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Here's a quick look at what's opening in limited release this weekend. If they're not playing where you live, keep an eye out as they make the rounds. And if all else fails, there's always DVD....

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning (pictured) is something of a prequel to Ong Bak, the Thai sensation from a few years ago. Tony Jaa, whose multi-discipline fighting skills are beyond impressive, plays a guy who fights a lot. Cinematical's Todd Gilchrist sums up the way many of us felt when we first caught the film at South By Southwest: The fight scenes are spectacular; unfortunately, the plot that holds them together is incomprehensible and takes itself too seriously. At Rotten Tomatoes, the critics are almost evenly split between yea and nay, with the only question being whether the awesomeness of the fights is enough to compensate for the dullness of the rest of it. Playing on 10 screens in New York, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Washington D.C.

Antichrist is an art-house horror film from Lars Von Trier, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a grieving couple to whom some supernatural and terrible things happen. It's been appalling audiences since it premiered at Cannes this spring. The critics all seem to agree that it's repellent, grisly, unsettling, and hard to watch. Where they part company -- about evenly down the middle, so far -- is whether that's good or bad. Playing on one screen each in L.A., New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. It will also be available through some Video On Demand systems starting Oct. 28.

Before we look back at the past week, let's peak at what's opening this weekend: Francis Ford Coppola's family drama Tetro; Duncan Jones' sci-fi trip Moon; Daryl Wein's AIDS activist doc Sex Positive; Tommy Wirkola's Nazi zombie flick Dead Snow; Robert Kenner's appetizing (maybe) doc Food, Inc.; and Chai Vasarhelyi's music / tolerance plea Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love (poster and more info after the jump).

Box Office. Opening in four theaters, Sam Mendes' Away We Go scored a smashing $32,603 per-screen average last weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. The road trip comedy / drama, starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph as anxious, expectant parents searching for a place to raise their family, far outpaced other debuting indies, which had, on their own terms, decent returns: Seraphine ($6,640 per-screen at four theaters), Unmistaken Child ($6,293, one screen), and 24 City ($6,082, one screen). Our critic William Goss feels that Away We Go is "easily among the very best films that the year has offered so far." I was less impressed; the real test will come as it expands over the next couple of weeks.

Deals. Our friends at indieWIRE have details on the recent acquisitions of Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein's doc No Impact Man, due September 4 from Oscilloscope; Jonathan Parker's comedy (Untitled), due September 18 from Samuel Goldwyn Films; and Kenneth Bi's The Drummer, due this fall from Film Movement.

Online Viewing Options. New selections at iTunes Movie Store include Bob Odenkirk's comedy Melvin Goes to Dinner; Scott Smith's dysfunctional 60s family drama Falling Angels, with Miranda Richardson; and Mike Akel's mockumentary Chalk, which school teachers have assured me is very funny (it drove me this former bad student nuts).

After the jump: CineVegas, the "Mile High Mutiny," and a sweet-looking poster.

400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

This week begins the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival. It's the oldest film festival in the world, and one of the largest, though it never gets as much publicity as Cannes or Sundance for two reasons: one is that it doesn't usually have the world premieres of the latest Hollywood blockbusters, and two is that it doesn't choose a "winner." No matter. Each year I choose my own winners, such as the following two.

When Mexican-born Fernando Eimbcke made his directorial debut with the wonderful Duck Season (2004 -- released here in 2006), he immediately earned comparisons to Jim Jarmusch with his black-and-white cinematography, deadpan humor, and a distinct lack of forward momentum in the plot. He probably won't shake that comparison with his second feature, the full-color Lake Tahoe, but it doesn't matter. This film is equally wonderful, and besides, how many good Jarmusch imitators are there?

He's almost 70 years old, but genre great George A. Romero still has a few zombie stories up his sleeve. According to Variety, the hard-working horror-maker has already started production on an as-yet-untitled horror film. Oh, and get this: It's a zombie movie! (Like most fans, I really dig films like Martin and The Crazies, but I suppose I dig George's zombie tales the most.) Shooting has already begun in Ontario, and it sure looks like Romero is going the indie route again. No word yet on who'll be distributing this one (once it's finished) but the folks at Cinetic Media will be handling those duties.

The flick will be about some folks on "an isolated island off the North American coast who find their relatives rising from the dead to eat their kin. The leaders of the island feud over whether or not to kill their reanimated relatives or preserve them in hopes of finding a cure." So to those who wondered how George could keep the armageddon going after Night, Dawn, Day, Land and Diary, now you know: Island of the Dead. Works for me. Here's hoping Romero introduces a really goofy Gilligan-style character -- and has him devoured in the first ten minutes.

Dang it's pretty wild how just one little movie has turned Diablo Cody into the most discussed screenwriter since Joe Eszterhas. (I was going to say "...since David Mamet," but he's a playwright first.) The gal has a tons of projects in the percolation stage -- from the Showtime series The United States of Tara to the Fox-heavy thriller known as Jennifer's Body -- and now she's been hired by Steven Spielberg (once again) to turn one of his ideas into a movie. (It's only a matter of time before Spielberg forces Diablo Cody to marry Shia LaBeouf, isn't it?)

According to Variety, the untitled project is a comedy. Oh, also the "studio is keeping story details under such tight wraps that even dealmakers involved with the project were in the dark." That's it. An idea by Spielberg that Cody will adapt. No producers, actors, directors have been announced. And yet ... somehow I know that DreamWorks already has a hit on its hands.

In related news, I think Cody is really cute.