Ladies and gentlemen, whether you were ready for it or not, fall is here and in full swing. Gone are the days of sub-70 degree temperatures, barbeques, and explosion-heavy Hollywood blockbusters. Together, we now button up our overcoats, slip on our mittens, and prepare our stomachs for Turkey time. However, there remains one hurdle to jump before one can properly embrace the autumnal atmosphere – it’s that frightening topic on everyone’s mind: the motherfucking Swine Flu.

As a recovering victim, I can speak to its truly destructive nature as well as anyone. It’s a sickness that not only renders one bed-ridden, hot, achy, and stuffed-up, but also unable to fully appreciate post-fall break Wesleyan. Halloween festivities, an undefeated men’s soccer team, the advent of Squash season, and a gorgeous foliage-laden campus have all gone overlooked by H1N1 sufferers. However, perhaps most tragically of all, us shut-ins have been unable to attend what has thus far an amazing quarter of the Film Series. For example, I personally wasn’t able to relive the poignant yet hilarious Apatownian bliss of Funny People, or even witness Andy Griffith as an egomaniacal pop star in Elia Kazan’s expressive masterpiece A Face In The Crowd. Even the breathtakingly powerful dolphin doc The Cove was no match for my coughs and shivers. And don’t even remind me that I missed Orphan; I still haven’t recovered from that one. In essence, the inability of the campus to appreciate these amazing flicks is an epidemic in itself.

Although I have no Ph.D. (yet) please allow me to play Patch Adams for a second and propose a cure to all you sickly souls. If you can get it together before 8’oclock tonight, pop some fever-reducers, wrap yourself in a blanket, and stumble down to the Goldsmith Family Cinema. Even if you have to wear a mask to confine your germs, the Film Series will make your feel a whole lot better. Just leave your chicken soup at the door. Here is this week’s dosage:

TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
2009. USA. Dir: Michael Bay. With Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox. 150 min.

In his scathing, completely pompous review of Transformers 2, critic Roger Ebert referred to the film as “a horrible experience of unbearable length… If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.” Well fuck you Roger. Everyone knows Wesleyan’s most badass alum doesn’t make movies for critics. He makes them for audiences… And watching a Michael Bay film in the Goldsmith is an experience unlike any other. Kind of like watching your big brother running around naked, on speed, blowing up everything he sees. Queen Mother of Wesleyan Film Studies Jeanine Basigner has called Bay “a cutting-edge artist who is a master of movement, light, color, and shape—and also of chaos, razzle-dazzle, and explosion.” The critics don’t get it, but we do, and so should you.

FUNNY FACE
1957. USA. Dir: Stanley Donen. With Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire. 103 min.

Funny Face is the best musical you’ve never heard of. Directed by Stanley Donen (Singing in the Rain), and staring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire (baddest dancer of all time), this completely contemporary-feeling musical is basically The Devil Wears Prada with song and dance. Hepburn starts off as a huge dork working in a bookstore. Then comes fashion photographer Astair, who transforms this beautiful bookworm into a glamorous model. So full of heart, it is a story that’s certain to leave you charmed and enchanted. Honestly, though, the best part of this film is Astaire and Hepburn’s absurd, yet completely believable romance. He’s what, like sixty years old in this movie? He could easily be her grandfather, but who doesn’t want to see a sick-ass old guy getting it on with Hepburn on the dance floor?

WHEN WE WERE KINGS
1997. USA. Dir: Leon Gast. Documentary. 89 min.

If you thought this summer’s Tyson sucked, we agree. Iron Mike has got nothing on Muhammad Ali in this brilliant fight documentary about the epic 1974 Rumble In The Jungle heavyweight championship match between Ali and George Forman. The film does more than simply glorify The Greatest. It captures what was perhaps the most culturally significant sporting event of the century, and it tackles complex issues of race and politics: the relationship between African Americans and Africans, as well as the highly contested decision to locate the match in Zaire. Better than all of that, though, is the way the film captures Ali’s magnificent charisma. Case in point: “I done wrestled with an alligator. That’s right. I have wrestled with an alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. That’s bad!”

WILD RIVER
1960. USA. Dir: Elia Kazan. With Montgomery Clift. Lee Remick. 110 min.

We hope you’re not getting tired of Kazan, cause some of his best, most colorful  masterpieces are coming up. Next week: a movie about the trials and tribulations of dam-building. Shot on location in the Tennessee Valley, Wild River is an underrated gem in Kazan’s oeuvre and is certainly one of his most visually stunning works. Clift plays a TVA worker sent to the rural South from Washington to build a dam, but faces resistance from a stubborn, 80-year old matriarch who refuses to abandon her land. Turning this time to the Depression Era and the effects of the New Deal on the American South, Kazan once again displays his deep passion for exploring the social, economic, and political turmoil that has characterized American life.