On a quiet weekend for new indie films, several stories merit attention. Let's begin with Caramel, a film from Lebanon that our own Kim Voynar quite enjoyed, calling the comedy/drama set in and around a Beirut beauty salon "funny, heartwarming, and sensitive." Distributor Roadside Attractions opened the picture at 12 locations, where it earned a tidy $6,210 per screen, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City News. That was tops among new limited releases.

Kim also recommended Eric Byler's Tre, a relationship drama. I haven't seen Byler's latest, but I agree with Kim that he's a very talented filmmaker; she says that he's "at the top of his game" with Tre. Playing on just two screens in Los Angeles, the film grossed $1,800 at each for distributor Cinema Libre. I'm hoping more people will get to see it as it opens in other cities in the coming weeks. The official site has a trailer and more information on future engagements in Chicago and San Francisco.

U2 3D got thoroughly dusted by the Hannah Montana phenomenon, but I would imagine there was no crossover in the audiences. And earnings of $12,620 per screen at 61 engagements is nothing to sneeze at -- that's good enough for second place in the overall per-screen standings, though far behind Hannah's $43,550 per-screen juggernaut. Have two G-rated 3D concert documentaries ever been 1-2 like that before? I think not!

Speaking of face-offs, Juno continued its remarkable run, dropping just 28% in its ninth week of release while playing on 2,475 screens. Its cumulative total is $110 million for distributor Fox Searchlight. Meanwhile, IFC Films expanded Romanian abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days into 17 theaters where it made $7,176 per engagement, according to Box Office Mojo.

Tre, the third feature by filmmaker Eric Byler (Charlotte Sometimes, Americanese) continues his theme of exploring relationships, marriage, fidelity and friendship. The film centers on four friends: Kakela (Kimberly-Rose Wolter, who also starred in Charlotte Sometimes and co-wrote this film), an aspiring writer, her boyfriend Gabe (Erik McDowell), Gabe's best friend Tre (newcomer Daniel Cariaga) and Nina (Alix Koromzay), an aspiring actress/waitress who's separated from her husband.

As the film opens Tre, the slacker son of a wealthy family, shows up at Gabe and Kakela's house, where he occasionally lives, only to find Nina has taken over his room after leaving her husband. Angry sparks fly between Nina and Tre from their first encounter, but annoyance soon gives way to more amicable pursuits between them. Nina is on the outs from her husband because he kissed another woman for ten seconds at a party; when her friends question whether that's really a reason to leave a marriage, she notes that "ten seconds is a long time to kiss someone you're not supposed to be kissing" and then methodically counts ten seconds aloud to drive home her point.

When Shawn Wong first penned his novel American Knees way back in 1995, he may or may not have realized that he was writing what would become a classic of Asian American literature. As an undergrad, Wong looked for works by other Asian American authors, and was astounded to realize how few there were. Ultimately Wong, along with some fellow Asian American scholars, edited a compilation called The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers, which became as noted for an essay by editor Frank Chin about what was and was not true Asian American literature as for the astonishing collection of writings compiled therein.

This background is important to know because American Knees was far more than a steamy tale of relationships between people who happened to be Asian American; beneath that sexy surface, the book is about conflicts and misunderstandings between Asian Americans of different backgrounds, the subjugation of Asian Americans, and the subtleties of racism. Writer-director Eric Byler's film adaptation of the book, titled Americanese, because Byler felt that more people would "get" the intended meaning of the film with the title spelled that way, loses much of the steaminess of the novel, while focusing more strongly on the underlying themes.