'Carnage' opens New York Film Festival

Tonight, Roman Polanski's adaptation of the Tony-winning play, Carnage, raises the curtain on the 49th New York Film Festival, a 17-day event that showcases some of the most promising films of this awards season. Like many of the other high-profile films set to screen in New York, Carnage, which stars Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, and Christoph Waltz, had its world premiere elsewhere — in Carnage's case, Venice — but the New York reception to it and other such films as Alexander Payne's The Descendants, Lars von Trier's Melancholia, Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In, Steve McQueen's Shame, and David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method could help set the board for Oscar season.

One true world premiere that the industry is anticipating is My Week With Marilyn (Oct. 9), with Michelle Williams playing Marilyn Monroe during the 1957 production of The Prince and the Showgirl opposite Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh). Williams is already receiving some buzz for her portrayal of the fragile icon, and it will be equally fun to see Branagh play the filmmaker he's always been most compared to.

Though it's screened previously, Martin Scorsese's George Harrison documentary, Living in the Material World, will also show this Tuesday, one day before it debuts on HBO.

There's lots to see, but the hottest ticket, for my money anyway, isn't for a screening. Wes Anderson is sitting for an Apple Store Q&A on Oct. 13. Royal Tenenbaums anyone?

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'Carnage' trailer

Dave Karger's OscarWatch