Making Brain Waves By Rita Kempley Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 12, 1999

For instance, audiences will actually tour the interior of a movie star's head in "Being John Malkovich." John Cusack plays a puppet-turned-desk-jockey who discovers a portal into Malkovich's noggin whence he takes control of the actor's life. Malkovich plays himself in this complicated, comic brain-teaser by music video director Spike Jonze.

Although smaller studios are likely to release riskier films in September and October, the typical schedule is as traditional as the gutting and disfiguring of pumpkins on All Hallow's Eve: heavy dramas, literary adaptations and, beginning in late November, potential Oscar contenders.

Like a swallow to Capistrano, Meryl Streep returns to the screen with a flock of divas every year about now. In "Music of the Heart," Streep teaches youth in East Harlem to play the violin. According to buzz, Annette Bening may draw Oscar's eye as a suburban wife in the biting social comedy "American Beauty."

Anjelica Huston directs and stars in "Agnes Browne," the story of a poor Irish widow raising seven children; Emily Watson plays a stalwart Irish mom rearing her impoverished brood in the literary adaptation of "Angela's Ashes." And Jodie Foster has her hands full as a British governess hired to tutor the 58 offspring of a Siamese royal in "Anna and the King."

Susan Sarandon is an impractical mother in tight pants who embarrasses her teenage daughter (Natalie Portman) in "Anywhere but Here." Kate Winslet plays a Hindu-smitten Australian who foils a cult deprogrammer (Harvey Keitel) in Jane Campion's "Holy Smoke." While it has yet to find a place on the schedule, Elisabeth Shue plays "Molly," a featherbrain who rescues lobsters from restaurants.

Memories of fresh seafood, ocean air and barbecues have already begun to fade like summer tans. Soon the deciduous trees will be as naked as Nicole Kidman in "Eyes Wide Shut," a reminder that great expectations don't count for much when it comes to predicting big winners. Let alone sleepers like "The Blair Witch Proj ect."

Nevertheless, the movies most eagerly anticipated include: Pierce Brosnan as James Bond in "The World Is Not Enough"; Kevin Costner back in the ballpark in "For the Love of the Game"; Jim Carrey in "Man on the Moon," the life story of the late comic Andy Kaufman; and Denzel Washington as a quadriplegic detective in "The Bone Collector."

Tom Hanks and Tim Allen will again give voice to Woody and Buzz in "Toy Story 2," and Hanks has a bravura role as a death row prison guard in "The Green Mile," an adaptation of Stephen King's serialized novel. Other public servants in trouble include Nicolas Cage as a burned-out New York City paramedic in Martin Scorsese's "Bringing Out the Dead" and Robert De Niro as a former cop and stroke victim whose speech rehabilitation includes singing lessons from a drag queen in "Flawless." Johnny Depp plays Ichabod Crane as a New York detective on the trail of a serial killer in Tim Burton's adaptation of "Sleepy Hollow." The superstitious villagers of Upstate New York insist the killings are the work of the Headless Horseman.

Brad Pitt and Edward Norton beat each other black and blue in "The Fight Club," a drama directed by David Fincher of "Seven." Antonio Banderas and Woody Harrelson also take it to the mat as ex-boxers trying to make a comeback in Ron Shelton's "Play It to the Bone."

Except for an adaptation of E.B. White's "Stuart Little" and a wacky sci-fi comedy, "Galaxy Quest," comic relief and kids' movies are as scarce as indifferent children on Christmas morning. But what is there to laugh about when the days are so short and the bills are piling up and you put on so much weight over the holidays that you look like the one that got stuffed? "Scream 3" might be just the thing.

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