Based on the non fiction book by Jon Krakauer, Sean Penn’s INTO THE WILD traces the life of Christopher McCandless, a college graduate who gave it all up (education, career and family) to pack up and go INTO THE WILD.  The film plays like a fairy tale in which the protagonist, Christopher (Emile Hirsch) takes a journey where he meets an assortment of people in order to learn how to love and hence be comfortable with himself and life once again. 

Francois Girard’s SILK is a beautifully shot period epic that involves travel to different lands – the kind that made his previous film, THE RED VIOLIN so captivating. In SILK, ex-military man, Hervé Joncour (Michael Pitt) is hired by a wealthy merchant (Alfred Molino) to save the French silk industry to travel to the far reaches of Japan to bring back disease-free silkworms. As whites are not allowed in feudal Japan, Herve disguises himself and is successful up to a point.

The feature film SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, based on the book by Lt. General Dallaire, arrives rather late after the filmgoers have been saturated with information about the genocide in Rwanda in films like HOTEL RWANDA (2004), UN DIMANCHE A KIGALI (2006) and others.  The film itself begins with a brief 2 minute history lesson. 

Terrorists in Saudi Arabia (a.k.a. THE KINGDOM) attack U.S. citizens there and the FBI sends a team made of Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman and Chris Cooper to investigate and pick up the pieces.  Needless to say, more of the same ensues.  As expected, there is no solution and no peace in sight.

It had to happen – a film about members of a book club where the characters in the book reflect the love lives of the members.  In the romantic comedy THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB members fall in and out of love according to Jane Austen’s characters in her books from ‘Pride and Prejudice’ to ‘Persuasion’.  Director Swicord assumes that viewers are familiar with all the Austen novels, and if not insults them (as one character is in the film).  That said, this reviewer had not read any, though familiar with the books through movies.