Opening This Week.... 10/9

There’s lots to see at the theater this weekend with four--count ‘em 4!—new wide releases, each with something completely different to offer. First up, there’s the Drew Barrymore directorial debut Whip It, starring Juno’s Ellen Page, a flower power female empowerment film all the way. Page plays an outcast girl that finds her tribe with roller derby girls, with Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, and Marcia Gay Harden co-starring, as well as Barrymore herself. Next, there is the new Ricky Gervais comedy The Invention of Lying, in which he stars, co-produces, co-writes, and co-directs. It tells the story of a man that tells the first lie in a world where everyone tells the truth, which would sound like a promising premise for some laughs, if it didn’t turn sappy with the Jennifer Garner love interest. However, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., and Tina Fey co-star to add some flavor to the comedy brew. The more serious release this weekend is Michael Moore’s new doc, Capitalism: A Love Story, which has Moore up to his usual doc antics while trying to expose his take on the current economic system. It’s an obviously topical film that will more than likely draw the usual Moore crowd, which is quite substantial, but it’s box office performance will no doubt go nowhere near the heights of his biggest success, Fahrenheit 9/11. The last wide release is Zombieland, yet another attempt at the often-failed sub-genre of horror-comedy, more specifically zombie horror-comedy a la Shaun of the Dead. But the movie has a promising cast—Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland), Emma Stone (Superbad), and Academy-Award nominee Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), which gives it potential to stand above the many failed attempts. After the quiet weekend last week, with the releases of Fame (the remake) and Bruce Willis’s Surrogates, both went relatively unseen by audiences, this weekend sure has a lot more to offer.