Outside of the In-Crowd – Fall Movies: The ones that will make your puppies cry

Courtney Enlow

This fall, something magical will happen. Something that happens so rarely. Something so gem-like, sparklier than Robert Pattinson’s shins.

This fall, the good movies are coming!

Now I am not of the cynical Internetty thought that Hollywood spews nothing but shit all year round. This summer alone has released some greats. The Hurt Locker, Moon, The Hangover, (500) Days of Summer and The Proposal (shut your mouth before you open it) have all been varying levels of really good to great, and Inglourious Basterds has already earned itself a place among my top ten favorite movies ever ever.

But this autumn seems so shiny and new. There are tons of movies coming out that I’m just a-bliss over. And not even just the absolutely-certain-to-be-good ones. I’m possibly the only person on the Internet excited for Jennifer’s Body (boner-y Megan Fox fans not-withstanding), I’m still stoked for The Box even after Southland Tales/Cameron Diaz’s ruin-y spoilers at Comic Con, and you can count on my fawning pillow talk to the latest entry in the Saw series come October (especially if those Cary Elwes return rumors are true).

And that is why, gentle reader, I must warn you of the bad so that you might only see the good. I mean, I could focus on the awesome stuff, like The Informant, or Where The Wild Things Are, but this is the Internet! We don’t have time for that shit! So now, I present to you the fall films that may kill you, Final Destination-style. And coming off Death’s Summer of Total Deathiness, you just can’t risk that.

All About Steve
This is a film that invokes feelings, not of rage or even mild annoyance, but of sadness for its stars. I genuinely enjoy the whole cast, and this was obviously made during a shared lull in the careers of Sandra Bullock and Thomas Haden Church, and immediately before Bradley Cooper blew up all over the place. It just burns of direct-to-video, and may never have gotten a solid release if not for The Hangover. Todd Phillips is probably real real sorry about that one, guys.

Sorority Row
Speaking of direct-to-video, this one doesn’t even have the decency to “star” anyone except Carrie Fisher, who should know better, but has really been through a lot, so how dare you judge her. Other than Ms. Leia, the other people that camera points at a lot are Rumer Willis and that Audrina person from The Hills whose eyes don’t look at things. I’m pretty sure they probably both die though, so do with it what you will.

Love Happens
Love Happens has the special distinction of being a film that enrages me double; once for its plot (formulaic is too kind and forgiving a word), and again for its really dumbass title. I can’t really even put into words why I hate it so much, I just do, and that’s good enough. For reasons of familial peace, I cannot say anything remotely unkind towards its female lead, lest my father disown me and cut me out of any will there might be, so I’ll just say it stars the non-Billy Dee Williams Harvey Dent and the lady with the pretty hair and move right along, without indicating my feelings regarding said female lead starring in yet another one of these Oprah-y shitshows and yet again avoiding having to actually act once in her entire career. Again with the moving right along.

Surrogates
Forgettable and goofy, but that’s entirely beside the point. The point is this: am I wrong in assuming that the trailer is the whole movie? Literally? Like they took out 120 minutes of Willis being gruff and shooting things and were left with two minutes plotting out the beginning, middle and end?

Fame
Hearing 80s tunes, even bad ones, re-done in that cheap pop/R&B High School Musical kind of way makes my skin crawl in the same way it does when my grandpa shows me a new bruise.

Law Abiding Citizen / Gamer
Gerard Butler has been in exactly one good movie, and putting it out on Front Street here, that one wasn’t even good. He has no reason to have appeared in TWO trailers preceding Inglourious Basterds.

Twilight: New Moon
Because portly divorcées wearing cherub t-shirts need to masturbate, too.

Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Despite all my better judgment, I still like Hugh Grant. He so earned my adoration in Bridget Jones’s Diary that I generally forgive him for even the second Bridget Jones’s Diary. But this movie looks like painful shit. A couple witnesses a murder and enters the witness protection program and is sent to a farm in Wyoming. A) Either Kirstie Alley already made that movie, or that was a dream I had after eating pickles before bed, B) why do the feds always seem to send people into the most absolute fish-out-of-water place they can possibly find? Because the killer totally always finds them, which really sucks, even though they’re always stopped by the locals, goodhearted people wrongly judged by our protagonists and we the audience. You just think by now they’d figure out a better way is all I’m saying.

You’ve now been warned, my friends. Be careful with your hard-earned recession money/unearned trust fund coke-cash, and select wisely. Barring that, see Fame. Because pretty colors and dancing.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.