This week's movie releases

Moneyball stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, real-life general manager of the Oakland A's baseball team, who in Yale economics grad Peter Brand's (Jonah Hill) stats-based approach to team selection sees a fresh way to take on the Major League's big-spenders. By scrutinizing overlooked attributes of players, the pair assembles a motley crew of undervalued rejects and has-beens who string together a record 20-game winning streak in the 2002 season. Largely eschewing the triumphalism of most sports flicks, Bennett Miller's movie moves with the same grace he brought to Capote (2005), while Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, adapting Michael Lewis' book with Steven Zaillian, does another good job of wringing drama from a nerdish setup without overly distorting the complicated facts. But that's not to say they avoid getting in a tangle over the real winner. As the film admits, the A's statistical success was short-lived; the bigger teams quickly emulated its methods and eclipsed its minor Major triumph.

Katmandú, un espejo en el cielo (or, Kathmandu: A mirror in the sky), Iciar Bollain's follow-up to Even the Rain, is another far-flung tale of solidarity, this time inspired by Catalan teacher Victoria Subirana's work educating the marginalized of Nepal. Like the previous film, it's beautifully photographed, while it's good to see Verónica Echegui, so good in Bigas Lunas' Yo soy la Juani, in another lead role. But with a script - written by Bollain in collaboration with her partner and regular Ken Loach collaborator Paul Laverty - determined to verbalize each cultural barrier she faces like a tour guide, its potentially uplifting narrative too often remains stuck in the mud.

Kermit yourself

It's 12 long years since Kermit the Frog and co's last big-screen outing, but at last the foamy friends are back together. The Muppets, written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), finds them reuniting at the prompting of a fan to save their old theater from a nefarious oil baron. Segel, Amy Adams and Chris Cooper are the human interest, while Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie has been Oscar-nominated for his songs.

From Spanish Movie director Javier Ruíz Caldera, supernatural comedy Promoción Fantasma stars Raúl Arévalo as a teacher who sees dead people - and also helps them graduate. Newly arrived at a haunted high school, his task is to steer five ghostly pupils through their final exams and on to a better place. Though whether that's heaven or the breadline, we're not entirely sure.