Coming off good buzz from the Toronto Film Festival, both "Into the Wild" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" did good biz in their opening weekends in very limited releases. How this will translate into rewards — both monetary and artistic — remains to be seen.

With "Wild," Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn helms his fourth feature. This true tale is based on Jon Krakauer's bestseller about a top student (Emile Hirsch) who leaves school to live in the Alaskan wilderness. The supporting cast includes Oscar winners William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as his beleaguered parents.

"Wild," which captured a whopping $53k on each of its four screens, scored a solid 76 at MetaCritic and a healthy 84 at Rotten Tomatoes. While critics were impressed, none of them raved, which could mean that no one will be head cheerleader for the film come award time.

Rolling Stone's Peter Travers thought the film "represents Penn's most assured and affecting work yet as director and screenwriter" and even those less enthused, like A.O. Scott of the New York Times, were still fairly positive. Scott said that, "the film’s imperfection, like its grandeur, arises from a passionate, generous impulse that is as hard to resist as the call of the open road." And Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News lauded the actors. "Hirsch, who lost 40 pounds for the disturbing final scenes, gives a terrific performance, as do Catherine Keener and Brian Dierker, as the middle-aged hippies Chris befriends, and the wonderful Hal Holbrook, playing an old man who wants to adopt him."