LAST TRAIN HOME (Canada 2009) ***1/2
Directed by LiXin Fan

Last Train Home races the plight of Chinese migrant workers in rural China.  Director Fan selected and spent 3 years with one such family.

COP OUT (USA 2010) **
Directed by Kevin Smith

COP OUT is a cop buddy (Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan) movie in which each cop attends his own problem (one has a daughter about to be married and the other a supposedly unfaithful wife) while solving a crime (a stolen booty-stacked car).

THE CRAZIES (USA 2010) ***
Directed by Breck Eisner

A no-nonsense remake of the George Romero 1973 horror flick of the same name, THE CRAZIES tells the story of four people on a journey of survival as they escape the infected people of their town and the military.

THE MAID (LA NANA) (Chile/Mexico 2009) ***** Top 10
Directed by Sebastian Silva

It is very rarely that a seemingly effortless made film covers the raw emotions of vindictiveness, cunning and kindness.  The Golden Globe Nominee for Best Foreign Film THE MAID (LA NANA) from Chile is such a movie.  Cruel, compelling but ultimately charming, this true-to-life tale is clearly one film that will hit you hard.  But in a good way!

THE MESSENGER (USA 2009) **
Directed by Oren Moverman

Nobody likes or wants to watch films about the Iraq war.  Box-office results have proven that.  To make a film about two veterans of the Army’s Casualty Notification Unit delivering sad news of the deceased to the next-of-kin must have proven a hard sell for Oren Moverman making his directorial debut.  But flaws and all, THE MESSENGER is at times, an astonishing work.