We were under the impression that "No Country for Old Men" was opening this weekend, and we just found out it's only coming to "big" cities today—Austinites have to wait till next weekend. Miffed, we're only slightly placated by the other offerings at hand, though Philip Seymour Hoffman is hard to turn down...

Lions for Lambs: Meryl Streep is a reporter, Tom Cruise is typecast as a neocon congressman, Robert Redford is a professor, and they're all trying to get us to Wake Up and realize that the current effed-up situation in America is partially running on the fumes of our own apathy. Could be didactic, but we just read a Salon review saying that the film manages to be engaging, even so. (Is there irony in a Scientologist participating in a project advocating that people extricate themselves from the fantasies that keep them from seeing what's really happening in the world? Possibly.)

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead: A new Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Network) movie, with Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke as two brothers who plan a robbery, only to have the whole thing go terribly wrong. Apparently the 83-year-old Lumet is one of those older artists who get better at what they do, instead of falling into the retread trap. And, as we said before, Hoffman could read the UT course catalog on film and we'd watch.

Control: Biopic of Ian Curtis, Joy Division singer, who committed suicide at a young age. Director Anton Corbijn photographed JD when they were first hitting it big, and the movie is supposed to be a sensitive and interesting take on the drugs-music-fame-disaster genre, which skirts the "Behind the Music" cliches successfully. Samantha Morton, who we loved as the precog Agatha in "Minority Report", plays Curtis' long-suffering wife.

King Corn: We might be biased, because one of the stars of this food and farms doc went to high school with us (hi Ian!), but we think King Corn is great. It's the story of two city slickers who buy an acre of cornfield in Iowa, and then set out to follow it from birth to usefulness. Along the way, they discover a lot of things about pesticides, mechanization, farm subsidies, Earl Butz, and high fructose corn syrup. It's also funny.

P2: On the lower level of a parking garage, a woman's car and phone stop working. Betrayed by technology, she will soon find herself betrayed by her fellow man...This one wasn't pre-screened for press, which could be a bad sign.

Sleuth: Kenneth Branagh directs an adaptation of a Harold Pinter play, and a remake of the 1972 film of the same name. In this version, a man (Michael Caine) dukes it out in a battle of wits with his wife's young lover (Jude Law). Is a battle of wits as fun to watch as a real battle (one with fists)? Hm.

Fred Claus: Vince Vaughn, Kevin Spacey, and Paul Giamatti really do co-star in a movie about Santa Claus' misfit older brother coming back to the North Pole in order to borrow money from Saint Nick, which should go to show that those of us who work humiliating day jobs to pay the rent should thank the Lord that at least our shame is not public.

[Showtimes]