After last week’s hijacking of the column in favor of hanging out with some old friends I knew this week I could have no excuse for not writing a review on Vampyr. Sure the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival opened this week but that wouldn’t get in my way. Yes, the multiplexes actually had a small handful of potentially decent movies for me to watch but that couldn’t possibly get in my way. And sure, I had a screening of the uncut version of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly that I simply had to go to and Manda Bala burning up my Netflix queue but those were mere distractions while I prepared myself for Vampyr. Awesome distractions to be sure but they shouldn’t do anything more then slow me down. Then Ben Folds had to go and muck up my whole plans.

You see my girlfriend bought tickets to go see Ben Folds in concert this past Saturday night but somewhere along the way both of us, along with a friend of ours, somehow mistook the concert venue of St. Peter, Minnesota for St. Paul, Minnesota. We didn’t really think much of it at first, but once we MapQuested it we saw the error of our ways. See St. Peter, Minnesota was over an hour south of the Twin Cities. Needless to say this had a rather large effect on our plans.

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I always forget how much moving sucks until I do it again. It looks like a bomb has gone of in our apartment, and it’s going to be several more days before we can get everything organized, let alone put away. But hey, at least we have the Internet up and running.

This week’s update is a fairly short one, as most of the new DVD releases are relatively boring. The obvious recommendation is for There Will Be Blood, which is an outstanding film. Their is both a standard edition and a 2-disc Collector’s Edition and it is going to be tough for me to avoid the 2-disc set. If you haven’t seen it yet, and with its limited theatrical release that means plenty of you haven’t, it’s the one film you should make sure to watch this week.

The other DVD release I have is a smaller, lesser known film, but by no means less acclaimed documentary that was released last year and was in and out of theaters within a week. That film is Manda Bala. Because of its short release I never had time to go see it, but I had several friends who were able to find the time and came away very impressed. It’s won more then its fair share of awards, and being a bit of a documentary buff I know it is getting bumped up to the top of my queue.

As for theatrical new releases their isn’t much that really interests me. I know some people are jazzed about Leatherheads, but frankly I could care less about the movie. But the one movie I am excited for is a mockumentary about poker players called The Grand. With a stellar cast including Woody Harrelson, Dennis Farina, Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Michael McKean, Chris Parnell, and the pitch-perfect casting of Werner Herzog I can’t help but be excited at the possibilities.

As always, trailers are after the break.

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