200709262145Fully 60% of all the opening films this week are at the Paramount: first up indie thriller Unknown has a great ensemble cast including James Caviezel, Greg Kinnear and Barry Pepper. It’s a riddle of a thriller as five guys wake up locked in a deserted warehouse unable to remember what happened or which of them are the good guys and which are the baddies. A gas leak has caused multiple amnesia and the race is one to work out who is the kidnapper and who the kidnapped. By all accounts there are plenty of twists which make this a thriller to get the old brain box going.

The rest of this week’s new cinema releases after the jump.

Also at the Paramount is the Aussie micro-budget video Five Moments of infidelity, the story of five different Melbourne relationships connected, or broken apart, by lies. Returning from the Festival is another low-budget drama shot on video, Stephanie Daley starring Tilda Swinton. From the Festival programme: “A shy 16-year-old Christian girl, played with tentative grace by Amber Tamblyn, is accused of killing her newborn baby. But did she even know of her pregnancy? Tilda Swinton, in a memorable powered-down performance, is the pregnant forensic psychologist sent to interview her.”

For fans of explosions and inanity we have the not-much-awaited Rush Hour 3, reuniting Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker as “the brothers from another mother”, this time causing mayhem in Paris with Roman Polanski. Readings, Regent-on-Manners and Sky City Queensgate

Finally getting a release (it was promised and then delayed a few weeks ago) is the great documentary Deep Water, ostensibly about the first solo round-the-world yacht race in 1969 but actually about the extraordinary lengths human beings can go to to escape from themselves. Highly recommended, screening at the Penthouse only.

Deep Water and Five Moments are reviewed at Funerals & Snakes; the others will appear next Wednesday (and in print in the Capital Times).