Slumdog millionaire posterMore Oscar con­tenders hit our screens this week­end. Gus Van San­t’s biopic of the first open­ly gay elect­ed politi­cian in the USA, Milk opens today at Read­ings, Pent­house and Light­house Petone. Sean Penn plays San Fran­cis­co city super­vi­sor Har­vey Milk who was assas­si­nat­ed by fel­low city offi­cial Dan White in 1978. Penn is sup­port­ed by Josh Brolin (No Coun­try for Old Men), Emile Hirsch (Into the Willd) and James Fran­co (Pineap­ple Express).

I got to see Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire last Fri­day at the Embassy - if it does­n’t romp home with the best pic­ture Oscar I’ll be very sur­prised. Kinet­ic, colour­ful and heart­felt, it’s an object of great beau­ty. Slum­dog is also play­ing Read­ings, Pent­house and Light­house Petone.

[The rest of this week’s releas­es — and there’s heaps — after the jump]

The Para­mount is open­ing three more wee-indie bat­tlers this week­end: Kiwi micro-bud­get fea­ture The Map Read­er stars Rebec­ca Gib­ney and is set around the pic­turesque Kaipara Har­bour. It’s a com­ing-of-age tale and it isn’t too chal­leng­ing. The sec­ond Para­mount open­ing today is Sparkle, a British com­e­dy fea­tur­ing Bob Hoskins and Stockard Chan­ning (“The West Wing”).

When Swedish vam­pire dra­ma Let the Right One In played at the Fes­ti­val last year I slept through some impor­tant scenes and woke­up  unmoved. Fur­ther dis­cus­sion with peo­ple who saw the whole thing prompt me to look at it again this week­end: Para­mount exclu­sive.

Tom Cruise’s long-await­ed new dra­ma Valkyrie is about the plot to assas­si­nate Hitler in 1944 and, in addi­tion to Cruise, there’s a parade of great tal­ent on dis­play includ­ing Bill Nighy, Ken­neth Branagh and Eddie Izzard. Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house and Sky City Queens­gate.

Final­ly in a busy hol­i­day week, Sex Dri­ve is a gross-out teen sex com­e­dy boast­ing a cast fea­tur­ing nobody you’ve ever heard of. Read­ings and Sky City Queens­gate.

Mean­while at the Film Archive the Holo­caust doc­u­men­tary Les Sur­vivants gets anoth­er run out on Sat­ur­day at 7.00pm and the excel­lent fun Scarfies by the Sarkies broth­ers plays next Wednes­day, at the same time as the French Film Fes­ti­val has its gala at the Embassy.

Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire and The Map Read­er were reviewed in this week’s Cap­i­tal Times (and on Funer­als & Snakes tonight), the rest will appear in next Wednes­day’s edi­tion (and online soon after).