Beyond the pregnant teen comedy and the one about a guy who loves a blow-up doll, what else is on the DVD shelves for indie film fans this week?

Can you really go wrong when your movie features two naked Academy Award-winners having sex? Fortunately, Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead goes far beyond surface pleasures. Jeffrey M. Anderson thought it was one of the year's best American films and Erik Davis felt it would was "sure to go down as one of Lumet's best in years." (For a contrary opinion, check out Ryan Stewart's review.) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei star. ThinkFilm's DVD includes an audio commentary with Lumet and his lead actors and a "making of" feature.

War/Dance follows a group of children living in a refugee camp in Uganda who have been invited to participate in a national music and dance competition. "I can't imagine anyone could watch War/Dance," wrote Kim Voynar when she saw it AFI Dallas last year, "without feeling heart-wrenched over these kids' stories and being touched by their heart and courage ... This is what documentary filmmaking is all about." ThinkFilm's DVD includes deleted and extended scenes, the theatrical trailer and a trailer gallery.

Also of interest: highly-acclaimed political drama Bamako (New Yorker); documentary Here is What Is (Suma), which goes behind the scenes with music producer Daniel Lanois, and Jeff Garlin's comedy/romance I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (IFC).

I'm thankful for a lot of things this year, my son being first and foremost, but I wouldn't get too far down the list without coming to movies and food, and then food in movies. Showing characters eating or relating to food in some way can be a quick and easy way to capture a magical moment. You can reveal something about a character, you can take a break from an otherwise hectic narrative, or you can simply bask in the sheer, physical beauty of food, the same way another movie might show characters dancing. The following is my second annual "thankful" list of food scenes in current movies playing on 400 screens or less.

I'm thankful for the use of the term "savory snacks" in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited (285 screens). When Jack (Jason Schwartzman) returns from having made love with the Indian stewardess (Amara Karan) in the train's bathroom, his brothers ask: "where's our savory snacks"? I'm thankful for the adorable Sarah Silverman and the way she sighed her way through the line "I want someone to eat cheese with" in I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (3 screens). And I'm thankful for Scarlett Johansson eating potato chips in bed in The Nanny Diaries (26 screens) -- her only way of dealing with the end of a horrible, horrible day.

Industry attention is still focused on the Toronto festival, but most moviegoers just wanted something good to watch this weekend. Of the four new indie films released in limited engagements, Jeff Garlin's I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With topped the chart, earning $14,000 at its single screen, according to estimates by Box Office Mojo. Garlin is best known for his role as Larry David's long-suffering manager in the HBO improv series Curb Your Enthusiasm (which returned for a new season Sunday night). Karina Longworth interviewed him at Tribeca last year. He wrote, directed and stars in Cheese, "based on his one-man show on being a fat, gig-less, and lonely actor in search of someone to love," according to Ella Taylor's review in Village Voice. The film scored an 80% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

The other three new releases were not far behind, each averaging about $10,000 per screen. Again taking a look at the Rotten Tomatoes approval ratings, In the Shadow of the Moon did best, at 91% positive (Cinematical's James Rocchi liked it too), with The Hunting Party and Fierce People trailing badly, at 41% and 33% positive, respectively. Shadow of the Moon is a doc about the surviving NASA astronauts, Hunting Pary features Richard Gere and Terence Howard as TV journalists chasing stories in war zones and Fierce People is Griffin Dunne's coming of age story, with Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland.

Among holdovers, Death at a Funeral ($2,183 average on 316 screens in its fourth week) and The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters ($1,717 per screen at 39 locations, also in its fourth week) continued to perform nicely. But everyone's favorite underdog, musical drama Once, is the real indie star of the summer. In its 17th week, Once made $1,595 per screen at 141 locations. Go, Once!

Once again, Hollywood's pattern reveals itself with each new trailer leading to another like a big ol' connect-the-dots picture ... and yes, the new trailer for The Mist is included after the jump.

Horton Hears a Who
My first thought was that this must be another concert/documentary flick like the Stones' film Shine a Light, but I guess if that were the case this would be Horton Hears THE Who. The beloved creation of Theodore Geisel, better known to the world at large as Dr. Seuss, gets a big CGI feature adaptation with Jim Carrey voicing Horton, an elephant who discovers a tiny civilization living in a dust speck, and Steve Carell as the Mayor of Who-ville. The story was previously adapted by master animator Chuck Jones for a 1970 TV special, and Seuss's Horton Hatches the Egg was adapted in 1942 and then again in 1992. This new version looks like a lot of fun, and even if you find that a little of Jim Carrey's manic behavior goes a long way, he's perfect for an animated character. Here's Erik's take on the trailer.

Speaking of digital animation ...
Veggie Tales - The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything
Being far older than the target demographic, judging the merits of kids' movies is tricky for me. I've watched a few episodes of the Veggie Tales TV shows with my nephews and since we were all laughing there must be something to recommend. The series uses humor to convey moral themes using animated anthropomorphic vegetable characters. The trailer starts off with a Pirates of the Caribbean flavor before we see turnips saying "Arrrrr!" It's pretty cute and obviously for younger kids. If your little buccaneers like the series or the previous film Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie, then this should work for them.

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With is the directorial debut of Jeff Garlin. Known to many as Larry David's manager/sidekick on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Garlin also wrote and starred in the film, which takes a bittersweet, episodic stroll through the work, woman and weight problems of a Chicago-based 30-something comedian (guess who). Cheese, which flirts with being a meta-remake of Paddy Chayefsky's Marty, is full of references to film, but in the hands of Garlin, a self-professed "fan of the classics," the pop culture allusions are sharp but never snarky. I sat down with Jeff at the Tribeca Grand this week -- here's the video evidence.

Format
MOV [iPod compatible]

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