As we draw closer to the 2012 award season, you can expect so see more and more films that folks like to refer to as “Oscar bait” which are considered films that actors use purely for the sake of an Academy Award Nomination.

One big one this year will surely be Meryll Streep’s performance of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. The second film? Clearly Robert De Niro’s role in the upcoming Paul Weitz film Being Flynn. Here’s the premise.

Based on a true story, BEING FLYNN follows Nick Flynn (Paul Dano) who is shocked to have his eccentric and long-absent father, Jonathan (De Niro) reach out to him unexpectedly. Still feeling the loss of his mother (Julianne Moore) in the midst of starting a new relationship with Denise (JUNO’s Olivia Thirlby), the last person Nick wants to see is his father. But you can’t outrun fate and slowly Nick comes to realize he has been given the chance to make a real future not only for himself, but for his struggling father too.

Prepare to have your heartstrings sufficiently tugged in the trailer after the jump, and catch Being Flynn in theaters next Spring.

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Cirque du Freak: the Vampire’s Assistant, directed by About A Boy’s Paul Weitz and based on the series of young-adult novels by Darren Shan, is a surprisingly good movie with all the requisite scares, humor, characters and excellent performances (at least by most of the cast) you could want. Its a good time at the movies unencumbered by many of the things which handicapped something with similar subject matter like Twilight. The real trick here is that the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously and in so doing, manages to be fun and entertaining as well as, at points, quite scary.

Going in to this film I was pretty ignorant of the subject matter and its origins, never better illustrated by my wondering why so many teenagers were in the screening of this film during Fantastic Fest. Also, having not read any of the 12 books of the Cirque Du Freak saga, I can’t say how faithful an adaptation it is of the book. But having any prior knowledge of these characters or reading the books is not really a prerequisite for enjoyment of this film. The world created by director Weitz and the rest of his team is fully populated and realized and envelopes you from the first moments. Its a world that anyone, child or adult, should have no trouble understanding and becoming enthralled by.

Fortunately, the filmmakers accomplish this without the need for lots of gore or real violence (the film carries a PG-13 rating) so this film, because of these reasons and due to its origins in the young adult series of novels, is suitable for most teenagers and adults alike. Although, adults may not appreciate one or two of the jokes that fall flat and may wish the film spent more time with the intriguing supporting characters rather than with the film’s two teenage leads, they will still find this a charming and entertaining good time.

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