my week at the movies: ‘The Wrestler,’ ‘Seven Pounds,’ ‘Nothing But the Truth,’ ‘Cadillac Records’ (plus ‘Gran Torino’ and ‘Benjamin Button’)

I’ve written already about the mystery of Seven Pounds (opens wide in the U.S. on December 19; opens in the U.K. on January 16, 2009). More recent ads and trailers reveal a bit more, though I’ve been trying to block them out -- I love not knowing what a movie is about before I see it. Hard to miss the fact that Will Smith is in it, though, what with his face pretty much constituting the film’s poster. I guess that’s enough to sell it: that it’s a Will Smith movie, because who doesn’t love Will Smith?

The Contender’s Rod Lurie has a new movie about a woman in Washington: Nothing But the Truth (opens limited in the U.S. on December 19; no U.K. release has been announced yet). Here, it’s Kate Beckinsale playing a political reporter who gets in trouble for, it appears, doing her job as a journalist. Shocking!

Yesterday I featured the trailer for Cadillac Records (opens wide-ish in the U.S. on December 5; no U.K. release has been announced yet), which is the first time any significant information about the film has entered my radar. It’s bizarre: Sony Pictures is pushing the film for awards consideration (though it doesn’t offer any suggestions as to which categories we should be considering it for), but it’s keeping a low profile with it otherwise. Perhaps the company is waiting to see how critics and awards voters react to it before deciding how -- or whether -- to push it to audiences.