September used to be the month that studios would begin making amends for their insipid summer fare geared toward the easily entertained and the slow of wit. However, as bad as this summer's screenings were in Prague (The Break-Up, Bandidas, The Omen and the latest The Fast and the Furious knock-off), the autumn isn't going to be much of an improvement. Even in the States, one critic has dubbed September "the new August" — an apt characterization, considering that one of the first items on offer will be Jack Ass: Number Two.

It will be even more of a crapshoot in Prague, as the better Anglophone films are often late in arriving or never materialize at all. We had to wait months for Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Me and You and Everyone We Know, while Junebug and Terrence Malick's The New World have never been seen (though the Cinema City multiplexes were happy to dust off a 3-year-old numbskull teen sex comedy, After School Special).

Of the films being launched in the United States and the United Kingdom over the next four months, a few (although unscheduled at present) are bound to appear here. Certainly the Barrandov-based Bond caper Casino Royale will get klieg-light treatment. With luck we might also see Neil LaBute's remake of The Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage, Brian de Palma's Black Dahlia as well as Scorsese's The Departed. But what about Hollywoodland (a fictional account on the last years of TV's Superman George Reeves), All the King's Men (a remake of the great Broderick Crawford film based on Robert Penn Warren's novel with Sean Penn, Jude Law and Patricia Clarkson), or Fast Food Nation? Furthermore, what of the Karlovy Vary–winning Sherrybaby? So far there's no mention of these, though Praguers will undoubtedly be treated to Saw III and The Santa Clause 3. Indeed, the release schedule is already bedreked with the infantile Just Friends.

Of the films scheduled for release over the next few months, only one is considered "big" — and that, unfortunately, is Oliver Stone's bizarre World Trade Center (Oct. 5), which, despite its serious intent, comes off as a clever if questionable joke. Of the films that sound the most promising, there's Candy (Oct. 19), directed by Neil Armfield and starring Heath Ledger as a heroin-addicted artist. There's also director Tom Tykwer's take on Patrick Suskind's excellent novel, Perfume (Oct. 19), with Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman.

Otherwise, there's Stormbreaker (Oct. 19) from the UK, which is an entertaining espionage film for brighter teens that has a crack cast, and Zoom (Oct. 26), which is also aimed at young audiences and somehow manages to contain Tim Allen and Chevy Chase on the same screen. Speaking of male pairing, we are also threatened with a Kevin Costner–Ashton Kutcher project, The Guardian (Oct. 19), in which a top Coast Guard rescue swimmer takes a young paddler under his wing — surely an idea for the Czech Republic's Bel Ami Studio.

More animated features will be spooling forth. There's The Ant Bully (Sept. 28), which has captured the voices of Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Ricardo Montalban, and Monster House (Oct. 12), which boasts the vocal stylings of Steve Buscemi, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Catherine O'Hara. (As a side note, there's currently a crisis in Hollywood among trained voice artists, who can't get work because all the roles are going to big-name stars. Apparently there will be no Mel Blancs or June Forays in the future).

Among the homegrown projects, expect veteran director Věra Chytilová's Hezké chvilky bez záruky (Sept. 21) with Boleslav Polívka, Anna Polívková, and Jana Janěková, and Jiří Chlumský's Prachy dělaj člověka (Sept. 28), a high-budgeted crime drama shot in Nice and San Francisco. The Czech film that is the most anticipated is Jiří Menzel's I Served the King of England (Dec. 21), building further on his celluloid monument to the writing of Bohumil Hrabal.