Welcome to the fourth quarter of the year, i.e., the one where the good movies are! Good day to you, late-summer-blahs! I said good day!
October brings two excellent films that could easily have been terrible. “The Social Network,” about the founding of Facebook, is whip-smart, funny, and riveting, despite being about geeks writing computer code. “Let Me In” (review at Film.com) is a remake of an acclaimed Swedish horror-drama that didn’t need remaking, but it proves to be outstanding in its own right.
Also opening in wide release is one of Hollywood’s Shameful Secrets®: “Case 39,” starring Renee Zellweger as a social worker (presumably a squinty one) dealing with evil parents and/or an evil child. It was shot four years ago and already released everywhere else in the world, and finally opens in the U.S. today without advanced screenings. Trailer doesn’t look too bad, so who knows? (Spoiler: I don’t.)
My Film.com columns didn’t run this week because I was at Fantastic Fest in Austin, which was a lot of fun but exhausting. I loved it, but I couldn’t have done the whole week. It would have killed me. Here are some li’l reviews I wrote:
Film.com: Dispatch #1, with “Heartless,” “Mother’s Day,” “A Somewhat Gentle Man,” “I Saw the Devil,” and “Bedevilled.”
Film.com: Dispatch #2, with “Undocumented,” “We Are What We Are,” “Outrage,” “A Horrible Way to Die,” and “Stake Land.” (By the way, the title “A Horrible Way to Die” could easily be the name of the film festival.)
Cinematical: “30 Days of Night: Dark Days.”
Also at Cinematical, I think I’m doing a regular feature now about the week’s new movie trailers. Here is the first entry.
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