The best movie weekend of 2009 so far?

In terms of quality of the overall new releases this past weekend, I think it's fair to say that it's been one of the best movie weekends of the year so far, and I say that because I really enjoyed all the films I saw.

Now, don't get me wrong. Looking at the new releases of Oct. 2, 2009 individually, I wouldn't qualify any of them as one of the year's best, but taken together, they offered me a great time at the theater this weekend.

Sure, I've seen quite a few fantastic films so far this year, but most of them were accompanied by at least one mediocre or really sucky film during their opening weekend. Not so this weekend!

Let's start with "Zombieland." It was the first flick I saw on Friday, and it immediately blew me away. I enjoyed it very much, and I felt I was off to a great start. I rated it 8 out of 10, and I was ready for more goodness.

Next up was Drew Barrymore's "Whip It," which I didn't adore but still ended up liking a lot. I slapped it with a 7 out of 10 rating, and at that point, I felt REALLY positive about where this weekend was heading.

The film I saw after that was Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying," and guess what? I found it highly amusing as well. It didn't blow me away, but I felt it also deserved a 7 out ot 10 rating.

So there you go. As far as I can recall, I didn't experience another single weekend during which I saw three new films I ended up liking this much. This really came as a relief, considering I've seen a lot of crap during the past couple of months.

Even though it opened last week already, I also saw "The Boys Are Back" this weekend, which helped make this one great as well. It's a film I also loved, and it clearly bumped my positive theater visits to four within three days.

Well, after all the failures I've seen so far in 2009, I'm happy I had this much fun at the movies this weekend. I'm not sure it will happen again to this extent before the year is over, but I admit I have a whole bunch of movies on my radar that I'm really looking forward to.

So yeah, in terms of new releases as a whole, the October 2 weekend of 2009 turned out to be pretty much the best one of the year in my book. Bring on more of these!

Note: Just to clarify again, remember I picked this one as my favorite weekend based on the combined quality of the films I saw. None of these films will make my list of 10 best films of the year, but in terms of overall quality of the weekend, this one sure was a winner.