Film

Facebook launched at the beginning of 2004, with the goal of putting the entire social experience of college online. At that time, it was all about exclusivity, you had to have a Harvard.edu e-mail address, but the website that would soon change the world and how we communicate and interact was soon opened up to colleges across the country. In the fall of 2004, I was a freshman at the University of Oregon and within the first few weeks I'd heard people talking about something then called “thefacebook” and how it was finally at Oregon. Facebook fever took over the campus and just like in The Social Network, the new film that chronicles the beginnings of Facebook, the phrase “Facebook me” was now a part of our vernacular.

In Let Me In, we have a barely rewritten version of the Swedish language film from barely two years ago, with plenty of the same scenes and dialogue. WTF? This new version is scripted and helmed by Matt Reeves, who was responsible for the shakiest camera award with the unforgettable Cloverfield, and swaps Sweden for a snowy New Mexico and shifts the time back to 1983, which is actually semi-genius because we get to listen to a bunch of classic rock songs by David Bowie, Blue Oyster Cult and Greg Khin.

Leave it to Oliver Stone to churn out a sequel for Wall Street after 23 years, and manage to make it an eccentric and sometimes compelling flick. This time it's good versus evil under the umbrella of the financial crisis and mortgage debacle. You'd think the politically savvy Stone would be all over this in a JFK conspiracy way, but instead he uses the fall of the American empire to serve as a backdrop for an old-fashioned love story. Stone's direction is far from the psychedelic onslaught of Natural Born Killers

This is one of those movies where you find yourself smiling and even laughing out loud a few times while it's running, but then it ends and you feel a little violated. It made me wonder if director Andy Fickman had actually ever met a real live woman before, or if he'd only read about them in Misogynist Weekly. Every woman in this movie is vindictive, petty, cruel and duplicitous. Every man in the film is simpleminded yet benevolent. And every audience member is punished during the seemingly endless 105-minute running time, except for the shrieking pack of high-school girls in the back of the theater. They loved every single word of You Again, causing me to fear for the future of this country. Again.

There are several films I have been looking forward to this fall, chronologically the first being Easy A, starring Emma Stone as Olive Pendgerghast, a Hester Prynne for the digital age. Going in with such high expectations often times can be a downer when the movie doesn't live up to those, but Easy A was exactly what I wanted, by evidence of my wild laughter in the theater. Rather than account what was right and wrong with the film and wax critically about it, I am going to give you a list of the reasons why you should see this hilarious piece of teen comedy.

The Town is one of those movies you watch, all the while wishing it were better. It's not awful and some parts are engaging, but there is either something amiss or else too much stuff crammed into each prolonged scene. What we're left with is a decent TV show with swearing.

It's officially autumn and as the leaves start to fall it means several things, but the most exciting in the hearts of cinephiles across the region is the return of our very own independent film festival, BendFilm. We were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the festival's lineup, that this year features 88 total films and added screenings at The Oxford Hotel. Check out our early picks, sure to satisfy your cinematic hunger before the festival, which kicks off on October 7.

Do you remember when you flipped? The time in your life when you stopped thinking boys had cooties and all you could think about was when that cute boy in your math class would finally make a move and kiss you? Rob Reiner's Flipped takes on the coming-of-age tale of first love, where two middle schoolers learn what it means to be head-over-heels.

Be warned: Resident Evil: Afterlife really isn't a movie, it's a great big video game that you can watch, but not play. Shot in Real-D, rather than the horrible post-shooting 3D conversion process, the cutting-edge effects are of the Avatar variety and are a welcome dose of visual improvement on the fourth installment of this franchise.

Machete's origin stems from a pseudo movie trailer (and one of the highlights) in the B-movie homage Grindhouse, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s' double bill. Machete is a fine gory action thriller about a hit man/ex-cop professional slasher seeking revenge on very bad people. Not only do things start off with an immediate bang and an El Mariachi feel within the first five minutes, but Machete delivers ample badass dudes with big knives, guns, sluts and gore… this is my kind of flick.