Venus posterThis week the Para­mount has a spe­cial attrac­tion for fans of oddball geni­us Dav­id Lynch: Inland Empire has been acclaimed by (sev­er­al) crit­ics world­wide as a return to the edgy and out­rageous Lynch of his early career (think Eraser­head rather than, say, The Straight Story). Inland Empire screens exclus­ively at the Para­mount for one week only. Set aside plenty of time.

Also return­ing from suc­cess­ful screen­ings at this year’s Fest­iv­al is Venus, star­ring Peter O’Toole as an age­ing act­or get­ting a new lease on life when he meets a brash and beau­ti­ful teen­age girl. Domin­ion-Post crit­ic Graeme Tuck­ett has called it his film of the year although that may have changed since East­ern Prom­ises. Venus is writ­ten by the nev­er less than inter­est­ing Hanif Kur­e­ishi (My Beau­ti­ful Laundrette and Intim­acy) and plays at the Embassy, Para­mount, Rialto and Sky City Queens­gate.

The rest of this week’s releases after the jump…

Fans of intel­li­gent and artist­ic West­erns will con­verge with fans of Brad Pitt for The Assas­sin­a­tion of Jesse James by the Cow­ard Robert Ford at Read­ings and Light­house Petone: described by one con­trib­ut­or to IMDb as “the most beau­ti­ful film ever made”. Also found in the ‘qual­ity’ com­part­ment is Even­ing star­ring Claire Danes, Toni Col­lette and Vanessa Redgrave. It’s an adapt­a­tion by Michael (The Hours) Cun­ning­ham of the acclaimed nov­el by Susan Minot and plays at Read­ings, Light­house Petone, Pent­house and Sky City Queens­gate.

Steph­en King is adap­ted once again for 1408, a scary tale of a writer (John Cus­ack) trapped in a haunted hotel room. Mean­while, The Rock gets Dis­ney-fied in The Game Plan as a suc­cess­ful tough-guy foot­ball play­er who dis­cov­ers the cute child he nev­er knew he had. You can find them both at Read­ings, Regent-on-Man­ners and Queens­gate.

All these films will be reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes next Wed­nes­day and in print in the Cap­it­al Times on the same day.