Kung Fu Panda posterYet another school holiday looms and Dreamworks‘ attempt to capture the animated audience (or rather ‘the audience for animation’) before Pixar‘s WALL·E emerges in September, is Kung Fu Panda starring the voice of Jack Black. Launched on the croisette at the Cannes Film Festival only a few weeks ago, KFP has been acclaimed by critics (88% at RottenTomatoes) and looks like it will be worth checking out this weekend. Readings, Empire, Regent.

The Paramount continues to slip interesting, single-print, releases into the marketplace: this week’s entry is a John Boorman (Deliverance, Excalibur) morality tale, The Tiger’s Tail, in which a self-made businessman (Brendan Gleason) discovers he has a sinister double who seems to determined to bring him down.

[The rest of this week’s new releases after the jump]

After sneak previews (and the discovery of some seriously unacceptable used prints from Australia) last weekend, Sidney Lumet’s thriller Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead opens at Readings, Penthouse and Lighthouse Petone this weekend.

And finally, the Wachowski Bros return to the screen (following the Matrix trilogy which was completed in 2003) with the tv-remake Speed Racer, based on a Japanese cult series of the 60s. Into The Wild‘s Emile Hirsch stars as Speed Racer (seriously, that’s the character’s name) and he is supported by John Goodman, Susan Sarandon and Christina Ricci. Readings & Regent.

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