End of Summer Blahs: Premium Rush, The Apparition and Compliance

Well, it wasn't the greatest weekend for movies, that's for sure.

The best picture I saw was David Koepp's "Premium Rush," which won this week's cinematic lottery by simply not being terrible. It's a fast-paced, often amusing, but never better than pretty good thriller. It's fun - especially Michael Shannon's off-the-wall performance as the movie's heavy - but nothing to write home about.

I had stronger feelings about "Compliance," albeit not very good ones. The film, directed by Craig Zobel, was one of Sundance's more controversial selections this year. And I hate to have to describe it that way because that's clearly what the filmmakers are so desperately going for - to be the movie that divides people and gets them cranky.

Well, mission accomplished, but not in the way I'm supposing it's intended. The picture is a faux provocation. It's one of those films where you can almost just see the invisible hand of the director wagging his finger at you in scorn for sitting through the proceedings, which entail the humiliation of a young woman at the hands of a pretty sicko crank caller. And yet, I'm not the one who made the movie, am I? So there.

I'm not even going to go into "The Apparition." Let's just say the supernatural villain of the picture frequently appears as a large blob of mold. That enough for you?

Here are my reviews for Patch.

This coming week, I'll definitely catch "Lawless," but also several of these new releases - "The Tall Man," "For a Good Time, Call..." and "The Possession."

Next week is the first official week of the fall movie season. Thank God. This summer hasn't been the worst on record. In fact, very few of the major releases were outright terrible. But it's certainly been among the most bland.

There are a number of movies I'm very excited about this fall, including "The Master," "Django Unchained," "Amour," "Holy Motors," "Killing Them Softly," "Life of Pi," " Zero Dark Thirty" and "Promised Land." And I'm holding out hope that "Only God Forgives," "To the Wonder" and "Inside Llewyn Davis" get released this year.

Also, I'm going to follow up on Sight and Sound's 2012 poll with a list of my own. For some time, I've planned on putting together my own movie canon. So, at the end of this year, I'm going to compile what I believe to be the 1,000 movies that are required viewing. More on that later.