The tricks have been played and the treats have been eaten. Another Halloween is behind us.
But that doesn’t mean you have to wait until next year for some thrills and chills. The secondHorrible Imaginings, San Diego’s horror-film festival, has had a haunted art gallery up since last weekend, and will screen scads of short films and a few features on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 4 and 5, at the 10th Avenue Theatre (930 10th Ave., Downtown).
It all begins at 6 p.m. on Friday with three-and-a-half hours of short films curated by Horrible Imaginings guru Miguel Rodriguez. The first evening’s feature is Gojira, the original Godzilla movie, followed at 11:20 by The Taint, an NC-17, adults-only screening. Minors or those easily grossed out or offended (which raises the question: What are you doing at a horror-film festival, anyway?) can kick it on the rooftop or check out the art while it’s going on.
Day two starts at 5 p.m. and includes the feature Long Pigs, which has simply got to have something to do with cannibalism. The final film of the fest is Georges Franju’s seriously creepy Eyes Without a Face, about a plastic surgeon who harvests the skin from young girls in the hopes of fixing his disfigured daughter. Icky.
Find a complete schedule of films athifilmfest.com, as well as ticket info and a list of filmmakers who’ll be in attendance. More good news for horror fans—Horrible Imaginings is a steal at just $10 per a day. Plus, if you go, you’ll be surrounded by your gore-minded brethren, some of whom will probably still have their Halloween makeup on.
Habana Eva: The San Diego Latino Film Festival wraps up its Cinema en tu Idioma series at UltraStar Mission Valley with a romantic comedy from Cuba.
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas: About as funny as a holiday stoner 3-D movie can be, although the buzz wears off over time. Still, Neil Patrick Harris is absolutely filthy, going further than he did in the first two films.
Hell and Back Again: Photojournalist Danfung Dennis follows the men with whom he was imbedded in Afghanistan back to the U.S., exploring what they face on both fronts.
Tower Heist: When Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick and Casey Affleck learn they’ve lost everything in Alan Alda’s ponzi scheme, they recruit Eddie Murphy to help them rob him.
Raising Arizona: This Coen brothers film is one of the funniest movies ever made, and it screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.
Rise & Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story: This documentary about the American soccer player who almost didn’t get to play pro soccer is co-directed by a San Diegan and was financed via more than $200,000 in crowdfunding donations. Screens at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Nov. 3 and 10, at UltraStar Mission Valley.
Hongse Xue (Red Snow): Chinese filmmaker Peng Tao explores the Cultural Revolution through the dealings of one peasant woman and three other people from different segments of Chinese society. Screens at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at The Loft at UCSD.
Crazy, Stupid, Love: Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling headline a good-enough romantic comedy that’s not ashamed of its PG-13 status. Screens at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, through Saturday, Nov. 5, at Cinema Under the Stars in Mission Hills.
Lolita: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Nabakov’s book is squeamishly well-written, and Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation is pretty damn good, too. Screens at 2:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, at the Central Library, Downtown. Free.
Pink Floyd The Wall: All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall, at midnight, Friday and Saturday, Nov. 4 and 5, at the Ken Cinema.
Citizen Ruth: Laura Dern is Ruth, a hopped-up, knocked-up lady who finds herself in the midst of the abortion debate. Part of an Alexander Payne retrospective, it screens at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, at Reading Cinemas Gaslamp.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon: This is the one in which Bella (Kristen Stewart) is ditched by vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson), so she gets cozy with werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who’s allergic to shirts. Screens at several area theaters at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8. Hit fathom%u2028events.com for details.
Cruising: Al Pacino plays a cop who goes undercover in New York’s 1980 underground gay subculture to catch a seriously homophobic serial killer. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at the Birch North Park Theatre.
Election: Matthew Broderick is a teacher who goes up against Reese Witherspoon, a candidate for student body president. This terrific film is part of an Alexander Payne retrospective and screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at Reading Cinemas Gaslamp.
West Side Story: When you’re a jet, you’re a jet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dying day. It’s the musical’s 50th anniversary, and it’s screening at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at several area theaters. Hit fathomevents.com for details.
The Hammer: Based on the Life of Matt Hamill: This biopic of Matt Hamill, the first deaf wrestler to win the National Collegiate Wrestling Championship, screens at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at UltraStar Mission Valley.
Coming to America: Eddie Murphy has made a fortune doing family-friendly films. WTF happened to Arsenio Hall? Screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.
Martha Marcy May Marlene: Elizabeth Olsen—yes, the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley—is very good as a woman who has physically, but not mentally, escaped from a cult led by John Hawkes.
All’s Faire in Love: Christina Ricci stars in this romantic comedy set in the world of renaissance faires.
Anonymous: Disaster director Roland Emmerich commits murder most foul against Shakespeare’s reputation in this entertaining period piece positing that someone else wrote all of the Bard’s work.
In Time: Justin Timberlake stars in this sci-fi actioner as a guy with too much time on his hands in a world where people no longer age.
Oranges and Sunshine: Emily Watson plays Margaret Humphreys, a British social worker who discovered that her government was telling children their parents were dead but instead was shipping them to Australia.
Puss in Boots: Not too hard to imagine what the knock-off porn title will be of this Shrek spin-off.
Forces of Nature: This IMAX film is all about earthquakes, volcanoes and storms, things that remind us that Mother Nature is one tough mama. Screens Fridays at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park.
Everest: It’s one seriously tall mountain, and you’ll get up close and personal with it in this IMAX movie. Screens Fridays at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park.
RA. One: The most expensive Indian film made to date, this sci-fi super-hero film will be screened in both 2- and 3-D.
The Rum Diary: Johnny Depp channels Hunter S. Thompson once again in an adaptation by the guy who made Withnail and I and How to Get Ahead in Advertising.
San Diego Italian Film Festival: SDIFF celebrates birthday No. 5. The set-up is different than most, screening one movie a night for more than two weeks. It runs until Nov. 12, at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. Visit sandiegoitalianfilmfestival.com for a list of films, showtimes and ticket info.
Toast: A nostalgic British foodie movie with Freddie Highmore and Helena Bonham Carter. Insert your own beans-on-toast joke here.
Finding Joe: The “Joe” here is Campbell, and this documentary features interviews with tons of people who have been affected by his work.
Johnny English Reborn: Rowan Atkinson plays the bumbling agent a second time.
Margin Call: Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons and a slew of high-profile talents play the 1-percenters on the eve of the financial meltdown.
The Mighty Macs: Carla Gugino stars as Cathy Rush, who took the small-time Immaculata College basketball team on a serious Cinderella run in 1971. Think Hoosiers at Catholic school.
Paranormal Activity 3: The guys who made Catfish helmed the latest iteration of the popular found-footage horror show.
The Skin I Live In: Antonio Banderas stars in Pedro Almodovar’s drama as a plastic surgeon desperate to create a synthetic skin for his wife, who was badly burned years ago. Thing is, he needs a human subject, and he’d rather try it out on someone else before he tries it out on her.
The Three Musketeers: This adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel was directed by the guy behind the Resident Evil movies.
We Were Here: This documentary looks at the early days of AIDS in San Francisco and how the gay community faced the future and rose to the occasion.
Where Soldiers Come From: Director Heather Courtney follows several young men who grew up in small Midwestern towns, went to Afghanistan and then returned home to the same small town.
Footloose: The good news is that this remake is directed by Craig Brewer, who made Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan, and he’s able to coax some contemporary sensibility out of what could have been a diabetes-causing disaster.
The Thing: Technically a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic, this new one has some good ideas but can’t duplicate the success of the movie it’s trying to emulate.
Blackthorn: Some people think Butch Cassidy survived the hailstorm of bullets that ended Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In this film, Sam Shepard plays an aging Butch, trying to finally return home to the states, only to run into trouble one last time.
Take Shelter: Michael Shannon is tremendous as a man whose mental illness compels him to build a storm shelter in his backyard.
The Way: Emilio Estevez directed his dad, Martin Sheen, in this film about a father who heads to Europe to try to recover the body of his estranged son.
Weekend: A one-night stand develops into something much more important for a pair of gay men.
The Ides of March: George Clooney, who’s always worn his politics on his sleeve, directs and stars in his latest film, about the death of idealism in a young political consultant played by Ryan Gosling. It’s well-made, but not as important as it thinks it is.
The Mill and the Cross: This is the story behind Pieter Bruegel’s painting “The Way to Calvary.” Rutger Hauer is Bruegel, Michael York plays his patron and Charlotte Rampling is the Virgin Mary.
Real Steel: In the future, when boxers are replaced by robots, Hugh Jackman resurrects his career as a trainer by teaching a worthless piece of junk how to get all rock-’em, sock-’em.
Under the Sea: Go underwater and see some of the planet’s most gorgeous ecosystems, before it’s too late, since we’re gradually destroying pretty much everything. Screening at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park.
50/50: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Adam, a 28-year-old who learns he has cancer. Seth Rogen is his best friend, so it’s got the R-rated raunch-comedy thing going on, but JGL’s performance is so good you won’t care.
My Afternoons with Margueritte: Gerard Depardieu is Germain, an almost-illiterate man in his 50s whose friendship with the elderly Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus) allows both of them to grow in ways they hadn’t anticipated.
Killer Elite: This action thriller, which stars Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro, really wants to be Heat, but it just doesn’t cook.
Dolphin Tale: A boy and his dolphin. A family picture with Morgan Freeman and Harry Connick Jr., not to be confused with that weird ’75 Don Johnson sci-fi movie A Boy and His Dog.
Moneyball: Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s who shook up baseball by reinventing the way players are valued. Sounds like dry stuff, but the last time someone adapted a Michael Lewis sports-business book for the big screen was The Blind Side, which earned Sandra Bullock an Oscar.
Drive: Ryan Gosling is a wheelman who spends his days doing stunts for the movies and his nights driving the getaway car for crooks. Nicholas Winding Refn’s film also stars Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks as you’ve never seen him before.
Contagion: Stephen Soderbergh’s big-budget virus movie stars everyone from Matt Damon to Kate Winslet to Marion Cottilard to Gwyneth Paltrow. Finally, we know what happened to the bird flu.
The Lion King 3-D: Hakuna matata in another dimension.
Warrior: Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton star as estranged brothers going mano-a-mano for a winner-take-all MMA championship. Gavin O’Connor’s new film has every sports-movie cliché in the book yet still manages to be well-acted, well-shot and totally inspiring.
The Help: Based on Kathryn Stockett’s novel, this stars Emma Stone as Skeeter, a ’60s-era college kid who starts interviewing the African-American women in her Southern town, something that just wasn’t done at the time. Screening at La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas.
Crazy, Stupid, Love: Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling headline a good-enough romantic comedy that’s not ashamed of its PG-13 status.
Buck: Documentary about Buck Brannaman, one of the leading experts in horses and the inspiration for The Horse Whisperer. Screening at La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas.
Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen’s most charming film in years stars Owen Wilson as a Jazz Age-infatuated screenwriter and aspiring novelist who ends up hanging with the likes of Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
Born to be Wild 3-D: Despite sounding like yet another animated animal movie, this is an IMAX film about baby elephants and orangutans and the people who love them. Oh, and it’s narrated by Morgan Freeman. Collective sigh for the baby monkeys, please.
Tornado Alley: This new IMAX film, which travels into twisters with some professional storm chasers, has to be better than Twister, the movie. At the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The camp classic continues its ongoing run, Fridays at midnight at La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas.
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