my week at the movies: ‘Mister Foe,’ ‘Battle for Seattle,’ ‘Babylon A.D.’

Not much. It’s a slowish week leading up to Labor Day weekend. The weather is positively lovely in NYC for the last week of August -- it’s not disgustingly sticky at all, like it usually is -- and yet it still feels like everyone is holding her breath waiting for everything to turn serious again with the arrival of September.

So there are few press screenings this week, and even fewer I’m inclined to spend time with. I will check out Mister Foe [opens limited September 5], which intrigues me because many thing British intrigue me. It stars Jamie “Billy Elliot” Bell, Sophia “Girl in the Fireplace” Myles, Ciaran Hinds, and Jamie Sives -- whom I was certain was going to be huge after the deliciously odd Scottish film Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, though I’m still waiting -- and it’s from filmmaker David Mackenzie, whose Young Adam was so challenging and disturbing. The movie is already viewable on HDNet Ultra VOD, and will debut on HDNet Movies on September 3, ahead of its U.S. theatrical release. That’s not as adventurous as it sounds: the flick was called Hallam Foe in the U.K., where it was released a year ago, and is already available on DVD there for, like, five quid.