My indie pick of the week is Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited; which our own Monika Bartyzel has already reviewed elsewhere. My next pick is a film that Cinematical's Scott Weinberg recommended: Death at a Funeral. The title may be misleading: it's a comedy directed by Frank Oz (Little Shop of Horrors, What About Bob?) and Scott described it as "a very broad, very British and very funny farce ... that will definitely appeal to people over the age of 30." MGM's DVD includes an audio commentary by Mr. Oz, another by screenwriter Dean Craig and actors Alan Tudyk and Andy Nyman, and a gag reel.

New Oscar winner Javier Bardem also starred in last year's Goya's Ghosts, a bio-pic directed by Milos Forman; Ryan Stewart wrote: "It just comes across as odd and indicative of a serious lack of directorial focus." He further stated: "If it were not the work of a major director, it's hard to imagine why anyone would suffer the mental agitation of trying to figure out how its various pieces fit together ..." Ryan explained his disappointment very well, but if you're a glutton for punishment -- or a huge, huge fan of Bardem and co-star Natalie Portman -- you might decide to rent the DVD from Samuel Goldwyn, which includes a behind-the-scenes featurette.

With many taking full advantage of the long holiday weekend, myself included, the box office numbers tumbled in a bit later than usual, but it appears that Spanish-language thriller Ladrón Que Roba a Ladrón won on a per-screen basis with an average of $6,090 at 340 locations, based on estimates by Leonard Klady of Movie City News. That put it #2 overall in per-screen averages behind Rob Zombie's Halloween. In Ladrón, two thieves resolve to steal the fortune of an man who's built his empire by selling useless health aids to poor people via infomercials. The official site has the fake infomercials plus Spanish and English language versions of the trailer.

Death at a Funeral is holding up nicely, averaging $5,260 on 264 screens for distributor MGM. Directed by Frank Oz, the dark ensemble comedy declined just 2% while adding three screens in its third week of release. Also in its third week out, the superb doc The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters increased its take by 27.3%, according to Box Office Mojo, adding seven screens and averaging $4,571. Cinematical's Scott Weinberg gave each film a positive review, and word of mouth must be good.

Other debuting specialty titles included John August's The Nines, which drew an extremely healthy $14,650 each at the two screens where it was booked. (Our own Ryan Stewart really liked it too.) On its sole screen, Indian drama Vanaja made $10,500, which should be considered a triumph in view of it subject matter and lack of stars. (Read Christopher Campbell's positive review to see why: I've seen it and I agree completely.) Johnny To's Exiled finally made its theatrical premiere. I loved this terrific, tangy, self-aware, modern Hong Kong Western -- Scott Weinberg liked it, though not as much as me -- so I wish it made more than $9,550 in two engagements so far.

Joe Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs dropped an astounding 81.4% in its second week, taking in just $1,100 for a total of $14,200 so far. Good thing the budget was low. You'd have to think that all the press on so-called "mumblecore" films in general would help, but perhaps the audience is more limited than expected or hoped.

It's not just because he provided the voices souls for such wonderful characters as Fozzie Bear, Grover, Cookie Monster, Miss Piggy and (of course) Yoda that my generation adores Frank Oz. And it's not just because of his strangely amusing cameos in movies like The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and Spies Like Us, either. Nope, it's mainly because Frank Oz is such a consistent comedy director that we keep cheering for the man's efforts. Well, he was really consistent for a while there anyway.

After honing his directorial skills on The Dark Crystal and The Muppets Take Manhattan, Mr. Oz probably got the Little Shop of Horrors gig just because of his vast experience with complicated puppetry. Who knew the guy would deliver one of the slickest, silliest and most entertaining musical comedies ... maybe ever? Three more very solid comedies would follow -- Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob? and Housesitter -- before Frank tackled family fare once more with The Indian in the Cupboard. Then he delivered Bowfinger, The Score and The Stepford Wives. After that last effort the man was primed for some redemption.

In a move that serves to remind us that MGM is now primarily a distributor, the company has acquired the rights to Death at a Funeral, a dark comedy from independent production company Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, one of the indie groups that signed an early, non-exclusive distribution deal with MGM. Though MGM owns domestic rights, international sales remain with SKE, which will try to sell the film at Cannes.

The movie will be direct by Frank Oz, and "revolves around a dysfunctional Brit family as they gather to mourn the passing of their patriarch." Needless to say, what with the film being a comedy and all, things don't go as smoothly as planned at the funeral. Oz will have a pretty good cast on his hands when production begins, including Matthew Macfadyen, Peter Dinklage and Ewen Bremner, who you may remember as the homelier of the two Trainspotting Ewans (he was Spud).