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Weekend Movie Guide: Ghouls & Geeks
As someone who had used Facebook since its inception, only to participate in Quit Facebook Day earlier this year, I'm very interested in The Social Network. It's a rare peek into the real world behind our augmented reality, with plenty to "like": David Fincher as director, Aaron Sorkin as writer and Jesse Eisenberg as "the CEO, bitch!" himself, Mark Zuckerberg. The film has a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics comparing it to Citizen Kane, There Will Be Blood & The Godfather. Freakonomics aims for a similar pedigree with its documentary all-star squad: Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Seth Gordon (King of Kong), Rachel Grady & Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp), Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) and Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) tackle abortion, education, offbeat baby names and cheating sumo wrestlers through statistical vignettes, but there may be too many cooks in the kitchen.
Speaking of freakonomics, October means plenty of green for horror movies. Let Me In starts the month off with a fang. An American adaptation of Swedish vampire/coming-of-age film Let The Right One In, the remake from Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) trades subtitles for blood & guts, with Kick-Ass heroine Chloe Moretz as an eternal adolescent. The film's flanked by Hatchet II and Chain Letter, the former being released uncut and unrated at AMC Theatres, the latter a teen slasher shot upstate in Sacramento. Even Paramount gets into the ghoulish game with Renée Zellweger evil-child vehicle Case 39. In limited release, the Allen Ginsberg biopic Howl opens at several Laemmle Theatres. The Sunset 5 hosts over a dozen local laureates for a live performance of Ginsberg's still-controversial piece following the 7PM screening tonight. A full list of participating poets can be found on Laemmle's website.
If you’d like to see something further off the beaten path, check out our weekly Film Calendar of specialty theatres, revival houses and midnight movies. See you at the movies!
General Release
- Case 39 (Showtimes)
- Chain Letter (Showtimes)
- Freakonomics (Showtimes)
- Hatchet II (Showtimes)
- Let Me In (Showtimes)
- The Social Network (Showtimes)
Limited Release
- Altiplano (Laemmle's Music Hall 3)
- Anjaana Anjaani (Laemmle's Fallbrook 7)
- Automorphosis (Downtown Independent)
- Barry Munday (Laemmle's Music Hall 3)
- Brutal Beauty: Tales Of The Rose City Rollers (Downtown Independent)
- Endhiran (Laemmle's Fallbrook 7)
- The Freebie (Nuart Theatre)
- The Girl (Laemmle's Sunset 5)
- Howl (Laemmle Theatres)
- The Temptation of St. Tony (Laemmle's Sunset 5)
Featured Trailers
The Social Network
Support for LAist comes from
Freakonomics
Let Me In
Hatchet II
Chain Letter
Case 39
Howl
That's all for this week. If the girl gave me a freebie, I'd tempt St. Tony.
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