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DVD Alternatives to This Weekend's Theatrical Offerings

We know how it is: You'd like to go to the movies this weekend, but you've got to keep an eye on your crops in Farmville on Facebook. But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home if only you look up from the computer to the TV once in a while. So when someone asks you on Monday, "Hey, did you see The Social Network this weekend?" you can say, "Hey, didn't I Ignore your Friend request?"

INSTEAD OF: The Social Network, in Jesse Eisenberg invents Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, only to have all his friends and enemies sue him claiming he stole their ideas...

WATCH: Antitrust (2001), in which Ryan Phillippe's genius programmer runs afoul of a Bill Gates-esque corporate overlord (Tim Robbins) and runs around and types on keyboards a lot in an attempt to escape. Or try Flash of Genius (2008), also based on a true story about a man who invented a safety device for automobiles (Greg Kinnear) that we take for granted today, only to see his idea stolen by Detroit. Or check out Michael Clayton (2007), in which corporate dishonesty is business as usual and George Clooney can fix the truth to be whatever a VP needs. For more from director David Fincher, revisit one of his early efforts, The Game (1997), in which Michael Douglas gets caught up in an all-consuming live-action game that takes over his life, sort of like Facebook itself can do.

INSTEAD OF: Case 39, in which Renee Zellweger plays a social worker who rescues a child (Jodelle Ferland) from abusive parents only to discover that perhaps it was the demon child who was abusing her guardians...

WATCH: The Grudge (2004), in which Sarah Michelle Gellar's social worker in Japan makes some vaguely terrifying discoveries about the home in which one of her clients lives. If demon children are you thing, there's always the outrageously histrionic Orphan (2009), in which Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard discover that adopting can be a nightmare. For more Renee Zellweger, don't miss the lovely Miss Potter (2006), in which she plays the children's author of nice, sweet books about garden animals, and not about demon children. For more of Jodelle Ferland, don't miss Terry Gilliam's horrifically disturbing Tideland (2005), in which she delivers one of the best child performances ever.

INSTEAD OF: Let Me In, in which a child vampire (Chloe Grace Moretz) befriends a child nonvampire (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and violence and bloodshed ensues...

WATCH: Let the Right One In (2008), the Swedish-language original upon which this new film is based, though don't expect as much Hollywood-style gore as the remake offers. Or revisit Interview with the Vampire (1994), featuring Kirsten Dunst as a doll-like child vampire with adult tastes. For more vampires in the American Southwest -- Let Me In is set in New Mexico -- don't miss Kathryn Bigelow's fantastic Near Dark (1987), which puts a coven of bloodsuckers into the uniquely American roadside milieu. For funnier kid vampires, take a look back at the goofy 80s teen classic The Lost Boys (1987), about teens who should be in hanging out and drinking beer are hanging out and drinking blood instead.

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MaryAnn Johanson only lets the right ones in at FlickFilosopher.com. (email me)

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