CITY OF EMBER is Brit director Gil Kenan’s second feature after the animated MONSTER HOUSE.  He clearly leaves his mark with a dark British looking fantasy tale of hope amidst hopelessness (end of world; fate of mankind in a metal box).

ALL TOGETHER NOW is a feature length documentary chronicling the making of The Beatles’ Las Vegas show ‘LOVE’ by Cirque du Soleil.  As Montreal’s Cirque represents spectacle and a majority of the Beatles songs fantasy, the collaboration of the Las Vegas show seems a match made in heaven.

Director Ridley Scott (BLADE RUNNER, ALIEN) returns to BLACK HAWK DOWN (to me, his best film) territory with the action suspense BODY OF LIES based on the novel by Washington Post’s David Ignatius.  The story revolves around two men with a clash of cultures.  One is CIA operative, Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) doing a fine but dirty job in the Middle-East and the other, his cunning but experienced boss, Ed Horrman (Russell Crowe) working at home in the U.S.

Director Gary Fleder’s inspiration sports drama THE EXPRESS follows all the rules of the sport film genre, playing it safe from start to finish.  Based on the true story of the first black football player to win the Heisman award, the film is a sort of rags to riches to tragedy story.

What is a ROCKNROLLA?  As one thug Archie (Mark Strong) says to wealth and fame wannabes in the film, a rocknrolla is one that wants the money, the sex game, the drug, the glamour, the fame i.e. the f***ing lot.” In a way, director Guy Ritchie’s film is the same way.  It wants all the success of his LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS and SNATCH hits by copying the identical formula and style of those two gangster films.