In Theaters This Weekend

Taken moments before Pattinson breaks into "Baby Mine"

Hitting theaters this weekend, three major releases bordering on the cusp between greatness and merely watchable - Water for Elephants, the sort of lonely circus drama that will most likely recall the glory days of Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken; Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family, in which Madea gathers her grandchildren to give them all bad news; African Cats, in which Samuel L. Jackson talks about lions for an hour and a half. But which is going to be worth your money? Or your time? Find out after the break.

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The Sunset Limited

Primacy.

It is always a trick to adapt theater to a feature film. Easier to do so for television, though that's probably a gross overstatement. HBO might be the best place to do it; they harbor independent film. Even trickier, maintaining a swift and watchable pace with only two actors and heavy religious dialog. Thankfully, Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, and Cormac McCarthy have no problem with this. The Sunset Limited is engaging, thought-provoking, and sincere. 

Of course, being a McCarthy work, there is a sense of boundless eternity that is tinkered with throughout, and the ending is more of a truce than anything else, but this is usually so of his writing. Things happen, we talk about why, and then we go home. It doesn't matter which side wins, just so long as each side is heard. 

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