Norman Jewison
Drama
Columbia Pictures Corporation
R
When a judge is charged with rape, Arthur Kirkland is forced to defend him. Kirkland has had problems with the judge in the past, including one incident when the judge wrongly sentenced his client Jeff McCullaugh because of a technicality. Kirkland faces a moral and legal dilemma.

Marc Webb
Comedy
Fox Searchlight
PG-13
Stills from (500) Days of Summer (Click for larger image)



 

Julie Delpy
Comedy
Tempête Sous un Crâne

2 Jours - 2 Days follows two days in the relationship of a New York based couple; a French photographer Marion and American interior designer Jack-as they attempt to re-infuse their relationship with romance by taking a vacation in Europe. Their trip to Venice didn't really work out,--they both came down with gastroenteritis. They have higher hopes for Paris. But the combination of Marion's overbearing non-English speaking parents', flirtatious ex-boyfriends', and Jack's obsession with photographing every famous Parisian tombstone and conviction that French condoms are too small, only adds fuel to the fire. Will they be able to salvage their relationship? Will they ever have sex again? Or will they merely manage to perfect the art of arguing?

John Herzfeld
Comedy
Rysher Entertainment
R
John Herzfeld deftly welds together a multitude of subplots-- a loser hitman and a cool assassin involved in an insurance scam; a washed-up director, turned suicidal, if only he had someone to care for his beloved dog; a snooty art dealer, wracked by kidney stones, cared for by his devoted assistant; a grungy deranged vice cop, now partnered with a fresh-faced rookie; and two beautiful and jealous women entangled in their deadly scheme--into a spoof of the crime thriller genre.

Jean-Luc Godard
Drama
Argos Films

In this film, 'Her' refers to both Paris, the character of Juliette Janson and the actress playing her, Marina Vlady. The film is a kind of dramatised documentary, illustrating and exaggerating the emotionless lives of characters in the new Paris of the 60s, where commercialism mocks families getting by on small incomes, where prostitution is a moneyspinning option, and where people are coldly resigned and immune to the human nightmares of Vietnam, and impending Atomic war.

Guy Logan
Documentary
JMJD
NR
Legendary hip-hop DJ Jason Mizell, aka Jam Master Jay, is gunned down in his Queens studio. Security tapes of the incident mysteriously disappear, the five witnesses are uncooperative and no one is talking...until now. 2 Turntables and a Microphone documents the investigation of the unsolved murder of Jam Master Jay, RUN- DMC's groundbreaking DJ and producer, deftly revealing the history of hip-hop and mainstream rap along the way. Exclusive, candid interviews with 50 Cent, Ja Rule, Russell Simmons, RUN-DMC, LL Cool J, The Game, and more offer insight into Jam Master Jay's life - including information that could finally help police solve the murder that shook the music world to its core.

Stills from 2 Turntables and a Microphone (Click for larger image)

Peter Chan, Ji-woon Kim
Horror
Applause Pictures
R
Memories: A woman wakes up on a street without memory. A husband cannot remember why his wife left him. The woman wanders the streets trying to contact the only phone number she has on her. The husband see's her ghost in his apartment and discovers her mutilated body in a large bag in his home (Korea). The Wheel: Extravagant cursed puppets cause fires, deaths, physical pain and a little girl to be possessed (Thailand). Going Home: A father goes in search of his missing son and is abducted by a strange man. The strangers wife has died of cancer three years prior but he keeps her in his apartment under the impression she will 'wake up' (Hong Kong).

John Ford
Drama
Argosy Pictures

Three outlaws on the run discover a dying woman and her baby. They swear to bring the infant to safety across the desert, even at the risk of their own lives.

Gianfranco Parolini
Fantasy
Cinesecolo

Robert Altman
Drama
Lions Gate Films
PG
Shy, reclusive girl Pinky starts work at a sanitarium and becomes emotionally attached to her fellow worker, Millie. After an accident, the women seem to inexplicably swap personalities, and then return back to normal. A third woman, a local artist, prowls around on the periphery of the story.

Scott Ziehl
Crime
Hyperion Pictures
R
Lew is a small time loser with a troubled past and a very big secret. Overhearing a couple plan a kidnapping, Lew is tempted to come up with a scheme of his own. He decides to get to the victim first and then blackmail the real criminals. His plan soon spins out of control.

Delmer Daves
Action
Columbia Pictures Corporation

After outlaw leader Ben Wade is captured in a small town, his gang continue to threaten. Small-time rancher Dan Evans is persuaded to take Wade in secret to the nearest town with a railway station to await the train to the court at Yuma. Once the two are holed up in the hotel to wait it becomes apparent the secret is out, and a battle of wills starts.

James Mangold
Crime
Relativity Media
R
Rancher Dan Evans heads into Bisbee to clear up issues concerning the sake of his land when he witnesses the closing events of a stagecoach robbery led by famed outlaw Ben Wade. Shortly thereafter, Wade is captured by the law in Bisbee and Evans finds himself one of the escorts who will take Wade to the 3:10 to Yuma train in Contention for the reward of $200. Evans's effort to take Wade to the station is in part an effort to save his land but also part of an inner battle to determine whether he can be more than just a naive rancher in the eyes of his impetuous and gunslinging son William Evans. The transport to Contention is hazardous and filled with ambushes by Indians, pursuits by Wade's vengeful gang and Wade's own conniving and surreptitious demeanor that makes the ride all the more intense.

Robert Aldrich
Western
Sam Company

Spike Lee
Documentary
40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks

This film recounts the people and events leading up to the one of the most despicable hate-crimes during the height of the civil-rights movement, the bombing of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In that attack, four little African-American girls lost their lives and a nation was simultaneously revolted, angered and galvanized to push the fight for equality and justice on.

Various
Documentary
Criterion

Daniel Grou
Thriller
Go Films

Bruno Hamel is a thirty eight year old surgeon. He lives in Drummondville with his wife Sylvie, and their eight year-old daughter Jasmine. Like many happy people, he is leading an uneventful life until a beautiful fall afternoon, when his daughter is raped and murdered. From then on, the world of the Hamel family collapses. When the murderer is arrested, a terrible project germinates in Bruno's darkened mind. He plans to capture the "monster" and make him pay for his crime. The day the murderer appears in Court, Hamel, who had prepared his plan in great detail, kidnaps the monster and later sends the police a brief message stating that the rapist and murderer of his daughter was going to be tortured for 7 days and then executed. Once this task accomplished, he will then give himself up.

Steve Rosenbaum
Documentary
Camera Planet

Michael Apted
Documentary
Granada Television

Director

Paul Almond
Documentary
Granada Television

A group of British children aged 7 from widely ranging backgrounds are interviewed about a range of subjects. Director

Sergio Grieco
Adventure
Fida Cinematografica

Virile blond stud Ken Clark slugs and shoots his way from Paris to Madrid and back in "Mission Bloody Mary." Directed with momentum by "Beast with a Gun" director Sergio Grieco, this fast-moving secret agent escapade qualifies as an above-average but low-budget knock-off of the fourth Sean Connery James Bond epic "Thunderball." The first installment in a three film franchise about tenacious CIA Agent Dick Molloy, who rates as quite the ladies man, puts him on the trail of a mysterious organization that calls itself the Black Lilly. They use a resourceful impostor to sneak aboard a Strategic Air Command bomber and snatch a top-secret American nuclear warhead which the Black Lilly plans to sell to the Red Chinese unless the Soviets can acquire it first in this melodramatic international Cold War saga of action and intrigue. Of course, the impostor demands a bigger pay-off after he risks his life to seize the bomb for his employers. Naturally, the villains are prepared for this treachery and they barbecue the turncoat for his perfidy. Grieco stages a nimble scramble of a chase across the rooftops in Paris, a fistfight in the hold of a freighter off the Spanish coast, and a savage knockdown drag-out brawl in a train compartment along with several surprises right up to the last five that make this a exciting as well as entertaining adventure opus. Incidentally, the film derives part of its title "Bloody Mary" from the code name for the explosive device. There is an interesting strip tease scene in Paris when a beautiful Asian circulates around a room and allows the gentlemen, usually seated with their women, to remove articles of her clothing. She lets Molloy unsnap her bra which contains a message about a future rendezvous.

Federico Fellini
Drama
Cineriz

Guido is a film director, trying to relax after his last big hit. He can't get a moments peace, however, with the people who have worked with him in the past constantly looking for more work. He wrestles with his conscience, but is unable to come up with a new idea. While thinking, he starts to recall major happenings in his life, and all the women he has loved and left. An autobiographical film of Fellini, about the trials and tribulations of film making.

Curtis Hanson
Drama
Imagine Entertainment
R
A rap version of "Saturday Night Fever." B-Rabbit, a wannabe rapper from the wrong side of Detroit's 8 Mile, has problems: he dumps his girlfriend when she tells him she's pregnant; to save money to make a demo tape, he moves into his alcoholic mom's trailer; his job's a dead end, and he's just choked at the local head-to-head rap contest. Things improve when he meets Alex - an aspiring model headed for New York - and a fast-talking pal promises to set up the demo. Then new setbacks: Alex isn't faithful, mom rejects him, rifts surface with his friends, and he's mugged by rivals. Everything hinges on the next rap showdown at the club. Can B-Rabbit pull truth out of his cap?

Joel Schumacher
Drama
Columbia Pictures Corporation
R
A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, Welles relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town private eye.

Adrian Lyne
Drama
Galactic Films

An erotic story about a woman, the assistant of an art gallery, who gets into an impersonal affaire with a man. She barely knows about his life, only about the sex games they play, so the relationship begins to complicate.

Michael Winterbottom
Drama
Revolution Films

Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall--London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose inevitable stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.

Colin Higgins
Comedy
IPC Films

Frank Hart is a pig. He takes advantage in the grossest manner of the women who work with him. When his three assistants manage to trap him in his own house they assume control of his department and productivity leaps, but just how long can they keep Hart tied up?

James Hanlon, Rob Klug
Documentary
CBS Television

On September 11, 2001, filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet were filming a documentary on a rookie New York City firefighter when they noticed a plane overhead. That plane would hit the World Trade Center. The firefighter and the Naudets rushed immediately to the scene. The Naudets filmed throughout Sept. 11 and the days afterward from the firemen's perspective, as it became clear to them that this was the only known footage from inside the Twin Towers that day.

Ray Nowosielski
Documentary
Banded Artists

Blake Edwards
Comedy
Geoffrey Productions Inc.
R
On the night of his 42nd birthday, George Webber (Dudley Moore), a popular songwriter, begins showing symptoms of "middle-age crisis." Over the succeeding weeks, he finds himself continually staring at young girls on the street, and he begins envying his high-living neighbor, whose life is one endless orgy. George's behavior causes great concern to his lover, singing star Samantha Taylor (Julie Andrews), and to his partner Hugh (Robert Webber), who has seemingly avoided George's dilemma by being gay. While driving home one afternoon, George spots Jenny (Bo Derek), a stunning young beauty en route to her marriage ceremony. Regarding her as "the most beautiful girl I've ever seen" (on a scale from one to 10), George follows her to the church. He later learns her name, and discovers that she and her husband are honeymooning in Mexico. Driven by the impulse to see her again, George flies to Mexico and checks into the hotel where Jenny is staying. Later, he sees the couple on the beach, and begins indulging in romantic fantasies about the lovely young girl. When he rescues her husband from drowning, a grateful Jenny invites George to her room.

Brad Silberling
Comedy
Reveal Entertainment
R
A well-known actor, who hasn't accepted a role in four years, is considering a project. The cousin of the director drives him to Archie's Ranch Market, in Carson, and drops him off to do a little research. He's fascinated by one of the checkers, Scarlet, a young woman from Spain with a preternatural ability to ring up items at the cash register. She hates her job, stuck at the 10 items or less lane. The actor chats her up, and when her shift ends, he asks for a ride. In the course of the afternoon, he helps her prepare for a job interview. She needs to have confidence, he needs to commit. Human contact, however brief, can change people.

Gil Junger
Comedy
Touchstone Pictures
PG-13
Adapted from William Shakespeare's play "The Taming of the Shrew," 10 Things I Hate About You starts off with Cameron, new student at Padua High, sitting in the office of the quirky guidance counselor Ms. Perky. He is then shown around the school by Michael, who will become his best friend. During his tour is when Cameron first sees Bianca Stratford, a beautiful sophomore with one problem: she isn't allowed to date. And neither is her "shrew" sister, Katarina, a senior who loves indie rock and feminist prose and hates conformity. But Kat and Bianca's father alter's his house rule: now, Bianca can date... as long as Kat has a date, too. Now, in order for Cameron to date Bianca, he has to find someone to date Kat. So Michael helps him enlist the help of pretty-boy/jerk/model Joey Donner, tricking him into thinking that *he* will get to take Bianca out if he pays someone to take out Kat. His choice: Patrick Verona, a bad-boy with a mysterious reputation--some say he ate a live duck once, others that he lit a state trooper on fire, and even more claim that he had a brief porn career. Will Patrick win Kat's heart? Will Cameron win Bianca's? Or will everything hit the fan...?

Robert Townsend
Drama
Dufferin Gate Productions
R

Sidney Lumet
Drama
Orion-Nova Productions
G
After the closing arguments have been presented to the judge, when he is giving his instructions to the jury. According to American law in most states (both then and now), the verdict in criminal cases (whether guilty or not guilty) must be unanimous. A non-unanimous verdict results in a hung jury which in turn forces a mistrial. The question they are deciding is whether the defendant, a teenage boy from a city slum, murdered his father. The jury is further instructed that a guilty verdict will be accompanied by a mandatory death sentence (under current American criminal law, a defendant must first be found guilty or not guilty, and then the jury in the sentencing phase must find an aggravating circumstance to recommend the death penalty). The jury of twelve retires to the jury room where they begin to become acquainted with each other's personalities and discuss the case.

Terry Gilliam
Drama
Atlas Entertainment
R
An unknown and lethal virus has wiped out five billion people in 1996. Only 1% of the population has survived by the year 2035, and is forced to live underground. A convict (James Cole) reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to 1996 to gather information about the origin of the epidemic (who he's told was spread by a mysterious "Army of the Twelve Monkeys") and locate the virus before it mutates so that scientists can study it. Unfortunately Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, six years earlier than expected, and is arrested and locked up in a mental institution, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines, the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert.

Terry Gilliam
Drama
MCAV9
R
Cole (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time to save the human race from a deadly virus that has forced mankind into dank underground communities in the future. Along his travels, he encounters a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) and a mental patient, brilliantly portrayed by Brad Pitt, who may hold the key to the mysterious rogue group, the Army of the 12 Monkeys, thought to be responsible for unleashing the killer disease. Believing he can obtain a pure virus sample in order to find a cure in the future, he is met with one riddle after another that puts him in a race with time. This sci-fi masterpiece from the genius mind of Terry Gilliam is a modern-day classic.

Jill Sprecher
Drama
Stonelock Pictures
R
A man approaching middle age decides to change his life. A rising young attorney's plans are thrown into disarray as the result of a single act. A woman faces her husband's infidelity. An envious businessman seeks revenge on a cheerful coworker. And an optimistic young cleaning woman awaits a miracle. These ordinary people all find themselves asking the fundamental question philosophers have pondered throughout history: What is happiness, and how does one achieve it?

Gary Winick
Comedy
Revolution Studios
PG-13
After total humiliation at her thirteenth birthday party, Jenna Rink wants to just hide until she's thirty. Thanks to some wishing dust, Jenna's prayer has been answered. With a knockout body, a dream apartment, a fabulous wardrobe, an athlete boyfriend, a dream job, and superstar friends, this can't be a better life. Unfortunetly, Jenna realizes that this is not what she wanted. The only one that she needs is her childhood best friend, Matt, a boy that she thought destroyed her party. But when she finds him, he's a grown up, and not the same person that she knew.

Ellen Brown
Comedy
Home Box Office (HBO)

Bruce Gowers
Comedy

Richard Donner
Action
Alcon Entertainment
PG-13
Jack Mosley, a burnt-out detective, is assigned the unenviable task of transporting a fast-talking convict from jail to a courthouse 16 blocks away. However, along the way he learns that the man is supposed to testify against Mosley's colleagues, and the entire NYPD wants him dead. Mosley must choose between loyalty to his colleagues and protecting the witness, and never has such a short distance seemed so long...

Burr Steers
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Offspring Entertainment
PG-13
At 17 Mike O'Donell was on top of the world; he was the star of his high school basketball team, and was a shoo in for a college scholarship. And is dating his soul mate, Scarlett. But on what's suppose to be his big game wherein college scouts are checking him out, Scarlett reveals that she's pregnant. Mike decides to leave the game and asks Scarlett to marry him which she does. During their marriage, Mike could only whine about the life he lost because he married her. So she throws him out. And when he loses his job, he returns to the only place he's happy at - his old high school. And while looking at his high school photo, a janitor asks him if he wishes he could be 17 again and he says yes. One night while driving he sees the janitor on a bridge and apparently jumps in and he goes after him. When he returns to his friend, Ned's house, where he has been staying, he sees that he is 17 again. He decides to take this opportunity to get the life he lost.

Paul Flaherty
Comedy
New World Entertainment Films
PG
By means of an accident the soul of David and his swinging grandfather get swapped. While the grandfather's body is still in coma, he enjoys having a young body again and repairs some facts in David's life, who he finds not to be self-confident enough.

Robert Luketic
Drama
GH Three
PG-13
Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent, student at M.I.T. in Boston who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine with the desire to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 for the four to five years of school since he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor Micky Rosa into a small but secretive club of five. Students Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa of the skill of card counting at blackjack. Intriged by the desire to make money, Ben joins his new friends on secret weekend trips to Las Vegas where, using their skills of code talk and hand signals, they have Ben make hundreds of thousands of dollars in winning blackjack at casino after casino. Ben only wants to make enough money for the tuition to Harvard and then back out. But as fellow card counter, Jill Taylor, predicts, Ben becomes corrupted by greed and his arrogance at winning which lets his feelings get in the way, and it also puts Professor Rosa, as well as the group, on the radar of a brutal casino security enforcer, named Cole Williams, who holds a personal grudge of some kind against Rosa which threatens to undo everything the students have learned and earned.

Alejandro González Iñárritu
Crime
This Is That Productions
R
This is the story of three gentle persons: Paul Rivers (Penn) an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English emigré (Gainsbourg), Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife, happily married and mother of two little girls, and Jack Jordan (Del Toro), an ex-convict who has found in his Christian faith the strength to raise a family. They will be brought together by a terrible accident that will change their lives. By the final frame, none of them will be the same as they will learn harsh truths about love, faith, courage, desire and guilt, and how chance can change our worlds irretrievably, forever.

Michael Apted
Documentary
Granada Television

Director

Michael Winterbottom
Biography
Baby Cow Productions
R
Manchester 1976: Cambridge educated Tony Wilson, Granada TV presenter, is at a Sex Pistols gig. Totally inspired by this pivotal moment in music history, he and his friends set up a record label, Factory Records, signing first Joy Division (who go on to become New Order) then James and the Happy Mondays, who all become seminal artists of their time. What ensues is a tale of music, sex, drugs, larger-than-life characters, and the birth of one of the most famous dance clubs in the world, The Hacienda - a mecca for clubbers as famous as the likes of Studio 54. Graphically depicting the music and dance heritage of Manchester from the late 70's to the early 90's, this comedy documents the vibrancy that made Mad-chester the place in the world that you would most like to be.

Spike Lee
Crime
25th Hour Productions
R
The 25th Hour depicts the last day of freedom for a young man before he begins serving a seven-year jail term for drug dealing. Prowling through the city until dawn with his two close male friends and his girlfriend, he is forced to re-examine his life and how he got himself into his predicament, which leads to a shocking, disturbing finale.

Danny Boyle
Horror
British Film Council
R
Animal activists invade a laboratory with the intention of releasing chimpanzees that are undergoing experimentation, infected by a virus -a virus that causes rage. The naive activists ignore the pleas of a scientist to keep the cages locked, with disastrous results. Twenty-eight days later, our protagonist, Jim, wakes up from a coma, alone, in an abandoned hospital. He begins to seek out anyone else to find London is deserted, apparently without a living soul. After finding a church, which had become inhabited by zombie like humans intent on his demise, he runs for his life. Selena and Mark rescue him from the horde and bring him up to date on the mass carnage and horror as all of London tore itself apart. This is a tale of survival and ultimately, heroics, with nice subtext about mankind's savage nature.

Michael Apted
Documentary
Granada Television

Every seven years, Michael Apted has returned to record the lives of 14 people, tracing their ambitions, successes, their failures, their loves and even one's madness. Seven years are up. Discover where they are now.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Drama
Fox Atomic
R
In the country nearby London, Don, his wife Alice and a few survivors live hidden in a farmhouse. When infected people break in the house, Dan panics and does not help his wife to escape, running away and leaving Alice trapped inside the room. Twenty eight weeks after the outbreak that annihilated the population of Great Britain, London is considered safe and the British survivors return under the coordination of the American Army, that keeps the city under permanent surveillance. The teenager Tammy and her younger brother Andy travel back from Spain to live with their father Don in London. They miss their mother and decide to escape to their old house to retrieve pictures and some other personal belongings. However, they find Alice surprisingly alive and the Army brings her to the base. After some blood test, the biologist Scarlet discovers that Alice is a carrier of the lethal virus and somehow has immunity to it. Meanwhile, Don sneaks through the facility to say how sorry he is to Alice, who forgives him. When he kisses her, he is immediately contaminated, spreading a new epidemic.

Various
Comedy
Universal Studios
Unrated
Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Remember "Arrested Development"? Smartest, funniest show on television. A critics' darling. An Emmy-winner for Best Comedy Series. But no one watched, and it was cancelled. Will history repeat itself with "30 Rock"? It's the smartest, funniest show on television. A critics' darling. An Emmy-winner for Best Comedy Series. And it finished its inaugural season in 137th place! Hopefully, people will discover all that they missed with this "Season 1" set and "30 Rock" will, better late than never, find the audience it so richly deserves. A behind-the-scenes workplace comedy in the grand tradition of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "30 Rock" stars comedy geek goddess Tina Fey as Liz Lemmon, who juggles her hapless personal life with her chaotic career as the producer and head writer of an "SNL"-ish sketch comedy show. She has a new boss, cunning and ruthless GE executive Jack Donaghy (Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award-winner Alec Baldwin), who insists on being her mentor, and a new star, medicated, loose-cannon comedian Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan), who steals the spotlight from the show's flighty star, Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski).
Briskly paced and perfectly cast, "30 Rock" rewards viewers with brilliant dialogue (when Liz asks Jack why he is dressed in a tuxedo with no formal event to attend, he coolly responds, "It's after six; what am I, a farmer?") and fresh characters you haven't seen on a hundred other sitcoms. Jack McBrayer is the series' scene-stealing breakout star as NBC page Kenneth, a sweet and innocent "rube." The ensemble's seemingly spontaneous byplay invites repeat viewings to catch jokes and sly bits of business you might have missed (in "Tracy Does Conan," listen for the initial confusion over how to pronounce Tracy's less-than-ethical physician, Dr. Spaceman, or, in "The Hair and the Head," watch for the Katie Couric slur on the wall of what is purported to be NBC anchor Brian Williams' trashed office). In a season full of gems (including "Black Tie," featuring Paul Reubens as severely inbred royalty), there are only a couple of comparative clunkers, but the pleasure of this ensemble's company more than compensates. "30 Rock" is highly recommended for people like Kenneth who just love television so much. And by the hammer of Thor, watch season 2! "--Donald Liebenson"

Various
Comedy
Universal Studios
NR
"I really feel like this is going to be my year," an uncharacteristically optimistic Liz Lemmon proclaims in "30 Rock's" season two opener. Reality quickly intrudes on the hapless Liz, but for Tina Fey and "30 Rock", the year couldn't be better. Nominated for 17 Emmys, the series repeated for Outstanding Comedy Series and earned Outstanding Actress and Actor honors for Fey and co-star Alec Baldwin as GM CEO-in-waiting Jack Donaghy. TV icon Tim Conway was also honored as Outstanding Guest Actor as Bucky Bright in "Subway Hero"--just one of the strike-shortened season's benchmark episodes--as a faded TV star from the 1940s and '50s who shatters the illusions of television-loving NBC page Kenneth (Jack McBrayer) with appalling (and unprintable) stories about "the good old days." If you're going to make a television show, Bucky tells him, "things are going to get weird." And from one of Kenneth's lame parties that turns dark and twisted to the "Page Off" between Kenneth and his nemesis ("Human Giant's" Paul Scheer) things get really weird behind the scenes of TGS, the "SNL"-ish sketch show where Liz oversees a motley crew of writers and her tempermental, demanding stars, insecure diva Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) and all kinds of crazy Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan). 30 Rock is rarefied television, each episode brimming with quotable dialogue ("Never go with a hippie to a second location"), brilliantly absurd bits (Tracy Jordan's novelty hit, "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah," the TV series "MILF Island," Liz's "Cathy" moment), and edge of the frame silliness that rewards close attention ("Anne Heche Leaves Husband for Pony," reads a network news scroll in the episode, "Somebody to Love"). Stellar guest stars rise to the occasion. Edie Falco was an Emmy nominee for her recurring role as "C.C.", the liberal Democratic Congresswoman who becomes conservative Republican Jack's "hippie dippy mama," as was Carrie Fisher as former "Laugh-In" writer Rosemary in the instant classic episode, "Rosemary's Baby." It's this episode which features Tracy's therapy session during which Jack channels Fred Sanford and J.J. from "Good Times". Making welcome returns this season are Will Arnett as Jack's corporate rival, Devon Banks, Chris Parnell as unethical Dr. Spaceman, Elaine Stritch as Jack's castrating mother, and Dean Winters as Dennis Duffy, Liz's sleazy former boyfriend and New York's unlikeliest hero. But the real muffin top on this two disc set are the awesome bonus features, including a revelatory table read of the season finale, "Cooter," the benefit live performance of the episode "Secrets and Lies" (complete with an improvised commercial), a "30 Rock" panel discussion with cast and creators moderated by Brian Williams, and a backstage look at Fey's "Saturday Night Live" homecoming last season. Most sitcoms are as bad for you as the offbrand Mexican Cheetos that Liz gorges herself on, and as Jenna tells Liz at one point, employing "a weak metaphor," you deserve a good meal. "30 Rock" is a feast. --"Donald Liebenson"
Stills from Season Two of "30 Rock" (click for larger image)

Various
Comedy
Universal Studios
NR
Warning: The third season of 30 Rock may cause fits of "lizzing" (an elevated state of hilarity that involves laughter plus whizzing) with its brilliantly loopy word play, "what the what" situations, and deft turns by a stellar roster of A-list guest stars. Liz Lemon (Emmy-winning geek goddess Tina Fey) trying to avoid jury duty by dressing as Princess Leia? Jenna (Jane Krakowski) starring in a biopic about Janis Joplin (or Jackie Jomp-Jomp due to rights complications that forbid use of Joplin's name and music)? Steve Martin as a fabulously wealthy agoraphobe? I want to go to there! This season, Liz increasingly yearns for a normal life outside of the demands of her sanity-testing job as head writer of TGS, a Saturday Night Live-esque comedy show. Happiness will find Liz, but not before two hilariously doomed relationships, one with a little person (guest star Peter Dinklage), whom she initially mistakes for a child, and the other with a neighbor (Mad Men's Jon Hamm) who doesn't realize people have allowed him to skate through life because of his impossibly good looks. She also has a rude awakening when she joins a group of Ladies who Lunch while on forced administrative leave. Her friendship with Master of the Universe mentor Jack Donaghy (indispensable Emmy-winner Alec Baldwin) is the series' endearing sweet spot.
30 Rock is unlike any other workplace comedy on television. Dancing to its own comic rhythms, the series takes great delight in tweaking sitcom clichés and conventions. In "The Bubble," the scene is set for a montage of Id-driven Tracy Jordan's (Tracy Morgan) wackiest moments on the show. Instead, Liz dreamily reflects, "I'm thinking of some of them right now." Family Guy's got nothing on 30 Rock when it comes to the surreal arbitrary gag, as when naive NBC page Kenneth (Jack McBreyer) realizes he is being sexually harassed by a Miss Vierra (Meredith from The Today Show), or when sociopathic, narcissistic Jenna is taught a lesson by the writers who have banded together as the feathered Fedora-clad Pranksmen. 30 Rock makes truly inspired use of the actors, TV icons, and musicians who appear this season. In "Believe in the Stars," Oprah Winfrey, smelling of "rose water and warm laundry," hilariously appears as herself, kind of. In "The One with the Cast of Night Court," Jennifer Aniston is upstaged by Harry Anderson, Markie Post, and Charles "Mac" Robinson. Salma Hayek makes for an exotic love interest for Jack in a multi-episode arc. The season finale features Sheryl Crow, Clay Aiken, Elvis Costello (a.k.a. Declan McManus, international art thief), Adam Levine, and others brought together for a benefit to find a kidney for Jack's long-lost father (Alan Alda). But the joy of 30 Rock is not the stars, but such brain-tickling lines as, "I watched Boston Legal nine times before I realized it wasn't a new Star Trek," and the charming character grace notes, like seeing the world as Kenneth does, populated by Muppets. In the season finale, Liz remarks that she figures TGS (30 Rock?) has two years left. Say it ain't so! --Donald Liebenson
Stills from 30 Rock - Season Three (Click for larger image)

Michael Apted
Documentary
Granada Television

Every seven years, Michael Apted has returned to record the lives of 14 people, tracing their ambitions, successes, their failures, their loves and even one's madness. Seven years are up. Discover where they are now.

Alfred Hitchcock
Mystery
Gaumont British Picture Corporation

Richard Hannay is a Canadian visitor to London. At the end of "Mr Memory"'s show in a music hall, he meets Annabella Smith who is running away from secret agents. He accepts to hide her in his flat, but in the night she is murdered. Fearing he could be accused on the girl's murder, Hannay goes on the run to break the spy ring.

Michael Lehmann
Comedy
Miramax Films
R
Nicole broke up with Matt months ago and is now engaged to someone else. He's very good-looking and has no trouble finding other lovers, but that doesn't help because he's still obsessed with wanting her back. Then he gets the inspiration that swearing off sex for Lent (all forms of sexual activity, even kissing or masturbation) will give him the perspective he needs. So of course a few days later he meets a woman and they fall in love. Now Matt sees his vow as a personal matter, and won't even tell her about it, but his friends think otherwise, and now the complications begin...

Judd Apatow
Comedy
Universal Pictures
R
Andy at the age of 40 still hasn't had sex. He lets his secret slip at a poker game with his buds from work. After the revealing all his friends are on a mission to help get him laid. Along the way Andy meets a nice mom: Trish who fall head over heels for each other.

Michael Apted
Documentary
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

In 1964, a film crew interviewed seven-year-old English kids: five or six from privilege, a Yorkshire farm lad, East-End girls, and boys from a children's home. Every seven years, Michael Apted re-interviews those willing (two declined this time). At 42, careers are stuck or flourishing; marriages are strong, shaky, or over (and Bruce recently married for the first time). They're dealing with parents' dying, and children coming-of-age. One is a single mom with young sons. One is remarried, but how are the five children from his first marriage? Lyn and Jackie face health problems with down-to-earth lucidity. Neil, on the margin at 28 and 35, has a glorious story of friendship at 42.

Lloyd Bacon
Musical
Warner Bros. Pictures

Julian Marsh, an sucessful Broadway director, produces a new show, inspite of his poor health. The money comes from a rich old man, who is in love with the star of the show, Dorothy Brock. But she doesn't reply his love, because she is still in love with her old partner. At the night before the prmiere, Dorothy Brock breaks her ankle, and one of the chorus girls, Peggey Sawyer tries to take over her part.

Various
Trailers
Ban 1 Productions

Various
Horror
Synapse Films
Unrated
WELCOME TO THE ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CINEMA, the most awesome post-modern hot spot for exploitation movie revival, deep in the heart of Texas! Home to world-famous events such as The Quentin Tarantino Film Fest, Fantastic Fest and Butt-Numb-A-Thon, the Alamo is one of the last places on earth where you can still see grindhouse classics such as THE DEVIL WITHIN HER and MAD MONKEY KUNG FU. Now, the Alamo has opened their vaults for a peek at some of the most outrageous cinematic gems from several golden ages of sleaze cinema. Digitally re-mastered in high-definition from the actual reels that show every week at the Alamo, this exciting edition of the 42ND STREET FOREVER series is the most bizarre, the most terrifying and the most hilarious one yet! FEATURING TRAILERS FROM: A LIFE OF NINJA - STING OF THE DRAGON MASTERS - THE BODYGUARD (CHIBA) - MAD MONKEY KUNG-FU - WONDER WOMEN - LUCKY SEVEN - THE SHARK HUNTER - BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT - LET S DO IT - CHATTERBOX - DANISH LOVE ACTS - GROUP MARRIAGE - VIOLATED - CAGED VIRGINS - MESSAGE FROM SPACE - THE TERRORNAUTS - MIND WARP - ZEBRA FORCE - BLAZING BATTLE - INTERNATIONAL DIAMOND TRAP - MACHINE GUN MCCAIN - STACEY - LIGHTNING BOLT - MISSION THUNDERBOLT - 3 SUPERMEN IN THE WEST - PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW - PUTNEY SWOPE - REDNECK COUNTY - MOONRUNNERS - THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE - THE MAGIC CHRISTMAS TREE - PINOCCHIO S BIRTHDAY PARTY - THE MAGIC OF THE KITE - THE SECRET OF MAGIC ISLAND - KARZAN: MASTER OF THE JUNGLE - THE NORSEMAN - SORCERESS - TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM - THE MANSON MASSACRE - THE DEVIL WITHIN HER. . . AND MORE!

Also includes a 30 minute documentary, REMEMBER THE ALAMO, documenting the Alamo Drafthouse phenomenon.

Various
Trailers
Ban 1 Productions

Various
Trailers

Greydon Clark;Lucio Fulci;Ulli Lommel;Jonathan Demme
Trailers
Synapse Films
NR
Get ready for the fourth volume of classic exploitation, horror and just plain cool trailers in Synapse Films best-selling trailer compilation series. This time we ve got alien horrors, schizoid psychos, ridiculous comedies, vengeful action... and maybe even a naked woman or two... all transferred in high-definition! Chill out in front of your television and relive some of the greatest promotional trailers of all time, including:
THE SYNDICATE: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY,
COMBAT COPS,
IT CAME WITHOUT WARNING,
NO BLADE OF GRASS,
YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE,
SIMON KING OF THE WITCHES,
THE PSYCHIC,
SCHIZOID,
TENDER FLESH,
DIE SISTER, DIE,
SILENT SCREAM,
NEW YEAR S EVIL,
MORTUARY,
HUMONGOUS,
EMBRYO,
THE BOOGEYMAN,
THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK,
THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN,
GRAY EAGLE,
SHADOW OF THE HAWK,
RUTUALS,
AMERICATHON,
CAN I DO IT... TIL I NEED GLASSES?,
DIE LAUGHING,
IN GOD WE TRUST,
UNDERCOVERS HERO,
THE JEZEBELS,
FIGHTING MAD,
MOVING VIOLATION,
BONNIE S KIDS,
WALKING TALL PART 2,
THE KLANSMAN,
MONKEY HUSTLE,
THE SOLDIER,
BLACKOUT,
SHOUT AT THE DEVIL,
MARCH OR DIE,
HOG WILD,
THE HARD HEADS,
THE CHICKEN CHRONICLES,
BEST FRIENDS,
OUR WINNING SEASON,
COACH,
GOLDENGIRL
And MORE!

SPECIAL FEATURES :
- Audio Commentary featuring FANGORIA Managing Editor Michael Gingold, Film Historian Chris Poggiali and AVMANIACS Editor Edwin Samuelson
- Bonus Vintage Television Spots

Various
Trailers
Ban 1 Productions

Walter Hill
Action
Paramount Pictures
R
Oddball cop and tough guy, Jack Cates is the only survivor of a cop shooting and in hunting down the murderer collects Reggie Hammond from jail for 48 hours. Hammond is oddly motivated to help. The killer is searching for his stash of cash. Cates and Hammond who have the Black-white, cop-crook thing to work out make surprisingly good partners as they navigate through the city looking for their suspect.

Michael Powell
Drama
Ortus Films

A damaged U-boat is stranded in a Canadian bay in the early years of World War II. The Fanatical Nazi captain and his crew must reach the neutral United States or be captured. Along the way they meet a variety of characters each with their own views on the war and nationalism. In this film

Various
Documentary
Paramount
NR
"Obama: All Access - Barack Obama's Road to the White House" contains material from six separate segments broadcast on 60 MINUTES, including excerpts from the Obamas' first post-election interview viewed by over 25 million people - the most watched primetime television event of the season. Other informal and intimate moments, previously unaired, will appear for the first time in this presentation. The disc will also include more than two hours of Obama's most memorable public addresses -- his declaration of candidacy, his groundbreaking speech on Race in America, his address at the Victory Column in Berlin, his acceptance of the Democratic Party nomination, his victory address on Election Night and the entire Inaugural Address.

Billy Crystal
Drama
61* Productions Inc.

Summer, 1961: Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle are on pace to break the most hallowed record in U.S. sports, Babe Ruth's single-season 60 home runs. It's a big story, and the intense, plain-spoken Maris is the bad guy: sports writers bait him and minimize his talent, fans cheer Mantle, the league's golden boy, and baseball's commissioner announces that Ruth's record stands unless it's broken within 154 games. Any record set after 154 games of the new 162-game schedule will have an asterisk. The film follows the boys of summer, on and off the field: their friendship, the stresses on Maris, his frustration with the negative attention, and his desire to play well, win, and go home.

Various
Drama
Other Cinema
NR
Far more entertaining than it conceivably should be, "The 70s Dimension" is a compilation of 1970s TV commercials and public service announcements scavenged from the dumpster behind a Portland TV station. Half the disc is devoted to these hilarious artifacts of media history. The other half has experimental filmmakers Matt McCormick, Thad Povey, and others twisting these raw materials into whimsical and psychedelic found-film shorts. While entertaining in their own right, these "remixed" films don't match the absurd beauty of the original material. The commercials themselves are a riot. One ad for Tab cola, clearly designed to exploit women's insecurities, claims that a woman who drinks tab will be able to keep in shape and be a "mind sticker" in her man's mind. In apparent reaction to consumer alarm over what goes into a hot dog, Oscar Mayer released a couple public service announcements praising the safety precautions that go into making a healthy weiner; in case you still harbored doubts, rest assured that men in lab coats and hard hats with incredibly serious expressions watched an assembly line. The budget for a commercial for the US Marine Corp apparently didn't provide for any footage of actual combat, but plenty for a muscle car and a woman in a bikini. If you were tempted to "shoot dope" in the '70s, a public service announcement by a member of the band Chicago surely would have rescued you from addiction. Those who watched TV in the '70s will wonder how they had ever been brainwashed into thinking these kinds of commercials represented anything in the neighborhood of reality. Viewers who came of age after the me-decade will find ample opportunity to ridicule the fashions, products, and media of generations that preceded them. "--Ryan Boudinot"

Jon Avnet
Crime
Millennium Films
R
In Seattle, the successful forensic psychiatrist and college professor Jack Gramm is in evidence since he was responsible for the condemnation of the serial killer Jon Forster, influencing the jury to sentence him to the death row. Jon accuses Jack of manipulation, inducing one witness and sister of one of his victims to testify against him. On the eve of Jon's execution, Jack receives a phone call telling him that he has only eighty-eight minutes of life, while a killer is copycatting Jon, killing women with the same "modus-operandi" and is investigated by Seattle Slayer Task Force. With the support of associate Shelly Barnes, an FBI agent, his friend Frank Parks, and his assistant Kim Cummings, Jack investigates some weird and problematic students, a security guard of the campus and the woman with whom he had one night stand.

Tom Caltabiano
Documentary
Schmo-gun Productions
R
Ray Romano's eight-day drive through the south on a stand-up comedy tour becomes more than he bargains for when longtime friend and opening act, Tom Caltabiano, brings a film student along to document their thousand-mile journey. Together, all three struggle with Ray's obsessions, phobias, and insecurities in this unscripted exploration of newfound fame.

Zack Snyder
Action
Warner Bros. Pictures
R
It is spring 480 BC, Persian King Xerxes, continuing his father Darius' master plan to conquer the Hellenic city-states, arrives in Hellas. The previous Persian invasion and diplomatic attempts have already turned most northern Hellas tribes and states to the Persian side. But the people of Athens and Sparta, the largest Hellenic powers at the time, feel quite insulted by the Persian emissaries' request to surrender to Xerxes, and so slay them. In Sparta, King Leonidas consults the local oracle, who gives two options: Either a spartan king will have to be sacrificed, or Sparta will be burned to the ground. A year earlier (481, BC) a Panhellenic consortium of all southern city-states had already recognized the superiority of the Spartan army (the best organized and trained army at the time) and had declared King Leonidas as supreme commander of the combined Hellenic army. It is then decided that a small force should block Xerxes' way to southern Hellas in the Thermopylae passage. This passage was, at that time, 12 meters wide. The great historian Herodotus, possibly exaggerating, states that there were 1,700,000 Persians (their true number could have been anywhere from 100,000 to 1,000,000) against 7,000 Hellenic hoplites and slaves, including the 300 men of the Spartan King elite guard. King Xerxes waited four days for the Hellenes to be frightened and eventually surrender and was quite astonished by his opponents' complete apathy. Xerxes tried to convince Leonidas to drop weapons, give up his position, kneel before him and live on as a local governor under Xerxes. King Leonidas replied "molon lave," which means "Come and get them." The three-day battle began, with the 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians (the other Hellenes where sent by Leonidas to protect passages to their flanks) slaying thousands of Persians with minimal losses. The whole Persian campaign would have failed if it hadn't been for Efialtes, who showed Xerxes a secret passage to the Hellenic flanks. After a final battle led by King Xerxes himself, the Hellenic force was slain and their heroism and glory was written forever in history. From the beginning of the battle, the Hellenes buried their dead in the spot where they fell. Then battle signs where made for the dead of each Hellenic faction. For the Pelloponisians, (including the 300 Spartans) the sign generally read (free translation) "In this place 4,000 Pelloponisians fought 30 millions)." For the 300 Spartans (Lakaedaemonians), the sign reads (free translation) "Oh foreigner, tell the Lakaedaemonians that we are buried here obeying their laws," meaning that they never hesitated and never retreated from the enemy. The impact of the battle was enormous for both sides. The Persians' morale dropped to zero, and the Hellenes lost their fear for the Persian conqueror and organized their defense. After several successful battles, the Hellenes ultimately defeated the Persian army and repelled their invasion in the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC.

François Truffaut
Drama
Les Films du Carrosse

A young Parisian boy, Antoine Doinel, neglected by his derelict parents, skips school, sneaks into movies, runs away from home, steals things, and tries (disastrously) to return them. Like most kids, he gets into more trouble for things he thinks are right than for his actual trespasses. Unlike most kids, he gets whacked with the big stick. He inhabits a Paris of dingy flats, seedy arcades, abandoned factories, and workaday streets, a city that seems big and full of possibilities only to a child's eye.

Bernardo Bertolucci
Drama
Produzioni Europee Associati (PEA)

Set in Italy, the film follows the lives and interactions of two boys/men, one born a bastard of peasant stock (Depardieu), the other born to a land owner (de Niro). The drama spans from 1900 to about 1945, and focuses mainly on the rise of Fascism and the peasants' eventual reaction by supporting Communism, and how these events shape the destinies of the two main characters.

Steven Spielberg
Comedy
Universal Pictures

Hysteria grips California in the wake of the bombing of Pearl harbour as an assorted group of defenders attempt to make the coast defensible against an imagined Japanese invasion in this big budget, big cast comedy. Members of a Japanese submarine crew scout out the madness.

Leo Salkin
Animation
Crossbow Productions

2000 Year Old Man is an old Brooks-Reiner comedy routine turned into a half-hour animated TV special. Reiner, a TV reporter, interviews Brooks, a man claiming to be 2000 years old. The interview consists of a serious of questions regarding the history of the world. Brooks' answers to Reiner's questions are priceless.

Stanley Kubrick
Adventure
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

2001 is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith here on earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well) Evolution then enabled man to reach the moon's surface where he finds yet another monolith, one which signals the monolith-placers that we have evolved that far. Now a race begins between computers (HAL) and man (Bowman) to reach the monolith-placers, the winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be.

Kar Wai Wong
Drama
Arte
R
He was a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention.....to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back- except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change.