It was a very long weekend and I didn’t get a lot watched. I also didn’t have a lot of time to put my full reviews together like I normally do, so I’ll give you brief snippets on each film and a full review later (probably during next week’s Morning After), except for Psych, which is complete below.

So, here is what I watched this weekend:

THE AMERICAN

The film is anchored by George Clooney’s terrific performance. The film is a bit slow at times, but it’s nice to see an action-like film that doesn’t go for frivolous edits in order to pique the curiosity of the ADD crowd.

MONSIEUR VERDOUX

I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Chaplin does a fine job, but there’s far too much silent film-style humor injected into a film that doesn’t quite feel like a comedy. It’s part social commentary, part silent comedy, part murder mystery without the mystery. Entertaining, but something of a trifle.

LET ME IN

Hollywood’s fascination with remaking popular, quality foreign features, especially horror films, is really irritating. There was nothing wrong with the original. Now, this wasn’t too bad an adaptation, but it overplayed the sound effects, tried too hard to ratchet up the tension and left some of the more interesting elements of the first film out of the script altogether. Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz are fine actors and they have bright careers ahead of them, but sometimes I just felt they were doing impressions of the kids from the first film. And Richard Jenkins was wasted.

PSYCH, season 3

While I was beginning to feel roughed up by this season, the final two episodes were the ones that really kept me from worrying about season four. One, a Friday the 13th homage is fairly predictable for fans of ’80s horror films, but it’s so much fun that you don’t care. A couple of nice role reversals and you have a wonderful penultimate episode. Then, the final episode limited the comedy and told a truly dramatic story that delivers an emotional thrill ride. It was a tremendous ending to the third season and I can’t wait to pick up the fourth.