With all due respect to my esteemed colleague Elisabeth Rappe, geeks are not the only ones who learned important lessons from watching movies this summer. Herewith is my personal, arthouse summer school summary.

Werner Herzog cast a disapproving eye on the ugliness he discovered at Antarctica's McMurdo Station ("they even have a yoga studio and an ATM!") and was skeptical about the sanity of some of the real-life characters he met, which is partly why Encounters at the End of the World was so entrancing. What I learned: Evidence for gay penguins is skimpy, but they have been known to have threesomes.

The Wackness (pictured) didn't became the breakout hit that some had hoped for, but it did showcase the talents of rising star Olivia Thirlby and director Jonathan Levine. What I learned: Never kiss Ben Kingsley in a telephone booth.

Nanette Burstein's filmmaking techniques were much more off-putting than her ultimately winning subjects in American Teen, another would-be smash that didn't live up to box office expectations. What I learned: Never break up with your girlfriend via text message, especially when a documentary filmmaker is interviewing her.

Unexpectedly, Tell No One became the breakout limited-release mystery thrill ride of the summer, and Man on Wire proved that impassioned high wire walkers can make dreams come true and enthrall audiences to boot. What I learned: It's good to be French.

Now it's your turn, all you indie-loving, doc-devoted, world cinema aficionados: what did you learn from the movies this summer?

The Halloween series has its own documentary. As does the Psycho series, the Jaws series ... Hell, even Troll 2 has its own documentary. So it's perfectly OK with me if someone wants to pick up a camera, snag a bunch of interviews, and put together a nice, shiny Friday the 13th documentary. And according to Shock, that's precisely what someone is doing.

That person is Daniel Farrands, editor of Peter Bracke's stellar Crystal Lake Memories tome, screenwriter of Halloween 6 and The Girl Next Door, and producer of a DVD documentary for The Amityville Horror. So obviously this guy has the qualifications to produce a Friday the 13th doco. His Name Was Jason will premiere on the Starz channel next February, just in time for the swanky new remake of Friday the 13th. And you can probably expect the Anchor Bay Jason DVD to hit the shelves right around the time that remake hits digital. Along with a new box set from Paramount. You just watch.

Looks like I should head out to L.A. and give Dan a call. I'm like a Jason encyclopedia.

As was the case with HBO's Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Lionsgate has very discreetly opened Bill Maher's Religulous in two theaters -- one in New York, the other in Los Angeles -- in an qualifying run for next year's Academy Awards.

As pointed out by Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere, the Academy's Rule 12 states that any documentary hoping to qualify must open in both Los Angeles Country and the borough of Manhattan for at least one week prior to the end of August. Having already premiered at the Traverse City Film Festival, the doc will then formally show at the Toronto International Film Festival next month, before opening proper on October 3rd.

However, I'm not sure that I entirely understand agree with the logic that any damage would be done should any enterprising critic (like this guy) head out to one of these wholly public showings and subsequently write up a review. Sure, I'm speaking as a guy who lives in the O.C. of Fla., but seriously: What harm? What foul?

If you squint your eyes just right and look at a photo of the late comedian Bill Hicks, he kind of resembles a young Russell Crowe (or vice versa). So, it would have been really cool if the Australian actor had played Hicks around ten years ago, when he was still in his 30s. But if we've learned anything from Kevin Spacey and Mike Myers (respectively, star of the Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Sea and star of an upcoming Keith Moon biopic titled See Me Feel Me), you're never too old to play an icon who died young, and therefore we must accept the fact that at close to 50 years old, Crowe is likely to portray Hicks, who died from cancer at age 32. Fortunately for Crowe, he's good enough that it shouldn't be too hard to believe such a portrayal.

The Oscar-winning actor is quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald saying he's involved with a Hicks bio, "which is going from treatment to draft stage with Kiwi writer Mark Staufer." Never mind that the quote doesn't sound like it was actually spoken by anyone, let alone Crowe, the article is mostly about how the actor is spending time with his family now that Ridley Scott's Nottingham has been postponed. Crowe also references other projects, including an unnamed documentary and the surfing gang movie My Brother's Keeper, based on the documentary Bra Boys, which Crowe narrated. Stuart Beattie, who co-wrote the doc, is currently working on a second draft of its adaptation.

It's a slow week, packed mainly with television box sets, but there are a few little-known films you might want to check out.

Please Vote for Me
This was a film that I was dying to see at TIFF last year, but scheduling conflicts kept me from it. Luckily, the highly praised Please Vote for Me is now hitting DVD shelves.

Imagine a group of third-grade students putting Tracy Flick to shame as they hold a democratic election for school monitor. In my day (man, that phrase makes me feel old...), school elections boiled down to some crappy posters and speeches, all resulting in a popularity contest. These Chinese students, however, have taken a cue from the political bigwigs. We're talking political consultants, polling, and exploitation -- basically a real election full of tiny tots.

Unfortunately, the only extra on this release is a theatrical trailer, but considering the reviews and how purely awesome this film sounds, I bet it's still worth it.

Check Out Ryan Stewart's Review | Buy the DVD

The French are at it again! After last month's unexpected breakout success of French thriller Tell No One, surely it's no surprise that French thriller A Girl Cut in Two opened on top, grossing $9,750 per screens at the two theaters in New York where it opened, according to Box Office Mojo. Claude Chabrol's latest (and perhaps last) has delighted critics, including our own Jeffrey M. Anderson ("superbly made ... highly enjoyable").

Amidst a hailstorm of reviews, interviews, and offers of threesomes, Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona debuted to $5,361 per-screen at 692 engagements, while would-be inspirational drama Henry Poole is Here failed to inspire much box office, drawing just $1,518 per screen at 527 theaters. People were evidently more interested in sin than salvation this weekend.

Two films in their second week of release continued to draw well, with literary adaptation Elegy scoring $9,000 per screen at six locations and music doc Patti Smith: Dream of Life drawing $7,000 at its sole Manhattan engagement. Meanwhile, the quiet thriller Frozen River saw an uptick in business as it expanded to 15 theaters in its third week of release, earning $4,086 per screen.

American Teen withered on the vine in its fourth week, its per-screen average shrinking to $980 as it further expanded into 105 theaters, with a cumulative total of $656,000. Brideshead Revisited slowed to $1,489 per screen during its expansion into 501 theaters, though its total has passed $4.6 million.

A few bright spots aside, the August calendar of wide releases is generally pretty grim. (Do not speak to me of Clone Wars.) Luckily, there are always a few worthwhile flicks playing at the art houses, and the Indie Spotlight is here to tell you about them. We have the lowdown on what's opening "in select cities" this weekend, and if your city wasn't selected, at least you can file a mental note and keep an eye out for the film later.

Alphabetically, this week's new indie releases are: Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, Bachna Ae Haseeno, A Girl Cut in Two, Henry Poole Is Here, and Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. Note that all of those titles fit in the first half of the alphabet, and three of the five contain people's full names. Fascinating! My OCD is fascinating! Here's the scoop on each of them.

Henry Poole Is Here
What it is: A gentle drama (with comedic elements) about a forlorn man (Luke Wilson) whose house develops a water stain that some people think is a sign from Jesus.
What they're saying: It's always noteworthy when a movie takes a pro-religion, pro-faith-in-God point of view -- and even rarer that such a film debuts at Sundance -- but this one doesn't seem to have done it very well. The critics are split down the middle at Rotten Tomatoes, while Cinematical's Jeffrey M. Anderson calls it "lackadaisical" and "too uninspired to be inspirational." (I've seen it, and I say amen to that.)
Where it's playing: Pretty much everywhere -- it's opening on 500 screens. So keep the faith, indie filmmakers! It could happen to you!
Official site: OMG you guys, it has a MySpace page!

When the 1932 Olympics hit LA, it began a long history of synergy between the games and the movie business. That synergy led to Zhang Yimou, China's answer to William Wyler, who gave the recent opening ceremony all due pageantry. Over the years, the Olympics contributed to the movies, foaling movie stars by the ton. The games were a casting call whenever one needed someone as chunky as a wrestler or as slender as a swimmer, or Tarzan, who I guess is a combo of swimmer and wrestler. My favorite will always be Harold "Oddjob" Sakata, silver medalist in the light-heavyweight weight-lifting competition at the 1948 Olympiad. Defamer.com has the more tragic roster of Olympians who pursued cinematic careers like those of Mitch Gaylord and Bruce Jenner. The games have foaled classic documentaries, too, the most well known example is Leni Riefenstahl's 1938 Olympia. Yet there have been these lesser known pictures about this world-wide fest:

To be eligible for the Academy Awards, a documentary feature must play theatrically, at least two showings a day, for at least a week in both Los Angeles County and the borough of Manhattan. (For documentary shorts, it only has to play in one location or the other.) And they have to do it by the end of August to be eligible for next year's Oscars, too -- which means time's a-wastin'!

That's where the International Documentary Association's DocuWeek comes in, screening more than a dozen worthy features and shorts in L.A. and New York so they'll be eligible for Oscar consideration (and so audiences can enjoy them, too, of course). Some of the films didn't get distribution deals when they played at film festivals, so they had no chance of earning Oscar eligibility without something like this.

New York's DocuWeek is happening now, running all day every day through Thursday at Village East Cinema and IFC Center. L.A.'s DocuWeek will be Aug. 22-28 at the ArcLight in Hollywood and Sherman Oaks. The films are more or less the same in both cities (four features and four shorts play in L.A. but not New York), and there are some real gems here.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (pictured) has already emotionally devastated about half the Cinematical staff (including myself, Will Goss, Monika Bartyzel, and Erik Davis), and you should take advantage of any opportunity you have to see it. An Unlikely Weapon tells the story of the photographer who snapped that famous shot of a Saigon policeman shooting a Viet Cong guerrilla in the head, and the aftermath of the photo. Glass is about love-him-or-hate-him film composer Philip Glass. War Child profiles a Sudanese refugee who has become an international rap star.

The list goes on. Check out the links for the full programs -- and if you're in New York or L.A., go see some docs!

He's already made a documentary about the quest to meet his father, and now Adrian Grenier is heading for doc land again for what sounds like a pretty funky endeavor.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Grenier has nabbed a number of big names that include Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, Eva Longoria, Paris Hilton, Rosie O'Donnell, Martin Landau, Noam Chomsky, and Lewis Black for his new documentary titled Teenage Paparazzi. While this sounds like it could be centered on the phenomenon of Lindsays and Britneys, the film will focus on Grenier's "relationship with a 14-year-old paparazzo who took his photo," while also discussing the culture of fame.

But here is where things take an interesting turn -- the film "will interweave the relationship portrait with philosophical interviews in the style of Ricard LInklater's Waking Life." If that means just a bunch of discussions, cool. If that means that those discussions will be rotoscoped, that would be awesome. RIght now, the film is getting shopped to distributors, but hopefully we'll find out more soon.