It’s certainly no secret that what’s being called The Complete Metropolis is booked for one show next Friday, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. at The Carolina by the Asheville Film Society. And it probably takes something less than the detecting prowess of Sherlock Holmes to figure out that I was the primary force behind that. Possibly less clear to folks who don’t follow these things is just what “complete” means in this instance—since we’re not talking two or three minutes, but a whopping 25 minute addition—why it’s historically significant and, for that matter, what exactly Metropolis was, what it came to be and what it is again.

Four movies open this week: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Waiting for “Superman,” Hereafter and Paranormal Activity 2. Of these, I’ve only seen Waiting for “Superman”, which is an exceptional documentary opening on Friday at the Fine Arts, and about which you can read more in this week’s Xpress. The other three are all of interest of one kind or another.

I’m looking down the barrel of a gun marked, “The Weekend from Hell”—in movie reviewing terms, that is. Somewhere between now and Monday morning, five full movie reviews and five special screening reviews have to appear as if by magic. That adds up to ten—assuming “New Math” is not involved—and, yes, it’s been done before, but it’s daunting. To add to the daunt factor, I’ve only seen one of the full movies (I’ll be taking a break from this and heading out to take in a couple more in a little while). To make it just that much more entertaining, three of the special screenings are of movies I’ve never seen before. This means that seven movies have to be watched, digested and written about—and then there’s this “Screening Room” thingie. What does this mean to the reader? Simply that the “Screening Room” is going to be of the short and hopefully sweet variety.

This is one of those tricky weeks where movie titles cropped up—out of nowhere or from Freestyle Releasing, which amounts to about the same thing—after the upcomers were done. As a result, in addition to the three movies I was expecting to open this week—Never Let Me Go, RED and Jackass 3-D—we also have N-Secure and I Want Your Money. This does not appear to be a blessing.