Never mind the internal and external disastergasms of “Antichrist” and “2012” — Tucker Max and Troy Duffy have movies opening on the same day. And really, that’s enough to make anyone head for the hills.

“Antichrist”: Lars Von Trier pits Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg against nature, each other and at least one talking fox. Still haven’t seen it. Kinda scared to, actually. Glenn and Jason say it’s pretty potent stuff, though.

“The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day“: A decade later, Troy Duffy returns to his inexplicably beloved cult hit and coughs up a sequel that does its best to be just as loud, bloody and stupid as its predecessor, just with everyone looking older and really tired.

“The Horse Boy”: Michael O. Scott’s documentary about parents who find an unusual treatment for their autistic son was an audience hit at Hot Docs earlier this year, where it screened under the title “Over the Hills and Far Away”; I’m still trying to catch up to it. But Susan likes it.

“I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell”: Best-selling author Tucker Max brings his tales of alpha-male ribaldry to the screen. Let’s see how it fares against the “Boondock Saints” sequel, as it’s basically going after the same audience — and is just as awful, according to Rad.

“Love and Savagery“: John N. Smith, director of “The Boys of St. Vincent” and “Dangerous Minds”, appears to have assembled this period piece — about a thorny flirtation between a Canadian amateur geologist and an Irish barmaid in 1969 County Clare — from his trailer. Everything about it feels lazy and rote — except for the cinematography, which is really quite nice.

“Pirate Radio“: Watching Richard Curtis’ swinging Sixties comedy about the ca-raaazy folk who brought rock ‘n roll to the British airwaves is like listening to an aging, bleary-eyed hippie talk about the good old days … for two straight hours. Wait for the DVD, and then feast on Bill Nighy’s scenes.

“Prom Night in Mississippi“: No disrespect to Morgan Freeman, but Paul Saltzman’s documentary is only peripherally about the actor’s efforts to integrate the high-school formal in his hometown of Charleston; the movie’s really interested in examining the fabric of racism in America, and the ways in which a new generation may finally be able to move beyond it.

“2012“: Roland Emmerich rebounds from the stone-faced idiocy of “10,000 B.C.” with another epic end-of-the-world movie. It’s dumb and derivative, but it’s still surprisingly entertaining, what with all the running from explosions and staring at monitors and shouting “Go! Go! Go!” And yes, that’s Tom McCarthy, director of the excellent dramas “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor”, as Amanda Peet’s boyfriend.

Right, there you go. And if you don’t feel like going out this weekend, stay in with the Onion AV Club’s argument-starting Best of the Decade lists — this week, it’s all about television, and their choices will have you dragging out every boxed set you own.

So I talked to Morgan Freeman a couple of weeks ago; you can read the results in the new issue of NOW. Or you can go to the online version and listen to the audio clips at the bottom of the page to get the full experience — the man really does have a voice like warm honey.

Freeman was doing a round of press for Paul Saltzman’s documentary “Prom Night in Mississippi”, which opens in Toronto tomorrow. Freeman will also be in Toronto tomorrow night, introducing the movie at a benefit screening … which, I’ve just learned, has sold out. But the movie’s still worth seeing; check your local listings, as they say.

In other, entirely unrelated news, Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” has been cancelled. But it hasn’t been struck dead so much as taken off life support, with Fox pledging to air the rest of the season over the dead zone of December and January.

Poor Whedon. The man just can’t catch a break. But now I have something else to bring up when I talk to Patton Oswalt later this month …

Well, this is disheartening: “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” decked the halls — and its competition — at the megaplex this weekend, earning $31 million in North America and guaranteeing that Robert Zemeckis gets to keep his mad dreams of motion-capture features alive for another few years.

This makes me sad. Do you realize that Zemeckis hasn’t made a live-action feature since “Cast Away”, nine years ago? He’s spent most of this decade burrowing deeper and deeper into the digital realm, and what do we have to show for it? “The Polar Express”, “Beowulf” and the new thing.

Zemeckis hasn’t gone crazy or anything; he’s just followed his obsessions as far as he could, and ended up in the wrong place. His movies used to be light on their feet and filled with cinematic joy; around the time of “Forrest Gump”, they started to slip into self-importance and self-consciousness, with digital dazzle standing in for emotional beats, and now — with the exception of “Cast Away”, which strikes a balance between its elaborate construction and the rawness of Tom Hanks’ performance — they’ve been consumed entirely by technique. (There’s an interesting parallel here to Michael Mann, another director led astray by a different digital fetish.)

Dave Kehr, with whom I’ve had several entirely civil arguments about Zemeckis’ decline, interviewed the director for the New York Times’ holiday movie special last weekend; it’s a good piece, and you should read it. At no point does the director of “Used Cars”, “Back to the Future” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” acknowledge he now traffics exclusively in empty light shows, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

The real tragedy here? “Monster House” — which Zemeckis produced, but didn’t direct — is still the most entertaining example of motion-capture animation, precisely because it doesn’t attempt photo-realistic characters or settings. It embraces the unrealistic possibilities afforded by the process, and avoids most of the traps Zemeckis’ own films fall into. That has to sting.

“The Fourth Kind” may not be a particularly good movie, but its fact-based packaging (which is, again, total bollocks) has sparked some conversation, and put the alien-abduction genre back in play.

Ever the opportunist, I made it the subject of my latest MSN Movies gallery … and yeah, I know, it’s all the usual suspects, but in my defense there just aren’t that many alien-abduction movies.

If you’re in a more serious mood, I’ve also got a piece up on the NOW site about Cinematheque’s essay-film series, which is screening some very rare titles over the next few weeks.

Sure, you could pick up the Criterion DVDs of “Sans Soleil”, “Night and Fog” and “F for Fake” — come to think of it, why don’t you? — but good luck finding “Je Tu Il Elle” or “Letter to Jane” on this side of the Atlantic. Best to see ’em with a crowd.

It’s the battle of the freaks this week, with your local megaplex is flooded with fact-based aliens*, psychic soldiers, spastic Scrooges, and the terror of the scary button. Shall we leap right in?

“The Box”: Richard Kelly expands Richard Matheson’s short story “Button, Button” into an epic study of temptation, manipulation and creepy stares. It doesn’t work, but it doesn’t work in a really interesting way. My NOW review should be online later today.

“Disney’s A Christmas Carol“: In which Robert Zemeckis admirably retains much of Dickens’ dialogue, and not so admirably turns everything around it into a theme-park ride. And that motion-capture technology? It’s still not quite there.

“The Fourth Kind“: Olatunde Osunsanmi’s alien-abduction thriller — in which Milla Jovovich plays a therapist who uncovers otherworldly goings-on in Nome, Alaska — insists it’s based on factual studies and evidence. It’s not, but it got your attention, right?

“Gentlemen Broncos“: A deeply repressed kid (Michael Angarano) writes a ridiculous sci-fi novel, which is immediately stolen by his pompous idol (Jemaine Clement). That doesn’t sound like the hardest sell of Jared Hess’ career, but throw in the projectile vomiting, the Battle Stags, the general unpleasantness of the film’s universe and Mike White in wrestler hair, and there you go.

“Inside Hana’s Suitcase”: I feel like a heel for not liking Larry Weinstein’s adaptation of Karen Levine’s children’s book about the Holocaust, but it’s an awfully patronizing work, undermining its powerful true story with mawkish re-enactments and a manipulative musical score. Best viewed as a teaching tool for middle-schoolers, rather than a documentary for adults; Susan had similar reservations, but she was nicer about it.

“The Men Who Stare at Goats“: Grant Heslov’s adaptation of Jon Ronson’s fne book about the U.S. Army’s attempts to develop a force of psychic warriors is a lot of fun for its first hour, as George Clooney and Ewan McGregor goof around in the Middle Eastern desert. But then it tries to get serious, and that’s just wrong.

“When We Were Boys”: Both Susan and I have far fewer reservations about Sarah Goodman’s documentary, which takes DV cameras into a Toronto boys’ school and tracks the development of the student body over a couple of years.

And that’s everything. Which is good, because there’s plenty of other stuff ahead of me today and I should really get on it …

* aliens not actually fact-based.

I do meet some fascinating people. Just pick up the latest issue of NOW …

This week, in a flashback to TIFF, I talk to Jon Ronson, whose excellent book “The Men Who Stare at Goats” has been turned into a rather less than excellent military comedy by Grant Heslov; I also chat with one of Heslov’s stars, Jeff Bridges — who turns out to be not just the Dude, but the man, as well.

And then there’s Jared Hess, whose latest film, “Gentlemen Broncos”, has been getting quite the pasting from critics in the U.S. — I mean, if you thought they were hard on “Nacho Libre”, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

We had a really interesting conversation about the challenges of making and marketing very strange movies — which, sadly, is only available online, rather than being published in the paper itself, where more people might notice it and decide to check out the weird movie where Sam Rockwell plays a space tranny.

Ah, well. Since Fox Searchlight is now rethinking its release strategy on “Broncos”, you probably won’t see it until the DVD comes out, anyway.

If you’ve spent any time on Boingboing, you’ve probably seen at least one remixed version of the London tube map — you know, the mash-ups that replace the names of stations with other thematically connected things. The musical connections version was a particular favorite around here.

Well, there’s a new iteration of this particular meme: A French blogger known only as David has built a tube map for cinema, organizing the IMDb’s 250 Best Movies (as of June 19, 2009) along sixteen rail lines.

It’s not perfect — “WALL*E” is only accessible on the Animation line, not on the Sci-Fi line, and the Drama(s) About Tolerance route feels like an attempt to sort a bunch of titles that couldn’t be fit in anywhere else. But it’s still pretty amazing … and lists like these are intended to spark debate, after all.

Go on, go play. Click the image above to see a larger version, or download the PDF here.