Over at the Atlantic’s website, reformed conservative Andrew Sullivan suggests that the Obama victory doesn’t so much as turn the page on the Bush era as reboot America: “Now,” he writes, “we get our lives back.”

Which may explain why the country flocked to that “Madagascar” sequel in droves over the weekend, pushing it to a staggering $63.5 million box-office tally. I guess people needed the release, huh? Either that, or Ben Stiller truly is a money machine these days.

I bet Sony’s regretting the decision to push “Quantum of Solace” back a week now … imagine the escapism appeal there!

In a slightly lighter vein than usual, my latest Sympatico/MSN gallery tips its hat to “Role Models” by offering up several recent movie characters whom we would be ill-disposed to emulate.

Look, I’m going to bring up “Fight Club” every chance I get. Just accept it.

Ah, the Friday release rundown. It’s good to be home. So what have we got? One of the year’s best movies, and a lot of other stuff.

“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”: I’ve imposed a moratorium on Holocaust movies after the horror that was “Good“, and the trailer for this one didn’t give me much hope, but Susan found it worthwhile.

“I’ve Loved You So Long“: Kristin Scott Thomas is astonishingly good as a woman returning to her family after a decade and a half in prison; the movie around her, maybe not so much. But the performance is so strong that I recommend seeing the film anyway, just so you can be ahead of the curve on the whole dark-horse Oscar nomination.

“Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”: Because the first film left so many questions unanswered, obviously. The only question on my mind? “How much did Sacha Baron Cohen get to come back as the wacky lemur, and to which charity did he donate it?”

“Real Time”: Small-time loser Jay Baruchel and cranky mentor Randy Quaid drive around Hamilton for an hour and ten minutes, at the end of which Quaid will shoot Baruchel in the head. I was rooting for him to do it at the fifteen-minute mark, just so I could get out of Randall Cole’s miserable dramatic thriller. Rad suffered right along with me.

“Role Models”: Paul Rudd and Stifler as immature jerks who end up playing Big Brother to a pair of troubled kids? Sign me up — especially when virtually everyone says it’s better than it has any right to be.

“Synecdoche, New York“: Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut is the logical next step from the screenwriter of “Being John Malkovich”, “Adaptation” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, which is to say it’s a conceptual labyrinth of the highest order. And strangely moving. Just generally fantastic, really.

“Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma“: One of the stronger films I saw at Hot Docs, Patrick Reed’s simple, verite documentary revisits the twin nightmares of Somalia and Rwanda through the eyes of a man who was there, and tried to stop the bleeding. Literally.

“The World Unseen”: Unseen by me, anyway; it screened while I was out of town. But Lisa Ray is in it, and everyone loves her, even if they’re obliged to admit — as Kieran is — that she’s deserving of better projects.

… oh, and there’s this documentary thing called “Dirty Country” opening at the Bloor on Sunday. Best recommended to die-hard Larry Pierce fans.

Who’s Larry Pierce, you ask? Exactly.

I am not the biggest booster of Philippe Claudel’s “I’ve Loved You So Long”, which opens tomorrow, but I do think that Kristin Scott Thomas is absolutely amazing in the film — like, Oscar-buzzy amazing.

We talk about it some in the latest issue of NOW, or you could just save yourself some time and read the online version.

I mean, you’re already connected …

This isn’t the first time I’ve had luggage go missing during an international flight, but it’s certainly the longest it’s taken for the airline to find and deliver said luggage. Like, fifty-nine hours and counting. And what I’m counting is the dwindling number of my remaining clothes.

Aaaanyway. I’m sure my fourteenth call to Air Canada’s outsourced telephone bank will bring me a little closer to resolving this endless nightmare. In the meantime, here’s my latest Sympatico/MSN gallery, running down nine great movies about moviemaking that you’ll be much better off seeing instead of “What Just Happened?” and “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”.

Oh, and here’s Friday’s NOW Daily piece about Cinematheque Ontario’s new Nagisa Oshima retrospective, which somehow slipped my mind when I was building the other day’s post. Probably because I was worrying about my missing pants.

That’s that, then: The 2008 edition of the Viennale wrapped up last night with an awards presentation, a gala screening of Ari Folman’s animated documentary “Waltz with Bashir” — which, you may recall, I caught at Cannes — and a very nice closing party. The festival’s own wrapup is available here.

Our FIPRESCI jury gave its prize to Miguel Gomes’ “Our Beloved Month of August“, which seemed to go down pretty well with the audience. And now, very early in the morning, I am finishing the last of my packing and getting ready to head back to Toronto via London.

Anybody need anything? Tea? Jaffa cakes?

If you were puzzled by the first comment on yesterday’s post, here’s the Sympatico/MSN movies piece that inspired it — a list of the precise points at which the great horror franchises stopped working and started sucking.

Hey, “Saw V” opened this weekend — what else was I going to write about?

Oh, and here’s another Sympatico/MSN gallery, over at our “Quantum of Solace” minisite — the best James Bond villains, ranked in order. Finally, a little love for Telly Savalas’ daring interpretation of Ernst Stavro Blofeld as a total player.

And as long as I’m throwing out the links, here’s my piece on Cinematheque Ontario’s David Lean retrospective, which started up this weekend — if you’re reading this Sunday morning, there’s still time to get down to Jackman Hall for the 1 pm show of “In Which We Serve“, which is still unavailable on DVD in North America and gets screened here, like, never.

Tally ho!

I’m a pretty amiable person. I appreciate being invited to things. Which is how I ended up watching Ingrid Caven serenade Werner Schroeter at the Gartenbaukino last night. That was something.

Caven — who was Mrs. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, once upon a time, and appeared in several of his key films — is 70 years old now, though from where I was sitting she seemed at least twenty years younger. And her musical stylings were rather spectacular, in that Madeleine Kahn-in-“Blazing Saddles” kind of way.

(She’s doing a full performance tonight, of which the Viennale writes: “The concert promises to become a roller coaster ride of feelings and tones.” And yes, I imagine it does.)

Of course, before Caven could perform, Schroeter had to sit through over an hour of tributes from friends and colleagues — all in German — which he kept interrupting with muttered asides and the strangely formal compulsion to present every one of the speakers with a rose from a large vase set in the middle of the stage.

I don’t think the set designers had intended him to harvest the prop, exactly, but the audience seemed to enjoy it.

More screenings today — three, I think, with the possibility of squeezing in a fourth at the last minute. I’m also planning to catch Mark in conversation with Miguel Gomes this afternoon — I doubt anyone will be handing out roses, but it should be an interesting talk.