my week at the movies: ‘Che,’ ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno,’ ‘Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa,’ ‘Waltz with Bashir,’ ‘Splinter’

How’s this for a movie marathon? On December 12 in New York and Los Angeles, IFC Films will release the “full roadshow version” of Che, Steven Soderbergh’s epic biopic of Che Guevara, for which star Benicio Del Toro won the Best Actor award at Cannes this year. On Friday, I’m gonna sit through all five hours of it. I like Del Toro a lot, but this could try me. I like Soderbergh a lot, too, so I’m hoping it won’t. That roadshow version will play for only one week (presumably to qualify for Oscar and other awards consideration for 2008), and then in January 2009 in the U.S. and February 2009 in the U.K., the film will open as two separate films -- Che Part 1: The Argentine and Che Part 2: Guerilla -- with two separate admissions.

I’ve already mentioned why I’m psyched for Zack and Miri Make a Porno (opens wide in the U.S. on October 31; opens in the U.K. on November 14). I actually saw it this afternoon -- it’s a ton of fun, and quite sweet.