Ah, early second semester, a time to start anew – to set new goals, tackle a new batch of classes, to once again be let down by the men’s hockey team, to find a valentine before it’s too late, and to sport all your favorite wintry swag before it gets too warm outside. Of course, and perhaps most importantly, however, it’s also a new chance to get your mindcock blown by the Wesleyan Film Series. Some skeptics said the first semester of the series couldn’t be topped – that there was nowhere to go but down – but I urge all non-believers to merely take a gander at that pretty little Film Series poster you’ve probably taped to your wall. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

Last week you were whisked away by PARIS, JE T’AIME, got oiled-up by CRUDE, took a magic carpet ride with your four-year-old self courtesy of ALADDIN, and were spooked by Hitchcock’s mesmerizing masterpiece REBECCA. But friends, the fun just doesn’t stop – in coming weeks, you’ll be brutally killing zombies, conniving with stop-motion foxes, and moonwalking with fucking Michael Jackson (God rest his tortured soul.) For all Francophiles, we’re serving up a gourmet French Film Series on Wednesday nights, and for all Israelis, we’ve got The Ring Family Israeli Film Series seizing control of our Thurdsay slots. And if you’re a French Israeli, then sweet Jesus, you better be there every night.

So start the decade off right and experience the Wesleyan Film Series. Why, you ask? Because, people, in the timeless words of one John Mason, “Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”

ZOMBIELAND
2009. USA. Dir: Ruben Fleischer. With Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg. 88 min.
Not since SHAUN OF THE DEAD has killing zombies looked so fun. In this outrageously entertaining flick, a neurotic college student (Eisenberg), a fearless cowboy on a quest to find Twinkies (Harrelson), and two feisty sisters (Stone and Breslin) team up to fight off the blood-oozing zombie race as they make their way across the country toward a zombie-free amusement park refuge. On the road, the quartet has no trouble improvising creative, deliciously gruesome ways of killing the ravenous, flesh-eating beasts. ZOMBIELAND has brought the zombie subgenre back, and with hilarious vengeance.

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
1971. USA. Dir: Peter Bogdonavich. With Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges. 118 min.
A cornerstone film of the 1970s Hollywood Renaissance, Bogdanovich’s second feature has long been hailed as an American classic. It also happens to be one of my (Zoe’s) personal favorites. It is the movie that made me fall in love with movies. Set in 1951 in the bleak, wind-swept Texas town of Anarene, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW is a bittersweet portrait of a dying community and its lonely inhabitants. Timothy Bottoms leads the incredible ensemble cast as Sonny Crawford, a sweet and serious high-school senior coming of age at a time and in a place that’s coming to its end. A haunting farewell to the bygone culture of the American West and a timeless portrayal of human loneliness and longing.

13 TZAMETI
2005. France. Dir: Géla Babluani. With George Babluani, Pascal Bongard. 93 min.
Next up on our Wednesday night series of recent French films, is relentlessly tense thriller about a young Georgian immigrant who gets sucked into a netherworld of human depravity. Struggling to support his family, Sebastien is working a construction job when he learns about a mysterious package that turns out to be a Pandora’s Box of disturbing shocks and surprises. The package leads him to a gambling game in which the terrifying meaning of the film’s title is finally revealed. But Sebastien doesn’t know the rules of the game. Neither do we, and it makes for a movie-watching experience unlike any other.

A MATTER OF SIZE
2009. Israel. Dir: Sharon Maymon. With Itzik Cohen, Irit Kaplan. 92 min.
For some comedic relief after 13 TZAMETI, the Israeli Film Series delivers a quirky, feel-good movie about self-acceptance. Set in a working-class town in Israel, this sweet film centers on a group of five overweight Israeli men who’ve struggled endlessly with the stigma attached to their enormously large bodies. The solution to their life-long struggle with insecurity? Donning bright-red loincloths and learning the sport of sumo wrestling. The wrestling scenes are filled with hilarious visual antics, but our laughter is never at the expense of the film’s loveably large characters. We’re cheering for these guys from start to finish, as they come to celebrate their bodies and themselves, even in a society that has deemed them outcasts.