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Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the Capitol of the nation
of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. Sixteen year old
Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her younger sister’s place and must rely upon her sharp instincts when she’s pitted
against highly trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives. If she’s ever to return home to
District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
Hugo is an orphan boy living in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. He learned to fix clocks and
other gadgets from his father and uncle which he puts to use keeping the train station clocks running. The only thing that
he has left that connects him to his dead father is an automaton (mechanical man) that doesn't work without a special key
which Hugo needs to find to unlock the secret he believes it contains. On his adventures, he meets with a shopkeeper, George
Melies, who works in the train station and his adventure-seeking god-daughter. Hugo finds that they have a surprising connection
to his father and the automaton, and he discovers it unlocks some memories the old man has buried inside regarding his past.
This visually stunning new movie simultaneously follows four babies around the world - from first breath
to first steps. From Mongolia to Namibia to San Francisco to Tokyo, BABIES joyfully captures on film the earliest stages of
the journey of humanity that are at once unique and universal to us all.
Filmmaker Thomas Balmes offers an adorable glimpse at the first phase of life in this film following four newborn babies
through their first year of life. Ponijao, Bayar, Mari, and Hattie were born in Namibia, Mongolia, Japan, and California,
respectively. By capturing their earliest stage of development on camera, Balmes reveals just how much we all have in common,
despite being born to different parents and raised in different cultures.
When parents Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian Fitzgerald (Jason Patric) find out that their daughter Kate (Sofia
Vassilieva) has leukemia, they make the difficult choice to utilize the advancements of modern medicine and impregnate Sara
with a child genetically ensured to be a donor match for Kate. Throughout the many years of dealing with Kate's illness, the
needs of individual family members--including Kate's parents, her brother Jesse (Evan Ellingson), and her sister Anna (Abigail
Breslin)--are largely ignored in light of Kate's more serious needs. Still, Kate's sister Anna rarely complains about helping
Kate, even when it involves undergoing painful bone marrow aspirations. Recently, however, Anna has had a change of heart
and has decided to stand up for her right to have a say in medical procedures involving herself: she's enlisted a lawyer,
Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin), to help her sue her parents for medical emancipation. The issue is highly emotional and
the familial strife is further compounded by the fact that Kate is quickly failing and needs an immediate kidney transplant
for even a chance of continued survival. The emotional struggle of dealing with serious illness while trying to meet one's
own needs permeates the film, as do the staggering moral dilemmas inherent in the advances of modern medicine. While Picoult's
readers may be disappointed that the film doesn't delve as deeply into Anna's and Jesse's characters as the book does, My
Sister's Keeper is nonetheless an intensely powerful film bursting with emotion and moral quandary that leaves viewers
pondering what lengths they might go to in a similar situation. --Tami Horiuchi
For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of putting
value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact. Director Robert Kenner explores the subject from all angles,
talking to authors, advocates, farmers, and CEOs, like co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan
(The Omnivore's Dilemma), Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), and Barbara Kowalcyk, who's been lobbying for more rigorous
standards since E. coli claimed the life of her two-year-old son. The filmmaker takes his camera into slaughterhouses and
factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants
risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost. If eco-docs tends to preach to the converted,
Kenner presents his findings in such an engaging fashion that Food, Inc. may well reach the very viewers who could
benefit from it the most: harried workers who don't have the time or income to read every book and eat non-genetically modified
produce every day. Though he covers some of the same ground as Super-Size Me and King Corn, Food Inc.
presents a broader picture of the problem, and if Kenner takes an understandably tough stance on particular politicians and
corporations, he's just as quick to praise those who are trying to be responsible--even Wal-Mart, which now carries organic
products. That development may have more to do with economics than empathy, but the consumer still benefits, and every little
bit counts. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
The innocence of childhood savagely collides with the Holocaust in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
Bruno (Asa Butterfield) knows that his father is a soldier and that they have to move to a new house in the country... a house
near what he thinks is a farm. But his father isn't just a soldier; he's a high-ranking officer in Hitler's elite SS troops
who's just been placed in command of Auschwitz. As Bruno explores the woods around the house, he discovers the concentration
camp's perimeter fence. On the other side sits a boy his own age, with whom Bruno strikes up a friendship--a friendship that
will have tragic consequences. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is most powerful in the details: The casual brutality
of a Nazi lieutenant; the uncomfortable juxtaposition of the family's domestic life with glimpses of the treatment of the
imprisoned Jews; a ghastly propaganda film suggesting that life at Auschwitz was like a holiday. But more than anything else,
Butterfield's performance makes this film compelling. The young actor perfectly conveys Bruno's limited perspective even as
the film carefully unveils the larger, darker reality. The movie's ending will undoubtedly spark arguments, but only because
of the emotional complexity of what happens--The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is made with great skill and compassion.
Also featuring David Thewlis (Naked) and Vera Farmiga (The Departed) as Bruno's parents. --Bret Fetzer
Fans of Lasse Hallström's truffle, Chocolat, may enjoy the director's subsequent novel adaptation,
the emotionally charged Shipping News. The opening sequence introduces us to the bumbling Quoyle (Kevin Spacey), an
ink setter at the Poughkeepsie News; his hedonistic wife Petal Bear (Cate Blanchett); and their daughter Bunny. But
we hardly get to meet the characters, much less connect with them, in the fewer than eight minutes allotted for the scene.
Before you know it, Petal is dead in a car wreck, Quoyle's parents have committed suicide, and Quoyle and Bunny are headed
off with Quoyle's aunt Agnis (Judi Dench) to start over in a small Newfoundland port town. As the main story ensues--Quoyle's
transformation from passive victim to sensitive lover and eloquent columnist--the subplot of his sordid family history and
his aunt's search for healing seems contrived and lifeless. While Julianne Moore, as the widow Wavey, gives a solid performance
as Quoyle's love interest, Spacey's performance is uneven, never convincingly at sea enough to reward Quoyle's ultimate self-discovery.
As with so many films adapted from novels, The Shipping News fails to embark confidently enough upon its own course
to keep off the rocks. --Fionn Meade
Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell) is an 11-year-old boy living in northeast England in the mid-1980s. While his
gruff father and brother are taking part in a massive coal miners strike, Billy goes to boxing lessons and furtively plays
his dead mother's piano out of loneliness. One day Billy notices a ballet class nearby. Intrigued, he begins practicing and
taking lessons from Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters), a tough-minded teacher. Billy begins to fall in love with ballet but keeps
his lessons a secret from his family, who struggle to put food on the table while the strike drags on. When his father finally
learns the truth, a family crisis erupts, and Billy struggles to prove that dancing is more than just a hobby--it's his dream.
BILLY ELLIOT is a touching and heartwarming story that avoids clichés by setting the story in the grim mining town of northern
England amid economic hardship and sacrifice, showing the joy and release that dancing provides for Billy. Newcomer Jamie
Bell, who does all his own dancing in the film, deserves special credit for his performance as Billy.
It all begins... with a choice. In the third chapter of Stephenie Meyer's phenomenal Twilight series, Bella
Swan is surrounded by danger as Seattle is hit by a string of murders and an evil vampire continues her quest for revenge.
In the midst .. Bella is forced to choose between her love, Edward Cullen, and her friend, Jacob Black--knowing
that her decision may ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf.
Louis Sachar's acclaimed teen adventure novel comes to dazzling life with this wildly entertaining adaptation.
Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf) is an unassuming adolescent whose family has been cursed for generations. One day, after Stanley
is falsely accused of stealing a pair of sneakers, he is sentenced to 18 months at Camp Green Lake. But when he gets there,
he discovers that this camp is really more like a prison. Under the supervision of the fiery Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) and goofy
Dr. Pendanski (Tim Blake Nelson), Stanley and his cohorts must spend each day digging holes in the desert, in order "to build
character." Or at least that's what The Warden (Sigourney Weaver) says. When Stanley finally gathers up the courage to escape
the camp, he and fellow escapee Zero (Khleo Thomas) stumble across a secret that will expose Camp Green Lake for the evil
place that it is, and erase the Yelnats family curse forever. Director-producer Andrew Davis (THE FUGITIVE) performs a miraculous
feat with HOLES, crafting a family film that is smart, funny, and engaging. Sachar's story teaches enormously valuable lessons
about respect, teamwork, and honesty, making HOLES a must-see for individuals everywhere.
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