This week’s openings

In the shameless self-promotion category: Three films that I saw at the most-recent Toronto festival are either premiering commercially this weekend or are starting to spread out wider after opening in New York. Here are my reviews from then:

A CHRISTMAS TALE (Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2008) — 8 (2nd capsule)

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (Danny Boyle, Britain/India, 2008) — 4 (3rd capsule)

JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri, France, 2008) — 6 (3rd capsule)

Obviously I most highly recommend the Desplechin, which I’ll try to see a second time, Ophuls permitting. But Michael Sicinski made a point in personal conversation about JCVD that at least defused my largest objection to the film, the 4th-wall-breaking scene. And my opinion of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE has actually declined with every positive review I read (91 percent at Rotten Tomatoes as I type this in???? … c’mon people).