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Some will focus on the nationality of the people immigrating to America in this dramedy. The fact they are Palestinians does shape some of the details, but at its core, it is a universal story of change. Whether the change is good or bad all depends on your perspective.

Muna Farah (Nisreen Faour) is a single mom trying to raise her teenage son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) in the occupied territory. She sees little opportunity for him once he is finished with high school. Life is hard where they live. Due to the whims of soldiers at check points they might not even be able to get home at night. Before her husband left her, she applied to a visa to go to America and now she has been approved. At first she is skeptical, but Fadi is ecstatic about going. So they pack up what little they have and head for the U.S.A.

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Director James Gray tells an all too realistic love triangle. There is the good girl who’s a friend of family. Then there is the “girl of his dreams.” Who the guy ends up with says a lot of about what he thinks of women and even more about himself.

Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix, WALK THE LINE) has just gotten out of the hospital. He has some emotional problems. His parents, Reuben (Moni Moshonov, WE OWN THE NIGHT) and Ruth (Isabella Rossellini, BLUE VELVET), introduce him to the daughter of their business partner. Sandra Cohen (Vinessa Shaw, 3:10 TO YUMA) is a kind girl who’s a little shy and isn’t ashamed to be set up with a guy by her parents. Then Michelle Rausch (Gwyneth Paltrow, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) moves into the building. She’s a tall, sexy blonde party girl and Leonard is smitten on first sight. She knows it and takes him in like one would a stray dog. Easy attention and loyalty. But in reality she already owns a fickle cat. Ronald Blatt (Elias Koteas, PROPHECY) is the rich married man she’s having an affair with.
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Vets lead the way.

Last week’s Getting Buzzed column looked at the Oscar Best Picture category, this week the Best Actor and Actress categories are the focus. This year it seems that vets and newcomers are among the top performers getting the big buzz. Unlike the supporting acting categories, which will be the subject of this column in two weeks, the lead acting categories are wide open.
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With INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS and THE HURT LOCKER now on DVD and Blu-ray, This Weekend’s Film Festival looks at films with a unique perspective of war. Nazis will be smashed. Wives will long for their assassinated husbands. African soldiers will fight for a country that treats them like second-class citizens. The son of a Nazi SS officer will befriend a Jewish boy in a concentration camp. Bomb experts will treat war like a drug.
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Andrzej Wajda is a landmark figure in both Polish cinema, as well as the Solidarity movement. His films, KANAL, telling of the Warsaw uprisings, and ASHES AND DIAMONDS, chronicling the Polish Resistance, are considered masterpieces. Now at 82 he comes to tell another Polish historical story that for many years would have had him imprisoned or worse. In 1940, KGB officers executed more than 15,000 Polish officers and bulldozed over their bodies in the Katyn Forest. Wajda’s father Jakub was an officer killed that day.

The film poignantly begins with two fleeing groups of Polish people passing each other on a bridge. One group is fleeing from the Nazis and the others are fleeing from the Russians. A fitting metaphor for Polish history during and after WWII. Anna (Maja Ostaszewska, THE PIANIST), along with her young daughter Nika (Wiktoria Gasiewska), is looking for her husband Andrzej (Artur Zmijewski), who has been taken prisoner by the Russians. Because of loose watch of the officers, she pleads with him to escape with her, saying he made an oath to her. He replies that he made an oath to the military too. Andrzej is taken to a war camp where he begins a diary and then the massacre and then silence.
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James Cameron returns to sci-fi.

It’s less than a month away from when the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announce their nominees for the 2010 Oscars. This year the picture has changed a bit. The Academy expanded the field of nominees to 10. This will open the game up to more respected popular films that in previous years might have just missed out. Think THE DARK KNIGHT. I guess the Academy wanted to get into the Top 10 circus as well. So here are the contenders.
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Costume dramas about British monarchs are like a sub-genre of their own. Now we get one on the early life of Queen Victoria, the longest reining British royal to date. Director Jean-Marc Vallee has two themes running simultaneously. One is of political intrigue and the other is a love story. The latter works very well, especially thanks to its two lead actors.

As a girl, Victoria (Emily Blunt, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA) didn’t even know that she was next in line for the throne following the death of her uncle King William (Jim Broadbent, BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY). Her mother the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson, SPIDER) has her secluded from court, as well as other children. She says that even a palace can be a prison. The Duchess is being manipulated by Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong, STARDUST), who spent years making Victoria dependent so she would make her mother the Regent, in turn giving him the power of a royal, until Victoria turned 21. Victoria refused.
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When he was young, Sacha Gervasi was a roadie for the metal band Anvil. He would later go on to write Stephen Spielberg’s THE TERMINAL. Now he returns to Anvil for this rock documentary that is like THIS IS SPINAL TAP meets AMERICAN MOVIE.

Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner have been playing metal together since they were 14 years old. Now in their 50s, they’re still at it, trying to recapture the 15 minutes of fame they had in the 1980s. The doc begins with rock stars like Guns ‘n Roses’ Slash and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich explaining how influential the band was; fortune just didn’t shine on them. In between shows at bars, Lips works as a truck driver at the Children’s Choice Catering, while Reiner works in construction.
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Rachid Bouchareb’s drama tells another under-reported chapter of World War II. This Oscar-nominated film tells the story of Northern African soldiers who fought on the side of France. They fought for patriotism and respect. They were treated like dogs sent out to attack an armed intruder. If they survived, the best they received were straps and a pat on the head for their sacrifice.

Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila) passed a test and was given the rank of corporal. He’s put in charge of a band of other African soldiers. Said (Jamel Debbouze, AMELIE) is an illiterate Algerian man who becomes a lacky for French sergeant Roger Martinez (Bernard Blancan), who is the only person of importance to ever pay attention to him. Their relationship provides him privilege with the French officers, but scorn from the Africans. Turns out he’s not as big a push over as he appears to be. Messaoud Souni (Roschdy Zem, THE GIRL FROM MONACO) is a tall, imposing man who becomes the troupe’s sharpshooter. He has a French girl named Irene (Aurelie Eltvedt) in Marseille. He believes she is waiting for him, but then her letters never come. Yassir (Samy Naceri) and Larbi (Asaad Bouab) are brothers from Morocco, who are simply in the army to make some money. They aren’t below stealing from corpses, but these Muslims draw the line at churches.
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In 2008, some critics hailed this WWII drama as one of the best films of the year, while others called it one of the worst. It’s shocking material divided critics, many complaining the film is not for kids as advertised. While I found the film profound, I do agree that this is not a film for small or sensitive children. But for mature kids and adults alike, this story of a German boy befriending a Jewish boy is a moving experience.

The story unfolds through the eyes of Bruno (Asa Butterfield, SON OF RAMBOW), an eight-year-old German boy whose father Ralf (David Thewlis, HARRY POTTER) works as a soldier. We the audience can see he is an SS officer. He has told his family that they must move from the city to the country where he had been reassigned. Bruno and his older sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) are sad to leave their friends. Their mother Elsa (Vera Farmiga, UP IN THE AIR) assures them that they will make new friends. But their fears are justified when they arrive at their new home — a cold looking concrete box in the middle of nowhere.
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