The autumn movie onslaught continues, with bird watchers, shape-shifting monsters, and dancing teens all herding into the multiplex. So forget that hayride or apple picking outing and go see a damn movie instead.

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The Big Year

This is ostensibly a movie about bird watching, but really it's about men facing life crises and learning to love the big, weird world again and all that touchy feely, but manly, stuff. Doesn't something about this movie feel like it should have been made about seven years ago? (Wide release)

Bombay Beach

A documentary peppered with Bob Dylan music and choreographed interludes, Bombay Beach follows the citizens of an impoverished town near the Salton Sea as they live and dream and hope and all that American stuff. Looks like an interesting glimpse at a strange little corner of the country. (NY only)

Chalet Girl

Felicity Jones, the star of the much ballyhooed upcoming Like Crazy, stars in this Brit teen comedy about a girl who goes to work in an Alps chalet and does a little of the upstairs/downstairs thing while crushing on Ed Westwick and avoiding nasty villains like Brooke Shields. Yup, Brooke Shields! This movie is mostly Brits but then there's Brooke Shields, Sophia Bush, and the dorky guy from Prom, just hanging out. Brooke Shields plays Ed Westwick's mom. Weird movie, guys! (That I will absolutely be getting On Demand whenever that happens.) (Limited)

Father of Invention

Kevin Spacey plays a down-and-out inventor who has returned to civilian life after spending some time in jail for inventing an exercise machine that seriously injured a bunch of people. So he bumbles around trying to get his mojo back while various mishaps happen. And is it me or is there a joke in this trailer along the lines of "Haha, what a loser, I mean his ex-wife is dating a black guy now"? Because ick, if that's the case. Ick. (Limited)

Fireflies in the Garden

Julia Roberts plays Ryan Reynolds' mom (way weirder than Brooke and Ed!) in this sadness drama about sadness. Willem Dafoe plays a mean dad, and Emily Watson and Carrie Ann Moss do things too. This movie was supposed to come out like three years ago but they kept delaying it, probably because it's just so good that they wanted to prolong our excitement. (That is probably not why.) (Limited)

Footloose

Everyone's grumbling about this movie getting remade, but I say grumble not! It's actually really respectful of the original version while still doing its own thang. It feels like high schoolers lovingly putting on Grease because they love the movie, and there's nothing wrong with that. Plus Kenny Wormald is basically the boy every girl and gay in the Boston area wanted to marry and date forever when they were teens, so that's pretty important. (Wide)

Happy Life

This is an extremely low budget-looking movie about an aging DJ trying to hold a rave party. Mmhm. Matt Pinfield from MTV is in it. Don't all line up at once! (NY)

OKA!

Here we have the true-life story of an ethnomusicologist (Colin, god of sex, from Love Actually) violating doctor's orders and heading to Central Africa to help a community of Aka pygmies fight against the deforestation of their land. Number one at the box office this weekend probably, right? (NY)

The Skin I Live In

Pedro Almodóvar returns with this mystery/thriller/horror movie about a crazed doctor (Antonio Banderas) trying to invent a new kind of skin while his patient/prisoner lounges around in a weird skinsuit. Other weird stuff happens, and apparently it's all quite good. Almodóvar! (Limited)

Texas Killing Fields

This movie, about an on-the-loose killer in a small Texas town, marks, by my count, the fifth movie that Jessica Chastain is in to come out since August. Good lord! Slow down, lady. I mean who are you, Jude Law? Remember when Jude Law used to be in every movie? That didn't work out so well. So just slow your roll, lady. Cool it down. (Limited)

The Thing

Everyone's all mad about this being a remake of the John Carpenter classic but, in faaact, it's a prequel, not a remake. See, it takes place three days before the start of the original movie. So, not a remake at all! A prequel! A terrible, terrible prequel. (Wide)

Trespass

The increasingly inane Joel Schumacher directs this home invasion thriller that Michael Haneke would love to make fun of. Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage apparently really love making money, so here they are in this. What a weird thing. (Limited)

The Woman

This grotesque-looking movie tells the tale of a country doctor who captures the last member of a weird, feral tribe of people who roam the Northeast United States (Ramapough Mountain Indians gone wild?) and tries to civilize her. Judging from the trailer there's a weird sexual thing with his teenage son and everything gets horribly violent. Yuck. (Limited)