This Week(end) In Movies: October 7-9

George Clooney gets all political on us again; Hugh Jackman teaches a robot how to fight; and another human centipede graces the silver screen. This is your week(end) in movies, October 7-9.

This Week(end) In Movies: October 14-16

We time travel back to the 80s with Footloose and The Thing; a trio of comedians try to make bird-watching hilarious; and Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman star in a movie together, even though this is probably the first you’re hearing about it.

This Week(end) In Movies: October 28-30

by Eric Walkuski
on October 28th, 2011 1:30 PM

Johnny Depp goes gonzo in Puerto Rico; an animated puss struts his stuff; Justin Timberlake continues his attempt at movie stardom; and Shakespeare might turn out to be not so great after all. This is your week(end) in movies, October 28-30.

THE RUM DIARY
Comedy; 119 min.

Thirteen years after tripping us out with his unhinged performance as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnn Depp once again stars in an ode to the (now deceased) author in The Rum Diary. Flick is based on Thompson’s first novel, about a guy named Paul Kemp (a Thompson stand-in) who decides to pick up stakes in the U.S.A for a job at a local paper in Puerto Rico. With a cast that also includes Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard and Giovanni Ribisi, The Rum Diary was directed by Bruce Robinson, whose last film was 1992′s Jennifer Eight, but he’s likely more fondly remembered for his debut film, the similarly booze-drenched Withnail and I.

PUSS IN BOOTS
Animated; 90 min.

The suave pussycat with the voice of Antonio Banderas gets his own movie (and Dreamworks gets to stretch out their Shrek franchise just a bit longer), with Puss in Boots, an animated western that officially kicks off the holiday movie-going season. (Yeah, you’re saying “it’s not even Halloween yet”, and I’m saying that’s too fuckin’ bad because it’s the holidays and you’ll like it!) One weird factoid: Visionary Spanish director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) is listed as a producer. That might spice up the proceedings a little.

IN TIME
Sci-fi; 109 min

Andrew Niccol writer of such thoughtful brain-teasers as The Truman Show and Gattaca, brings us to another world unlike our own – for now – in In Time, a high-concept sci-fi thriller starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. The premise is convoluted but can boiled down to this: In the future, minutes of your life are currency. That is to say, if you want to hop on a bus, you pay an hour of your life; a cup of coffee costs two minutes, and so on. Pretty crappy way to live if you’re poor and losing time. Timberlake plays a guy fed up with the countdown. It’s a cool idea, to be sure, but is JT really the guy to help bring it to life?

ANONYMOUS
Drama; 129 min.

Here’s a doozy: A Shakespearean drama from the director of Independence Day and Godzilla. Yes, Roland Emmerich has tackled something a little more serious than usual, a movie where not even one earthquake occurs to swallow up an entire city block. Instead, this fictional historical drama posits the notion that old Bill Shakespeare didn’t actually write his plays at all, but was a stand-in for the Earl of Oxford. Likely to be scoffed at by most, Anonymous isn’t necessarily striving for Oscar glory, it’s not going to be confused with Shakespeare in Love anytime soon, so taken on its own dressed-up B-movie terms, it just may be more entertaining than your usual stuffy Victorian affair.