Weekend Peep Show: Friday the 13th Edition

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

This is one of my favorite days of the year, so don't mind me if I gush a wee bit in the spirit of getting freaked out and convinced that the boogeyman is making his way to my bedroom window as we speak to kidnap me. Yee!

Boogeyman can set up a Captivity-style nightmare for me, and I won't bark. He can trap me in an apartment with a cokehead actress and a grumpy reporter, and I'll wait it out. He could even lock me down in a jungle prison camp, and I'd survive by focusing on all the hot men. As long as he doesn't try to make me understand what Gryffindor is, I'm cool with the boogeyman.

Let's see what he has:

Rescue Dawn
In 1997, Werner Herzog made a documentary called Little Dieter Needs to Fly. It was about U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, who was held captive as a prisoner of war in Laos. Dude fought his way out. Amazing, inspirational, wow-zier than Batman even! Now, comes Herzog's second love letter to Dengler, and Herzog fanatics won't be disappointed. And if you've never experienced this magical director, then Rescue is pretty much the best introduction. The movie is as accessible and entertaining as a studio war flick but infinitely more interesting and complex. You can attribute a lot of its success to Christian Bale, who's just quietly racking up one A-plus performance after another. See the movie, and save your oohs and aahs about Bale for Oscar season.

Warner Bros. Entertainment

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Um, he's a wizard with cute eyeglasses. There's this girl Hermione. And a redheaded boy who always seems to be going through his awkward phase. And there are owls that talk—I think. If you care about this, you already know about it. And if, after all this time, you don't care, then you won't mind if we move on. (Note to diehards: I tried. I read 12 pages of the first book, went to see the first movie. It is one of the only times I actually fell asleep in a movie theater. The other time was A Midsummer Night's Dream. Fairies, wizards and potions are my Ambien.)

After Dark Films

Captivity
They won't show the movie that I have affectionately dubbed Elisha Cuthbert Gets Trapped in a Sandbox to critics. But I got a sneak peek, and let me tell you, this is some damn fun, shot-in-Russia, slick, sick B-movie fare. It's obvious Captivity isn't in the same family as Saw and Hostel, either. There's way too much female-friendly look-at-us-fall-in-love-as-we-save-each-other-and-get-pretty-cuts-on-our-cheeks kind of action. And I love a campy romance, don't you?

I'm serious. Screenwriter Larry Cohen is the visionary behind the Maniac Cop trilogy and the symbolic psychodrama Phone Booth. Captivity is somewhere in the middle—part highbrow, part lowbrow. Add to that the fact that Roland Joffé is directing, and you know this movie is gonna alternate between visually arresting and comically overdone. Joffé made The Killing Fields. And now he's doing Finding t.A.T.u. So, he's been nominated for an Oscar twice, yet he also thinks Mischa Barton can act.

Sony Picture Classics

Interview
Imagine an alternate universe where Sienna Miller is a serious actress and Steve Buscemi tops the Sexiest Man Alive lists in all the magazines. Well, come this weekend, you don't have to imagine anything. All you have to do is go see Interview, a scathing, can't-look-away character study. The movie is actually a remake of Theo van Gogh's film, but you can't use the word "remake" for a movie this rich and textured.

She (Miller) is a seemingly shallow TV actress who's more famous for her bedmates than her work. And he (Buscemi) is a journalist who would rather not be doing a "celebrity puff piece." They spend one night together and, whoa, is it unpredictable. The most amazing thing about Interview is that director Buscemi makes the loft apartment seem more epic in its terrain than the sprawling sets in bigger movies. Timely topic, timeless chemistry. And did I mention Buscemi is one sexy motherf--ker?