Early autumn starts feeding us with what critics ostensibly know as “”Oscar season,”” when studios start pulling out the big guns and tearjerker screenplays in hopes of winning the coveted gold bar.

So it makes sense for indie mogul Focus Features (part of Universal) to unleash Oscar-fave David Cronenberg’s newest tale of introspection, “”Eastern Promises,”” right as the leaves begin to change color. Three years after his heavily nominated “”A History of Violence,”” Cronenberg regroups with Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Monica Belluci and Vincent Cassell, with Mortensen as a crime lord and Watts a midwife with a conflicted big-wig gangster relationship. Of course there’s violence, but Cronenberg is an expert in this field, and he makes it cool without overglorification – his characters are vicious but always human. Little has been revealed about the final product, save for the cast list and a vague plot skeleton, but knowing Cronenberg, he’ll send something out that summer blockbuster-snubbing cinephiles can salivate over. Sept. 14.