Wacky movieness this week, what with Christmas falling on a Monday, which serves to extend what is sure to be an already big couple of days at the multiplex for another 24 hours. But should that stop Hollywood from trying to stretch it out even further? Indeed not. So we've got movies -- have we got movies! -- opening today (Wednesday), Thursday, Friday, and Christmas Day.

Wednesday sees one wide release: the return of Rocky Balboa to the big screen, and color me stunned, but this is one helluva flick. Spare and big-hearted and genuine like the original film was, this is a surprisingly poignant and grittily graceful portrait of an athlete past the tail end of his career who discovers a reason to dig up the last fight he's got in him. Forget all the nonsense of the other Rocky sequels: this is the real deal [my review].

Two serious awards contenders open in very limited release today. Landing on five screens is Clint Eastwood's bookend to Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, depicting the famous battle from the Japanese perspective. Far more powerful than the first film, this one eschews all sentimentality to present a view of an enemy that neither demonizes nor glorifies but simply, unpretentiously humanizes them. The Painted Veil, based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham and opening on four screens, is a rather conventional tale about an English couple abroad in China in the 1920s ... but it's saved by beautiful performances by Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

We're in China again in Curse of the Golden Flower, opening in limited release on Thursday. But though it's sumptuous to look at -- the film is already garnering awards for its production design -- the story it tells, of royal intrigue at the emperor's palace, is ludicrous. Venus, also opening limited on Thursday, is perhaps equally ludicrous, in some ways, with its platonic romance between an elderly actor and a rough-edged teenaged girl, but stars Peter O'Toole and newcomer Jodie Whittaker sell it. The oft-nominated O'Toole is overdue for an Oscar; look for the sentimental vote to give it to him this year.

Check in here again Friday, when I'll run down the new openings and expansions for the weekend proper and holiday Monday.

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