This weekend, it's all about the Women's Marathon at the London Olympics! If my calculations are correct, I will have to basically stay up all night Saturday to catch the race (11am London time is uggghhhh our time), or descend into a spoiler-free cave where no NBC-borne spoilers can find me before the highlight reel.

Anyone needing a break from gorging on Olympic track and field coverage, however, has an array of options at the movie theater, including two standout docs about mystery men (The Imposter and Searching for Sugar Man) and William Friedkin's rip-roaring (and NC-17) latest, Killer Joe. Plus, Lovecraft!

Hollywood's big money is on the Total Recall remake, which stars an agreeable Colin Farrell and is directed with reasonable amounts of style by Len Wiseman (of Underworld series fame; naturally, wife Kate Beckinsale has a juicy part). But if you really want to see Total Recall, stick with the 1990 Verhoeven-Schwarzenegger version. The do-over adds nothing and contains zero quotable lines on par with "Get your AHH-SS to Mars!"

Short takes on other notable releases this week (including a Bresson revival, ooh la la) after the jump.

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My pick for movie of the week is The Queen of Versailles, a likely (I'm callin' it in July) inclusion on my top 10 list for 2012. Seriously, this doc is revealing, timely, surprising, beautifully lensed (by photographer-turned-director Lauren Greenfield), and affords an insidery peek into the mysterious borderlands between extreme weath and excessive tackiness.

Hollywood would like you to see either an alien-invasion comedy with Ben Stiller or the fourth Step Up entry ... you could do worse, but you could do better. Frankly, I'd pencil in The Queen of Versailles for your Saturday night, and settle in tonight for the 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony, which comes complete with the amusement park-ish title "Isles of Wonder." All the buzz indicates that the extravaganza, directed by Danny Boyle (not known for his subtlety), will be one for the ages, or at least supply some juicy fodder for the meme generation.

Reviews of everything opening this week (spoiler: there's a lot) below the jump.

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Just a reminder that Wed/25 is the date for author David Kirby's local event to promote his new book, Death at SeaWorld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity. Check out my interview with Kirby in the July 11 Guardian here; his website features updates on SeaWorld's battle with OSHA over allowing trainers to enter the water with killer whales after the much-publicized death of a trainer.

But there's more, Kirby told me when we spoke:

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Yep. It's here.

But THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN THE LATEST BATMAN MOVIE, PEOPLE! (Especially when this entry ain't even the best in the series. See my review below. And to those who would jump all over a critic for being a critic ... why so serious?)

First of all, the very excellent San Francisco Jewish Film Festival begins tonight. Check out our takes here (docs) and here (music docs).

Todd Solondz has a new one. Dennis Harvey reviews Dark Horse right herrre.

And the Lumiere is screening a digitally-remastered Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), complete with all the lines you love to quote and featuring a new 12-minute short, Terry Gilliam's Lost Animations. Read more »

You already have your tickets for The Dark Knight Rises (opens July 20) — if not, you might want to get on that — but there's an entire week between then and now. Parental types are already locked into Ice Age: Continental Drift, which, in addition to Ray Romano and company, features teenage mammoths voiced by Nicki Minaj and Drake and a baboon pirate captain voiced by Peter Dinklage. So there's that. Cineastes won't want to miss the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (check out Dennis Harvey's tribute to featured filmmaker William Beaudine here).

The best of the rest includes an eye-opening doc about teen athletes being groomed for MLB in the Dominican Republic; a doc about a rebellious Tibetan Buddhist; a lush Marie Antoinette drama; a family drama set against the backdrop of a kite festival in India; and an Australian import about a dog whose scruffy brio united a hardscrabble community. Which one made me sob like a tween Belieber? Hint: its star has four legs and very pointy ears.

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