced she played a part in a fatal traffic accident, "Margaret" brings Ruffalo back together with writer-director Kenneth Lonergan, who has worked with the actor extensively on the stage and who directed his breakout performance in 2000's "You Can Count on Me."

"Margaret," due out later this fall, also stars Anna Paquin, Matt Damon and Matthew Broderick. But MRP patients know who they'll be lining up for.

-- Ann Hornaday

Memo to Clint Eastwood: Don't blow it.

Eastwood's new film is based on the bestseller by James Bradley and Ron Powers, "Flags of Our Fathers," about the hideous battle of Iwo Jima, the six men who raised the flag (one was Bradley's father) on Iwo, a moment freakishly frozen into absolute artistic perfection by photographer Joe Rosenthal. It was a great book, stirring, moving, tough, heartbreaking. It did one thing superbly: It documented the surrealism of the situation. None of the guys had a sense of contributing much to the bloody campaign, but the ones who survived were plucked out of combat after the pic hit the papers and turned into Public Heroes because of the gratuitous Pieta-like capture of that one split second when all they were doing was sticking the dang pole into the sand and shoving it skyward. They went home stars to a country starved for stars. Meanwhile, their buddies still were getting shot up out there on the little speck of volcanic rock the Japanese called Sulfur Island.

All of the men, with the exception of Bradley's dad, who never even told his kids much about it, had issues afterward, and felt guilty receiving adulation. It's a quintessential modern mass-media thing. Is Eastwood capable of bringing out the weirdness, the ache, the ambiguity of the situation? "Sands of Iwo Jima" with John Wayne sure didn't. Let's hope.

Interesting tidbit: Eastwood decided to shoot a companion film, from the Japanese point of view. That movie will be released some time next year, and will really test his skills.

-- Stephen Hunter

Steve McQueen as James Bond? Yes, that seems to be the upshot of the decision to cast the British actor Daniel Craig as 007 in iteration No. 21 of the most famous secret agent in the world. Craig is far from the dark, suave, chilly, slinky tomcats who've played the character in the past.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Craig is tougher than any of the previous boys, the toughest at least since Sean Connery, and he's got a kind of McQueen cool thing going on (and not even McQueen was cool in every picture). Unlike Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, particularly Roger Moore, certainly George Lazenby, he seems like he could really hurt you. He seems dangerous. You'd want him nearby in any bar fight. So it suggests the Bond franchise is headed back to its roots in measured realism. In fact, the best thing I've read about the new "Casino Royale" is director Martin Campbell's quote in Entertainment Weekly: "There's only so many villain's lairs you can put in a volcano or cave." Yes! Exactly! The series had gone berserk with effects and every villain had to live in some outrageous campy nest somewhere -- the mountaintop, under the subway, over the highway, in a blimp or a sub. See, it's better when the villain lives in a house, because then he's a man, which means Bond has to be a man and the whole thing is a story, not an F/X shop product reel.

Some other whispers of revitalization: Paul Haggis wrote the script (or possibly rewrote the script) with Bond regs Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Haggis wrote Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby," wrote and directed Best Pic "Crash." And the American CIA agent Felix Leiter is played by the great American actor Jeffrey Wright, who brings a great deal of street cred to the picture. Here's hoping we have a Bond who isn't a fop, a fool or a -- well, you know.

-- Stephen Hunter

The makers of last year's Oscar-friendly "Capote" centered their movie on the episode for which Truman Capote was best known: his writing of the nonfiction novel "In Cold Blood." It was a superb film, yet there was still much left unexplored about the elfin writer: Capote's Southern upbringing, his younger years at the New Yorker, the writing of "Breakfast at Tiffany's," his tempestuous affairs and his notoriously stormy relationship with his mother.

Which is why I have hope for "Infamous," another movie about Capote due in November. It, too, focuses on Capote's "In Cold Blood" years and is based on a series of revelatory interviews published in George Plimpton's book "Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career." But hopefully the film (which was in production around the same time as "Capote," so no calling it a copycat) will uncover new insights and material.

At the least, it will give viewers a chance to watch someone else get small and squeaky as Capote -- in this case, British actor Toby Jones. Seen thus far on the periphery of British-set dramas ("Finding Neverland," "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and as Robert Cecil in the British miniseries "Elizabeth I"), he will be interesting to watch to see what insights he brings to this fascinating American character.

-- Desson Thomson

I can tell you little about the upcoming comedy "For Your Consideration," except that it follows the actors of an indie film as their movie generates heavy Oscar buzz -- and it's directed by Christopher Guest. The conceit rings rich with possibility, but it's the man at the helm that produces a yippee in my soul.

With Guest, we can anticipate the same endearing goofballs, deadpanners and goody-two-shoes who always grace Guest's mockumentaries, including "Waiting for Guffman," "A Mighty Wind" and "Best in Show." As a writer, director, performer and even composer, Guest demonstrates marvelously consistent comedic instincts. And he surrounds himself with performers who are not only brilliant actors but also are able to improvise the script to create truly memorable characters. "Consideration" features Guest regulars Fred Willard, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean, Parker Posey and John Michael Higgins.

What distinguishes this ensemble, of course, is its reality-show air of believability. The characters in a Guest film seem dead serious and blissfully unaware of their absurdity. As the drawling owner of a bloodhound in "Best in Show," Guest seems indistinguishable from his dog as he extols his pet's virtues. Hit the mute button while watching Willard's turn as the tacky, foot-in-his-mouth dog show color commentator in the same movie, and he truly looks the part of serious network newscaster. And then there's the mixture of comic tension and poignant affection between O'Hara and Levy -- as aging folksingers in "A Mighty Wind" -- that can induce tears on different levels. In a time filled with terrorism, war atrocities and other mortifying realities, I crave having characters like these around me like, well, family; they can consider themselves permanently adopted.

-- Desson Thomson