Fall Arts Preview

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The weapons bombarding New York City in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow are giant robots. They're also entirely created — as is everything else in this movie except the stars — by computer. And at least one of the stars is too: ace news hen Gwyneth Paltrow and crack pilot Jude Law are real enough, but Laurence Olivier, in his first role since his death in 1989, is a hologram.

Different computer trickery created The Polar Express, which might also be called Gollum: The Movie. The same technology used to create the The Lord of the Rings wretch brings this supertrain adventure to life. That, plus Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis.

Yes, we've seen Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice before — as an MGM classic, a BBC mini-series and, last year, a modern-day Mormon movie. But Bride and Prejudice will mark the first time we've seen it go Bollywood. Director Gurinder Chadha enjoyed a surprise smash with Bend It like Beckham. Can she go from goal to gold? --By Richard Corliss

Pioneering Works
CRITIC'S CHOICE
TALE OF A FATEFUL TRIP

J.J. Abrams' spy fantasy Alias is not the smartest show on TV. It is perhaps something better: the smartest dumb show on TV. But writer-creator Abrams has competition this season — himself. Lost (ABC, Wednesdays, 8 p.m. E.T., debuts Sept. 22) has an even more ridiculous premise. A transpacific flight crashes on a remote island, leaving a few dozen survivors of a type that suggests that the best protection against a 30,000-ft. drop is good hair and low body fat. The plane was a thousand miles off course and out of radio contact — the survivors are stranded. But not alone: at night the jungle chatters with the sounds of unseen, hungry and possibly supernatural creatures. Gilligan, meet Mulder and Scully.

As in Alias, Abrams sells the ludicrous setup with excellent casting (including Party of Five's Matthew Fox and The Lord of the Rings hobbit Dominic Monaghan), inventive details and sharp comic relief. A desert island is a hermetic setting — not much room for fun Quentin Tarantino cameos there. So Abrams loads up on intriguing characters (a fugitive, an Iraqi Republican Guard veteran and so forth), gives them surprising secrets and continually subverts our ideas of who's good, who's bad and who can be trusted. Above all, Abrams understands that if you make your story a little farfetched, you'll lose the audience — but if you make it a lot farfetched, folks will play along. Lost's plots, like those of Alias, make you suspect that Abrams has no clue where all this is going, but the fun is making your own guess. (Here's mine: at some point in the season, a character will say, "This plane crash was no accident!") As long as the twists keep coming, these castaways should be in for a nice long wait. --By James Poniewozik

1. Colombia's Stunning Hostage Rescue
2. Candidates' Vices: Craps and Poker
3. A Cure for Cold Sores?
4. Your Laptop's Dirty Little Secret
5. Looking Kindly on Vigilante Justice
6. The Battle for Catholic Voters
7. Is McCain's War Record Sacrosanct?
8. Does Green Tea Help the Heart?
9. Is Osama bin Laden Dying ... Again?
10. Among the FARC's True Believers