AMERICAN TEEN ANITA O’DAY: THE LIFE OF A JAZZ SINGER AT THE CROSSROADS: SLOVENIAN CINEMA BEAUTIFUL LOSERS BEFORE I FORGET BOTTLE SHOCK BOY A BRIDESHEAD REVISITED THE COUNTERFEITERS DVD CSNY: DÉJÁ VU DAYS & CLOUDS ELEGY FROZEN RIVER FULL BATTLE RATTLE A GIRL CUT IN TWO HELL RIDE HENRY POOLE IS HERE IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS THE LAST MISTRESS MAN ON WIRE THE ORDER OF MYTHS PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE PLEASE VOTE FOR ME TRUMBO VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA WHAT WE DO IS SECRET

Not to Be Overlooked:
AMERICAN TEEN
ANITA O’DAY: THE LIFE OF A JAZZ SINGER
FROZEN RIVER
A GIRL CUT IN TWO
MY WINNIPEG

Archive of Previous Reviews

The Best of 2007

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Current Theatrical Releases

BEAUTY IN TROUBLE
It’s never too late to change your life (or lover)

BODY OF WAR
An inspiring account of one Iraq veteran’s tragedy

CHRIS & DON: A LOVE STORY
A Hollywood golden and gay couple

THE COUNTERFEITERS
The morality of surviving in a Nazi concentration camp

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
No My Left Foot retread (My Left Eye?), but a exceptional, inventive, and, yes, inspirational film adaptation

EASTERN PROMISES
Gruesomely and graphically, David Cronenberg penetrates London’s Russian mob

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS
A horror film of a different sort

GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON
He came, he saw, he wrote the death of the American dream

I FOR INDIA
Watching another family’s home movies has rarely been this engaging

IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS
Looking for love where you look for furniture

LE DOULOS (1963)
Forget the summer blockbusters, Melville's rare film is the coolest hit in town

LONDON TO BRIGHTON
An unsentimental journey well worth the ride

LOST IN BEIJING
Bribes, kidnapping, ménage a quatre, and social criticism

MAFIOSO
Grooming the groom of the mob

MARRIED LIFE
Pulpy comedy of martial manners and mayhem

OPERATION FILMMAKER
An ill-fated American exercise in charity

THE ORDER OF MYTHS
We’re all going to the Mardi Gras – separately and not equally

PERSEPOLIS
No jewelry, no Iron Maiden, and no booze: growing up, veiled, in the Islamic Republic of Iran

THE RAPE OF EUROPA
Hitler’s ravenous plundering of the great works of Western art

SANGRE DE MI SANGRE
In the New York back alleys of good and evil; winner of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize

SNOW ANGELS
David Gordon Green's beautiful, poignant American tragedy

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
Errol Morris’s horror-doc is his best film in years

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING
In the winter of a literary life, a new bloom

STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME
Love kept them together while their whole world went to hell

SUMMER ‘04
A sauntering and simmering seaside squall

TERROR’S ADVOCATE
Spellbinding connecting of the dots of international terrorism

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
Woody’s trip to Spain, full of romance and sharp characters

Other New Releases

ADAM'S APPLES
A darkly comic interpretation of the Book of Job

AIR GUITAR NATION
“It’s less absurd to watch than figure skating”

THE AIR I BREATHE
Airless allegory, by way of the school of Crash

ALEXANDRA
Russian antiwar film attacks war without showing it

ALICE’S HOUSE
Quiet portrait of working-class Brazilian family imploding room by room

AMAZING GRACE
Handsome but halfhearted biopic of the British crusader who took on the slave trade

AMERICAN TEEN
A real-life drama about high school in the heartland

ANAMORPH
Se7en/CSI knockoff without much punch, save for Willem Dafoe

ANGEL-A
Light and heavy romantic comedy with a gangster and his guardian angel(-a)

ANITA O’DAY: THE LIFE OF A JAZZ SINGER
Lady lives the blues so she can sing, sing, sing

ANTÔNIA
A city of women – strong, beautiful, and rapping

ARMY OF SHADOWS
Jean-Pierre Melville's riveting Resistance drama re-emerges

ARRANGED
Two religious women grow an unusual friendship in Brooklyn

ATONEMENT
A girl’s febrile lie harvests a romantic tragedy mowed down by World War II

AUGUST
A hip dud about a failed dot-com

AVENUE MONTAIGNE
The boulevard of fulfilled dreams

BAB’AZIZ: THE PRINCE WHO CONTEMPLATED HIS SOUL
A meditation on faith in Ali Baba robes and denim jackets

THE BABYSITTERS
Babysitters club becomes brothel in dark comedy gem

BACKSEAT
Two dudes off to see Donald Sutherland; hijinks ensue

BADLAND
Daddy goes postal and meets a cute waitress

BAGHEAD
A mix of comedy and horror? It’s in the bag

BAMAKO
African agitprop indicts the West

THE BAND’S VISIT
Music is the universal language when an Egyptian band sojourns in Israel

BATTLE FOR HADITHA
Powerful direction, sometimes preachy script

BEAUTIFUL LOSERS
The scene-y story of a drifty, pro-capitalist counterculture

BECOMING JANE
Surely Jane Austen must have had a romance? Perhaps she was in love once?

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD
Sidney Lumet returns to form in this New York family drama with a body count

BEFORE THE RAINS
A passion in India

BEYOND BELIEF
Two 9/11 widows reach out to others who’ve lost husbands to war – in Afghanistan

BEYOND THE GATES
The Rwandan genocide crystallized into one harrowing week

BILLY THE KID
A real-life Napoleon Dynamite?

BLAME IT ON FIDEL
From conservative school girl to a protester in her Mary Janes

BLIND MOUNTAIN
The farmer takes a wife in a brutal Chinese dell

BLINDSIGHT
Blind kids climbing Mount Everest as the ultimate act of symbolism

BLOCKADE/AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER
The Soviet Union under Nazi assault in these two absorbing documentaries

BOARDING GATE
You’d be better off missing this flight

BOTTLE SHOCK
British oenophile uncorks Napa Valley vinoculture for the world

BRA BOYS
Totally tubular men behaving badly and brotherly Down Under

BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!
A nectar of everlasting youth, illicit young love, and a resurrection

BRICK LANE
The subtle, masterful story of a woman finding her home in the world

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
Evelyn Waugh's classic handsomely revised

BROKEN ENGLISH
Transatlantic romance translates into cute clichés

BROOKLYN RULES
Both a personal tale of Brooklyn life, circa ’85, and a genre knockoff

THE BUBBLE
Three’s company but all’s not fair in love and war

BUG
Ashley Judd, possessed, in William Friedkin’s adaptation of the Off-Broadway play

THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN
Congratulations! You have nine months to challenge the medical establishment

BUSTIN’ DOWN THE DOOR
From a surfing safari to leaders of the pack

CARAMEL
A Lebanese treat, as sweet and tasty as it sounds

CASHBACK
Horny art student's coming of age – aisle 7

CASSANDRA’S DREAM
Time for Woody to come back home?

CASTING ABOUT
Dozens of talented young actresses, but only three roles

THE CATS OF MIRIKITANI
From a Japanese internment camp to 9/11, an intimate and sweeping profile of a homeless outsider artist

CHAPTER 27
An American indie version of The Killing of John Lennon

CHARLIE BARTLETT
With a little help from Ritalin, the new kid in school just wants to be liked

CHICAGO 10
The whole world was watching Chicago, from the 1968 convention to disorder in the court

THE CHILDREN OF HUANG SHI
Crouching hero, hidden children flee war on the silk road to freedom

CHOKING MAN
Everyday life in a Queens diner unites sights and sounds with magic, realism, and animation

CHOP SHOP
A boy of summer grows up too fast in the Iron Triangle of Queens, NY

CIVIC DUTY
Post-9/11 paranoid thriller with ideas to spare and style to flaunt

CITY OF MEN
Rio’s slums are no country for old – or young – men

CJ7
An adorable pup of a family movie

COBRA VERDE
The last epic collaboration between Herzog and Kinski – not their best, but far from either’s worst

CONSTANTINE’S SWORD
Two thousand years of Christianity & anti-Semitism

CONTROL
Portrait of rocker Ian Curtis as a depressed young man, in black and white silhouette

THE COOL SCHOOL
The rise and fall of an LA art scene

CRAZY LOVE
A pulp non-fiction couple in and out of the tabloids

CROSSING THE LINE
First time before a Western camera: an American defector in North Korea

CSNY: DÉJÁ VU
The more their bodies change, the more these rock n’ roll stars stay the same

CZECH DREAM
Sly and snide documentary – hilarious hoax or wake-up call?

DANS PARIS (INSIDE PARIS)
A tender tribute to the French New Wave

DARFUR NOW
Nice guys around the world try to do the right thing, stopping genocide in Africa

THE DARJEELING LIMITED
A spiritual journey perhaps but don’t forget the cough medicine

DARK MATTER
Infinity and beyond crashes down on a Chinese student in the U.S.

DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT
A female suicide bomber on the loose in New York City

DAY WATCH
Russia’s answer to the epic fantasy/trilogy phenomenon

DAY ZERO
The melodramatic meltdown before Johnny goes off to war

DEATH DEFYING ACTS
A sentimental look at the secret love life of Harry Houdini

DECEMBER BOYS
In his first non-Harry Potter role, Daniel Radcliffe, Down Under and dour

DEEP WATER
Sailing into oblivion: The disastrous “race of the century”

DELIRIOUS
Tom DiCillo’s dark comedy of idiots and tricksters

DESCENT
A case of rape and an eye for an eye

THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK
Darfur turns a GI Joe into an anti-genocide activist

DIMINISHED CAPACITY
A film about baseball and memory that’s better forgotten

DOC
A major American novelist rediscovered

THE DOORMAN
Sexier than a bouncer, dumber than a velvet rope

DRAMA/MEX
An indie drama that cost 10 cents to make and doesn’t deserve to earn it back

DREAMING LHASA
The first fictional tour of the violent past, confused present and conflicted future of the Tibetan diaspora

DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH
The naked writer: Harlan Ellison

THE DUCHESS OF LANGEAIS
The tragic taming of the coquette

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN
A film about everything brings Fatih Akin closer to the edge of greatness

EAST OF HAVANA
Cuban home-grown hip-hop

EIGHT MILES HIGH
Catching the whirlwind of a decade of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll

EL CANTANTE
A flashy life of sex, drugs, and salsa sings and dances with no insight

ELEGY
Ben Kingsley as a quintessential Philip Roth character

ELSA & FRED
La Dolce Vita grows old and sentimental

THE 11TH HOUR
An Inconvenient Truth revisited

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Director Werner Herzog’s crazy documentary/poetry, this time in Antarctica

EVENING
A picturesque message from 1950’s mothers to today’s daughters: be happy

EVEN MONEY
Will split the audience, as Crash did, with its hit-and-miss ensemble cast and storylines

EVERYTHING’S COOL
Is there really still a global warming debate?

EXILED
Johnnie To’s stylistic exercise will appeal to die-hard Hong Kong crime fans

THE EXILES
Lost world of Native Americans in old downtown Los Angeles

EZRA
Ezra, we hardly knew you – the conflicted homecoming of a child soldier

THE FALL
A visual masterstroke with the power and pain of storytelling at its core

FAT GIRLS
High school angst and gay drama meld in this indie debut

THE FAVOR
A middle-aged New Jersey man adopts his high-school sweetheart’s son

FAY GRIM
From Queens with love, the mysterious Henry Fool’s peripatetic past catches up with his wife and friends in a deadpan sequel of international intrigue

FEAST OF LOVE
What’s love got to do with it? Everything

FELON
Hard-hitting, well-acted naturalistic prison drama

FIDO
A winning combo of Lassie, Douglas Sirk and George Romero

51 BIRCH STREET
For one American family, a mother's diary is Pandora's box

FINISHING THE GAME
A bright take-off on the legacy of Bruce Lee

FIRST SNOW
Guy Pearce returns to twisted psychological terrain

FLAKES
A soggy comedy about cereal and hipsters

FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON
Sweetly meandering tribute to a classic film and a child’s view of Paris

FLYING: CONFESSIONS OF A FREE WOMAN
Is freedom another word for nothing left to lose for a single woman in her 40’s?

THE FOOT FIST WAY
Sometimes fun, sometimes obnoxious ultra low-budget Tae Kwon Do comedy

FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO
The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, it ain’t necessarily so

FROWNLAND
Personality disorders without punch lines

FUGITIVE PIECES
Memories float into men’s minds haunted by history and pretty women

GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL
Close-up view of the apocalypse now with the gangsters of Port au Prince

GIRLS ROCK!
Music doc unable to keep up with the beat

GOLDEN DOOR
An immigrant family's harsh yet sentimental journey to the New World

GONE BABY GONE
Crime doesn’t #&!@*^’ play, you #&!@

GOODBYE MOMO (A DIOS MOMO)
A boy’s magical mystery tour through life and language during Montevideo’s Carnival

GRACE IS GONE
When Mom goes off to war

THE GRAND
Mockumentary à la Guest on high stakes Las Vegas poker

GRAND CANYON ADVENTURE: A RIVER AT RISK
An inconvenient truth the whole family can enjoy

GREAT WORLD OF SOUND
There’s still a sucker born every minute – but they have real feelings

THE GROCER’S SON
Prodigal hunk delivers charming lessons for life and love in Provençe

GYPSY CARAVAN: WHEN THE ROAD BENDS…
Viva tradition – Gypsies colorfully dance and sing through North America and their home towns

HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS
Navel-gazing mutterings, love duets in the afternoon

HAROLD
Harold is 13, bald, and not funny

HEARTBEAT DETECTOR
Tracing a corporation’s dark past through its managers’ twisted family trees

HEAVY METAL IN BAGHDAD
Where the dangers of headbanging include more than a neck cramp

HELL RIDE
Larry Bishop’s biker movie homage – a nonsensical failure

HENRY POOLE IS HERE
The writing on the wall spells Jesus

THE HIP HOP PROJECT
Lives saved by rap – and caring role models

THE HOAX
The truth is mightier than the pen

HOLLY
Important message, broken bottle

HOW TO COOK YOUR LIKE
A Zen priest kneading happiness

L’ICEBERG
A runaway wife, a persistent husband, and Le Titanique

I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN YOU: THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF SIMON WIESENTHAL
Conventional laudatory biography of the unconventional Nazi hunter

IF I DIDN’T CARE
Too dull and too short to make the impact intended in spite of low-key noir tone

IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST
La La Land bobbed and weaved but finally confronted the Final Solution

I’M NOT THERE
Todd Haynes’s biopic fun house, featuring the six faces of Bob Dylan

IN BETWEEN DAYS
A beautiful meditation linking the experience of being an immigrant and a teenager

IN BRUGES
Price of humor too high in crime comedy

IN THE PIT
Earthy documentary stays grounded until it takes to the sky

INTO GREAT SILENCE
Inside the quiet world of a Carthusian monastery

INTRODUCING THE DWIGHTS
A sweet and funny mother and child reunion is only a dirty joke away

IRA & ABBY
Love and marriage go together again and again like love and divorce

IRINA PALM
Droll comedy of a spunky granny with a naughty secret

IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY
Beautiful b & w Brit noir rich in colorful East End characters and streetscapes

THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB
“What would Jane Austen do?” as a charming guide to love today

JAR CITY
How to make a murder mystery more sinister? Set it in Iceland

JELLYFISH
3 women bob and float through an eccentric Tel Aviv

JIMMY CARTER MAN FROM PLAINS
Can an esteemed elder statesman get the American media to give peace a chance?

JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN
Memories burn for a rock legend

JUNO
Glib, gabby, and geeky: a knocked-up teen’s coming of age

THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON
Inside the assassin’s obsession and madness

KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS
Return to the glory days of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man

THE KITE RUNNER
An Americanized Afghani belatedly comes of age during the Taliban

LADY CHATTERLEY
D.H. Lawrence’s heroine made respectable

LAGERFELD CONFIDENTIAL
Life as fashion, fashion as life

LAKE OF FIRE
Abortion, extremely up close and personal

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
The bloody butcher and his bonnie young doctor

THE LAST WINTER
A thriller that skims a tight line between preachy talk and sinister horror

LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD
The opaque has never been so glamorous

LA VIE EN ROSE
Powerful Piaf, bombastic bio

LET’S GET LOST
Homage to Chet Baker and California cool – the music, the man, and especially, the image

THE LIFE OF REILLY
What a part! Charles Nelson Reilly as himself

LIVE AND BECOME
Semi-sentimental journey from Africa to the Promised Land, without the milk and honey

LONELY HEARTS
A neo-noir of the Lonely Hearts Killers (The Honeymoon Killers)

LOOK
You better smile – we’re all on Candid Camera now

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER, THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE
A not-to-be missed study of a major sculptor

LOU REED'S BERLIN
Lou Reed’s masterpiece finally brought wonderfully to film

LOVE COMES LATELY
Sex, lies, and nightmares inspire I. B. Singer’s alter-ego to write stories of magic realism

LOVE SONGS
Doesn’t everyone sing about love in the streets of Paris?

LUST, CAUTION
Virgin prostitutes herself for the Resistance in Ang Lee’s war-torn hothouse melodrama

LYNCH
If you already know David Lynch, this documentary offers nothing new, but an interesting peek all the same

MACBETH
Shakespeare's tragedy, gangsta style

MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET)
Brazilian Robin Hoods rob the rich while the rich rob the poor

A MAN NAMED PEARL
The sunny-side up portrait of a self-made artist

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES
Visual survey of the human and environmental price tag for “Made in China”

MARGOT AT THE WEDDING
Margot in the Afternoon, the film Eric Rohmer never made

MEETING RESISTANCE
The first year of the Iraqi insurgency, arriving years late

THE MEMORY THIEF
Ich bin ein Auschwitz survivor

MIRIAM
A Lithuanian woman’s remarkable journey from the Jewish ghetto to the Catholic Church to the Soviet KGB to Israel made unremarkable

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY
Wan Coward cocktail chatter, creaky plot

THE MONASTERY: MR. VIG & THE NUN
An 82-year-old bachelor (“I am not expansive by nature with all kinds of emotions”) meets his obstinate match

THE MOTHER OF TEARS
Madness? This is Argento!

MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS
Wong Kar Wai, lost in America

MY BROTHER IS AN ONLY CHILD
Accio and his brother: the ‘60s seen through the eyes of a commie and a fascist

MY BROTHER'S WEDDING
Another lost Charles Burnett film is restored, for the academically curious

MY FATHER MY LORD
A devout family heads out on Highway 61 in Jerusalem

NAKED BOYS SINGING!
One well-groomed cast proudly singing with their hearts on display

THE NAMESAKE
Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-selling novel gracefully brought to life

NANKING
Harrowing history of the Chinese holocaust

NEVER FOREVER
The transience of love and marriage, anchored by a strong Vera Farmiga

9 STAR HOTEL
Migrant Palestinians follow the money to illegally work in Israel

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
High blood Chigurh

NO END IN SIGHT
The war in Iraq: The sky is falling, Henny Penny

NOTE BY NOTE: THE MAKING OF STEINWAY L1037
The Steinway piano receives a pitch perfect homage

O JERUSALEM
The whole world was watching – but not this melodrama with contrived composites

ONCE
Old-fashioned boy-meets-girl musical in contemporary Dublin

ONE TO ANOTHER
Sex-drenched days, even more sex at night

ON THE RUMBA RIVER
Up a depressing river where musical masters joyously reunite

THE ORPHANAGE
Frightening gothic ghost story from Guillermo del Toro

ORTHODOX STANCE
Finding God in Brooklyn through boxing

OSS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES
French spy spoof, surprisingly less randy than Austin Powers

OSWALD’S GHOST
The JFK assassination and post-9/11 America

OUTSOURCED
American kitsch, assembled in India

PARANOID PARK
A master filmmaker drifts too far into teen anomie

PARIS, JE T’AIME
Love X 18 = Life in all of Paris’ neighborhoods

PAPRIKA
Eye-popping anime submerged in a neurotic dream world

PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE
An artsy, atmospheric trip into the life of a punk-poet icon

PIERREPOINT – THE LAST HANGMAN
No gallows humor in this bio of professional executioner Albert Pierrepoint

PLANET B-BOY
The gyration nation: a breakdancing tale

POISONED BY POLONIUM: THE LITVINENKO FILE
From Russian with Polonium: Ex-Spy’s death stinks of corruption

PRAYING WITH LIOR
The little rebbe that could

PRICELESS
The gold digger and the bellhop, fetching romantic comedy at its most cynical

PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES
When Alain met Alan: Resnais does Ayckbourn

THE PROMOTION
Climbing the social ladder has never been so dull

PROTAGONIST
A gay evangelical, a bank robber, a terrorist, and a kung fu fighting runt: real life as epic drama

PROVOKED
Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai's Lifetime version of The Burning Bed

PUCCINI FOR BEGINNERS
No geishas or starving artists here, but a gay/bi/straight rom-com

QUID PRO QUO
Intriguing premise, if not altogether successful

RED
A man driven to vengeance

REDACTED
Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War tour of Iraq

RED ROAD
A rocky road to redemption

REFUSENIK
The whole world was watching: the plight of Soviet Jews

REVOLVER
Guy Ritchie gets metaphysical

RFK MUST DIE: THE ASSASSINATION OF BOBBY KENNEDY
Enter Conspiracy Theory 101

ROMANCE & CIGARETTES
Love and death in Queens has a good beat and you can dance to it

ROMAN DE GARE
A man and a woman in a twisty Claude Lelouch treat

SACCO AND VANZETTI
An injustice from the early 20th century made present

SAVAGE GRACE
True crime turns pulp fiction

THE SAVAGES
Practically orphans, Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman stumble between pathos and dark humor

SEVERANCE
Think of it is as Eli Roth without the lack of humility and comic timing, if only by a little

SEX AND DEATH 101
Stud has happy ending after happy ending until he meets his fate

THE SHORT LIFE OF JOSÉ ANTONIO GUTIÉRREZ
The contradictory account of the first U.S. casualty of the Iraq War

SHOWBUSINESS
The rocky road for Broadway babies

THE SILENCE BEFORE BACH
A figuratively off-beat exploration of music, stillness, and history

THE SINGING REVOLUTION
Saving a counry through song

SING NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE
Peter Pans reunite again, this time in the Hamptons with a few jokes

THE SITUATION
The war in Iraq as blunt, but not as simple, as its title

‘SIX DAYS’ JUNE 1967: THE WAR THAT CHANGED THE MIDDLE EAST
Witness the day-by-day countdown to the genesis of today’s Mess O’Potamia

65 REVISITED
It’s not all over baby blue – the road warrior as a romantic troubadour in 1965

SLEUTH
Modern cave men in Pinteresque psychological combat

SMILEY FACE
Gregg Araki follows Mysterious Skin with a cultish stoner romp

SNOW CAKE
Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver reunite

SO MUCH SO FAST
“Time is such a bastard” - A tight-knit family fights ALS

SON OF RAMBOW
Two tough but tender tykes worship at the altar of Stallone

SOUTHLAND TALES
It’s the end of the world as we know it

SPUTNIK MANIA
Or how I learned to stop worrying and love President Eisenhower

STALAGS
Pornography and Holocaust remembrance in 1960s Israel

STARTER FOR 10
First love against the backdrop of Thatcher and the Psychedelic Furs

STILL LIFE
Jia Zhang-ke’s quiet, unassuming meditation of a soon-to-vanish China

STREET KINGS
Serpico meets surfer dude

STUFF AND DOUGH
From Romania, with ennui

SUMMER PALACE
Banned in China: Sexual awakenings, Tiananmen Square, and the loss of idealism

SUNSHINE
“So if you wake up one morning and it's a particularly beautiful day, you'll know we made it”

SURFWISE
A wandering Jew with a wife, nine kids, and surfboards for all

TALES OF THE BROTHERS QUAY
A pure smorgasbord of Quay brothers work – too much in one sitting

TALK TO ME
Faithfully capturing a tumultuous era via the Washington DC radio scene

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE
When identifying terrorists becomes fuzzy

TEETH
Film about vagina dentata is worse than pulling teeth

TEKKONKINKREET
Amazing anime/scattered story

TELL NO ONE
A fun, guilty pleasure-cum-thriller

THE TEN
Comedic – but lame – vignettes loosely related to the Ten Commandments

THEN SHE FOUND ME
Baby mama drama x 2

THIS IS ENGLAND
British director Shane Meadows takes another stab at depicting his ‘80s childhood – and succeeds

TIDELAND
Down the rabbit hole, one more time, with Terry Gilliam

TIME
Crazy love, South Korean style

‘TIS AUTUMAN: THE SEARCH FOR JACKIE PARIS
Searching for this jazz singer leaves you searching for answers

TO THE LIMIT
A slow look at some fast climbing

TRAILER PARK BOYS: THE MOVIE
Canadian My Name Is Earl without the class (believe it or not)

TRIAD ELECTION
An original crime film unto itself, even as much as it’s an homage

TUYA’S MARRIAGE
Tough times for a heroine to survive the steppes and studs of Inner Mongolia

12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST
After communist control, comedy chaos, caught on-camera

28 WEEKS LATER
If you’re going to a sequel, skip Spider-Man 3 and see this

2 DAYS IN PARIS
Julie Delpy's smart, funny, and harsh directorial debut

UNBORN IN THE USA: INSIDE THE WAR ON ABORTION
Eye-opening examination of the Pro-Life movement on many fronts

UNDER THE SAME MOON (LA MISMA LUNA)
Pushing mother and child love over the borderline

THE UNFORESEEN
A once-pristine river runs through Austin

THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER
War crimes my grandfather never told me

THE UNKNOWN WOMAN
The director of Cinema Paradiso gets dark and twisted

UNSETTLED
Six twentysomething Israelis face history and each other on the Gaza Strip

UP THE YANGTZE
Upper deck, lower deck on a slow boat to the heart of the new China

U2 3D
Goodbye nosebleeds…U2 in 3D

THE VALET
French comedy writer/director Francis Veber’s latest confection

A VERY BRITISH GANGSTER
Intriguing and stylistically-muddled profile of a notorious mob boss

VERY YOUNG GIRLS
A starter documentary on the overlooked problem of teen prostitution

VIOLENT SATURDAY
A tough ‘50s melodrama in the guise of a tough film noir

THE VIOLIN
Noble campesinos fight brutal soldiers with their wits, music, and beautiful b&w cinematography

THE VISITOR
Drumbeat takes prof from malaise to border control

VITUS
A gifted child delightfully teaches everyone a lesson

VIVA
Shy suburban housewife sheds her inhibitions (and clothes) in this skin flick send-up

THE WACKNESS
The Class of 1994 learns to see the dopeness in life

WAITRESS
Cooks up a frothy confection spiced with sadness

A WALK INTO THE SEA: DANNY WILLIAMS AND THE WARHOL FACTORY
A niece looks back to her uncle’s murky past with Warhol

A WALK TO BEAUTIFUL
Young Ethiopian women reclaim their lives and dignity after suffering humiliating childbirth injuries

WAR AND PEACE
The Soviet adaptation of War and Peace is Tolstoy to the T

WAR/DANCE
Children of war restore their humanity through music and dance

WAR MADE EASY: HOW PRESIDENTS AND PUNDITS KEEP SPINNING US TO DEATH
From the Tonkin Gulf Resolution to the war in Iraq

THE WENDELL BAKER STORY
Not much “there” there in the latest Wilson brothers comic romp

WETLANDS PRESERVED: THE STORY OF AN ACTIVIST ROCK CLUB
Kicking out the jams in New York City, now with a touch of grey

WHAT WE DO IS SECRET
Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll (and death), the LA punk way

WHO IS NORMAN LLOYD?
According to producer Tom Fontana, part Peter Pan and part Father Time

WHOLE NEW THING
A teenager learns to be himself (it’s even less exciting than it sounds)

WITHOUT THE KING
Inside Africa’s last absolute monarchy

THE WITNESSES
La Vie Bohème updated to the highs and lows of the 1980’s

WOMAN ON A BEACH
Young and neurotic (and chatty) in South Korea

WONDERFUL TOWN
City boy, country girl make the world go round – and stop

WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY
Purgatory is painful

XXY
Startlingly and knotty sexual coming-of-age drama

THE YEAR MY PARENTS WENT ON VACATION
Politics fouls the World Cup for a lonely son of activists in 1970 Brazil

YEAR OF THE DOG
And they call it puppy love...

YELLA
A metaphysical mystery meets brutal corporate shenanigans

YIDDISH THEATER: A LOVE STORY
An unsinkable diva refuses to let a culture go down

YOU KILL ME
Surprisingly light for its subject matter, clever but not as deep as it thinks it is

YOUNG & RESTLESS IN CHINA
Four years inside China’s rapidly changing socioeconomic landscape

YOUNG@HEART
You’re only as old as the songs you sing

YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH
Coppola’s brilliant mess

Recent DVD & Home Video Releases

AMERICAN CANNIBAL
Would you greenlight a competitive reality show involving starvation and cannibalism?

AWAY FROM HER
With much grace, actress Sarah Polley makes an inspired directorial debut

BLACK BOOK
Driving depiction of the derring-do, duplicity, and dark side of the Dutch resistance at the denouement of World War II

CALIGULA: THE IMPERIAL EDITION
The clash of the titanic egos, Gore Vidal vs. Bob Guccione, or rather, the Penthouse Pets do Ancient Rome

CITY OF MEN/FAVELA RISING
Two films essential for anyone who loved City of God

DELIVER US FROM EVIL
A searing documentary of a sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church

HOT FUZZ
The makers and stars of Shaun of the Dead return for another parody – taking on action/buddy flicks

JINDABYNE
The submerged disturbances and the fragile bonds between couples, friends, and a community

JOSHUA
Postpartum paranoia for mom, an ass kicking for dad

KILLER OF SHEEP
A little-seen classic of African-American life beautifully reborn

LE PETIT LIEUTENANT
A stark cop drama with an emotional backbone

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
Clint Eastwood's incisive samurai/World War II epic

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Family values and the American lack thereof

THE LIVES OF OTHERS
Orwellian and voyeuristic East German cat-and-mouse thriller set in, appropriately, 1984

A MIGHTY HEART
Star power propels Michael Winterbottom’s political drama

MY BEST FRIEND
Director Patrice Leconte’s classy take on an odd couple

THE NIGHT OF TRUTH
The land of the living death: the aftermath of a Rwandan-like civil war

PAN'S LABYRINTH
The fantastic and the fascist: A Spanish young girl's flight into fantasy under Franco

POISON FRIENDS
A cutthroat paper chase where words are weapons

THE QUEEN
Baffled lies the head that wears the crown

RESCUE DAWN
A Vietnam POW epic Herzog style – and one of the most gripping movies in years

ROCKET SCIENCE
Resolved: an unpredictably delightful, funny, and touching coming of age story

SICKO
Nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, and counting

TEN CANOES
Ancient personalities of the Australian bush come freshly alive in a uniquely guided tour

U-CARMEN
The classic opera vibrantly transplanted to a South African township

VENUS
Peter O’Toole headlines a cast of acting giants (plus one ingénue)

VOLVER
Lost (and found) in Almodóvar’s La Mancha

THE WAR TAPES
Our men in Fallujah: Three National Guardsmen's piquant point of view

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY
Brother against brother - the birth of the Republic of Ireland

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AFTER THE WEDDING
A wedding crasher asks, who’s your Danish daddy?

ALIVE DAY MEMORIES: HOME FROM IRAQ
A refreshing, though evasive, look at the effects of war

THE AURA
A taxidermist comes to life - through crime

BACKSTAGE
An even more twisted All Above Eve

BECKET
“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

BLACK WHITE + GRAY: A PORTRAIT OF SAM WAGSTAFF AND ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE
Out of the closet and back in the limelight

BLACK GOLD
A jolting look at java that may make you think twice before going to Starbucks

BLACK SNAKE MOAN
Provocative Southern pulp potboiler of the taming of the sexy shrew

BLESSED BY FIRE
The devastating personal impact of the Falklands War, from the Argentinean point of view

BOBBY
An all-star Grand Hotel on the day Robert Kennedy was shot

THE BRIDGE
The world's most popular suicide destination

CANDY
Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish as two beautiful junkies in love

CATCH A FIRE
Apartheid’s terrorism and freedom fighters in South Africa

THE CAVE OF THE YELLOW DOG
Little Ger on the Steppes

CHALK
The inner workings of high school teachers in a fond mockumentary of sorts

CLASS ACT
Art for our own sake

CLIMATES
Whether it’s summer or winter, the mood is always gloomy

CLOSE TO HOME
Two Israeli women soldiers bond on Jerusalem's frontline

COCAINE COWBOYS
A glib and glorifying look at Miami's cocaine economy

COLOR ME KUBRICK: A TRUE…ISH STORY
A mildly entertaining excursion into delusions of grandeur

COMEDY OF POWER
La petit inspector vs. the fat cats

COME EARLY MORNING
Ashley Judd, honky-tonks, and one-night stands

CONFETTI
Like TLC’s A Wedding Story, but on amphetamines

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER
An opulent martial arts soap opera with Gong Li, severely beautiful

DAYS OF GLORY (INDIGÈNES)
A band of North African brothers fighting under the flag of France

THE DEAD GIRL
Straight to the point and hard-hitting

DEATH OF A PRESIDENT
A fictional and eyebrow-raising “What if...”

THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU
Dreary but dynamic, the Cannes 2005 Un Certain Regard winner

THE DESCENT
Six women explorers discover hell, two miles underground

DOG EAT DOG
The darker and grittier side of Hong Kong police thrillers

THE DRAGON PAINTER
Long before The Bridge on the River Kwai, Sessue Hayakawa was a heartthrob

DRIVING LESSONS
Harold and Maude stripped of their eccentricities & reincarnated for family entertainment

EAST L.A. MARINE: THE UNTOLD TRUE STORY OF GUY GABALDON
The Sergeant York of World War II

EXTERMINATING ANGELS
A taboo-busting director, three obedient women, and one camera

FAMILY LAW
The Lost Embrace turns into a cuddle

FIRED!
What do you after getting fired by Woody Allen? Make a movie about it

FOLLOWING SEAN
A hippie-stoner boy from a notorious documentary grows up

FORGIVENESS
South Africa’s apartheid history is past and fully present in this tense melodrama

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Christopher Guest’s third satire about the business of acting

4
Come visit Russia, the unhappiest place on Earth!

FRATRICIDE
No escape from the past: Ethnic hostilities follow two Kurdish migrants in Germany

FREE ZONE
Natalie Portman as an American adrift in Jordan

F***
A documentary about everyone’s favorite expletive

FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS
Far from your typical biopic and far from successful

GABRIELLE
An elegant, but frosty, Isabelle Huppert vehicle

GAME 6
Will a Red Sox fan's losing streak ever end?

THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI
What you get when you mix soft-core Japanese porno with pseudo-intellectualism fused with political satire

GOD GREW TIRED OF US
Much like Lost Boys of Sudan, but tamer

GO FOR ZUCKER
1.1 million Germans have; the first German-Jewish comedy in decades

THE GOOD GERMAN
Another ambitious experiment from Steven Soderbergh, chock-full of ‘40’s Hollywood style

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
George Clooney's David & Goliath parable

GRAY MATTERS
A devoted sister realizes love is a many splendored sister-in-law

GRBAVICA: THE LAND OF MY DREAMS
Bosnian mother and daughter forge a separate peace

THE GREAT NEW WONDERFUL
The Just-Alright New Middling

GROUNDHOG DAY: 15TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION
Bill Murray gets a chance to start life over again, over and over and over again

GUARDIAN OF THE FRONTIER
Three beautiful women on a camping trip, with a killer and their country on the loose

HACKING DEMOCRACY
Meet the woman some call the "Erin Brockovich of elections"

HALF NELSON
A case of arrested development for beloved teacher, not his troubled student

HELVETICA
Globalized by a font

HERBIE HANCOCK: POSSIBILITIES
The jazz great teams up with pop stars & up-and-comers

HER NAME IS SABINE
Before and after 5 years in an institution – an autistic woman's decline as shown through her sister's camera

HARSH TIMES
Starring Christian Bale, screenwriter David Ayer’s gritty directorial debut has power but not cohesion

THE HISTORY BOYS
The education of a lifetime

THE HOST
From the muck of the Han River to the mayhem on the streets of Seoul

INFAMOUS
In Cold Blood revisited, take two

INLAND EMPIRE
A vast, expansive, challenging trip down the Lynch-hole

INTERVIEW
Starlet (Sienna Miller) turns the tables on journalist Steven Buscemi

IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS
Impressionistic splinters of the wreckage of Iraq

THE ITALIAN
A contemporary Russian Oliver Twist

JAILBAIT
A wolf circles the fresh meat in the cellblock

JESUS CAMP
Documentary featuring an evangelical summer camp for kids

KEBAB CONNECTION
Wacky kung fu hijinks in Hamburg

KEEPING MUM
Maggie Smith as an amoral Mary Poppins

THE KING
Elvis is alive and dangerous

KUNG FU HUSTLE AXE-KICKN’ EDITION
As exuberant as kung fu movies get, an instant classic for die-hard genre buffs

LA MOUSTACHE
A somewhat compelling existential mystery, but way too satisfied with itself

LASSIE
The loyal collie lovingly comes home to the big screen

LAYER CAKE
British crime drama: Dry (wit) and stale

L'ENFANT
A spare parable of a grifter father offering his baby boy for sale

LEONARD COHEN: I'M YOUR MAN
Platitudinous patter & uneven performances

LOVE
Yugoslav hit-man/espionage tragedy set in New York City – here we go again!

LUNACY
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad Marquis de Sade world

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
The dour 1966 Best Picture Oscar winner

MARIE ANTOINETTE
It's like, so Lost in Translation

MARRIED IN AMERICA 2
Five years after “I do”

THE METHOD
Big Brother meets Survivor in the board room

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS: 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Sodomy, brutality, hashish, & hope: Alan Parker’s sensational (in both ways) and career-making hit

MILLIONS: A LOTTERY STORY
A plodding homespun documentary of suddenly striking it rich

MISS POTTER
An Anglophile's treat: a picture-perfect tribute to the writer of The Tale of Peter Rabbit

MONGOLIAN PING PONG
Out of steppe: To a six-year-old boy, a ping pong ball is enchanting

MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN: THE IMMACULATE EDITION
The irreverent stroke of genius from the Pythons on a fresh DVD

MURIEL
Alain Resnais third film, where “Love affairs are like dinners. Some guests behave. Others don’t.”

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT
Marla Olmstead: From media darling to outcast, all by the age of five

NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Judi Dench is the cat to Cate Blanchett's mouse

OFFSIDE
Where there is a will, there is always a way: a group of Iranian teenage girls disguise themselves as boys to see a forbidden soccer match

OLD JOY
When a friendship exceeds its shelf life

OPAL DREAM
Like Harvey, a girl's best friends are indispensable and invisible

OVERLORD
The lead-up to D-Day, seen through the eyes of a greenhorn and riveting archival footage

THE PAINTED VEIL
An anti-septic love in the time of cholera

THE PANAMA DECEPTION
A cautionary tale of U.S. brutality and media manipulation during the 1989 invasion of Panama

PAPER DOLLS
Care attendants by day, drag performers by night

A PASSAGE TO INDIA
Heat and lust simmer in David Lean’s last film

PETER BEARD: SCRAPBOOKS FROM AFRICA AND BEYOND
Underground film star, photographer, raconteur (“If Michelanglo had a camera or Nikon he probably wouldn’t be chipping rock”)

THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES
The phantom of the diabolical opera

THE PIED PIPER OF HÜTZOVINA
Gypsy punk as something old, new, borrowed, and everything raucous

PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA
The story of how one of California's hottest vacation hotspots turned toxic

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME
Chinese third graders give democracy a try

THE PRISONER OR: HOW I PLANNED TO KILL TONY BLAIR
Eyewitness to the Kafka-esque nightmare of Abu Ghraib

THE PUSHER TRILOGY
Pulverizing crime pulp straight out of the mean streets of Copenhagen

PUZZLEHEAD
A subtle, low-budget Frankenstein story and a stark duality-of-man complex

QUINCEAÑERA
Two coming-outs: A 14-year-old Latina's debut & her macho cousin's self-acceptance

REGULAR LOVERS
The Dreamers awakened: May fools, friends, and lovers of 1968

REQUIEM
The German retelling of the case that also inspired The Exorcism of Emily Rose

ROMÁNTICO
Documentary of migrant musician, crossing the Mexican border and back

ROMEO & JULIET GET MARRIED
Shakespeare's classic tragedy (now comedy) as told through the eyes of Brazil's crazed soccer fans

RUN GRANNY RUN
A 94-year-old woman goes to…Washington?

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS
It’s not that bad, really

SAAWARIYA
Dazzling eye candy is not enough to distract from the absurd in this Bollywood musical

SCREAMERS
Rockers System of a Down remember the Armenian genocide

THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS
Eccentric and atmospheric, Sarah Polley stars as a deaf factory work (but not a Dancer in the Dark)

SERAPHIM FALLS
Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan fight it out in the bloody West

SHOGUN ASSASSIN 2: LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH
A low-rent bloody samurai spectacle, more talk than action, more dullness than cohesion

SHORTBUS
"The most wonderful thing about New York - it's where people still come to get f***ed"

SHUT UP & SING
The remark heard around the world

SPARE PARTS
Human trafficking and hangovers in the former Yugoslavian Republic of Slovenia

STAGEDOOR
The theater camp that inspired Camp gets its own spotlight

STANLEY KRAMER FILM COLLECTION
Dr. Seuss set to music, Southern angst, biker Brando, Vivien Leigh’s last hurrah, and Hepburn & Tracy

STEEP
A history of things you should not try at home

STONED
Rolling Stone guitarist Brian Jones' life in the fast lane

STRANGER THAN FICTION
One character in search of his author

SWEETLAND
Mail-order bride on the prairie

TAXI DRIVER: LIMITED COLLECTOR’S EDITION
Scorsese’s iconic loner, wanting what he can’t have and having what he doesn’t want

TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER
Shoot 'em up day-glo pulp from Thailand

10 ITEMS OR LESS
A Morgan Freeman trifle, but an fun enjoyable trifle all the same

THINGS TO DO
Garden State in Canada

13 TZAMETI
Fatalistic thriller, well calibrated like a trap

3 NEEDLES
If These Walls Could Talk 3: AIDS

THE TIGER AND THE SNOW
The frantic funnyman Robert Benigni and his straight man, the war in Iraq

THE TREATMENT
The ego and the id attempt romance in Upper Manhattan

UNCONSCIOUS (INCONSCIENTES)
I Heart huckabees travels to Spain

AN UNREASONABLE MAN
Ralph Nader: Egotism or earnestness?

THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON
The showdown between the ex-Beatle and the White House

VERDICT ON AUSCHWITZ: THE FRANKFURT AUSCHWITZ TRIAL 1963-1965
The historic, but not well known, trial of West Germany vs. death camp officers

VIOLETTE
Huppert's homicidal hooker in knee socks

THE WEST WITTERING AFFAIR
An improvised sex comedy – as raw and organic as the vegetables covering the naughty bits

WHAT WOULD JESUS BUY?
“We’re addicted, and we’re conflicted; we’re hypnotized, and consumerized.”

WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES
That's when the thriller's heroine remembers crimes of the past

WHO THE $#%& IS JACKSON POLLOCK?
A scrappy Dumpster-diver extraordinaire takes on the art world establishment

WONDROUS OBLIVION
Coming of age with a calypso beat and a cricket bat

THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING
“Who hasn’t got a bad reputation in Egypt,” especially in this potboiler?

YANG BAN XI: THE 8 MODEL WORKS
The all-singing, all-dancing Cultural Revolution

YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME
A casualty of the Summer of Love is rescued by family love

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