Director: Woody Allen

With: Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz

English and Spanish with English subtitles, Rated PG-13, 96 Min.

There is nothing like a beautiful, exotic city to enhance any story. Vicky and Cristina are two young Americans summering (studying?) in the city of Antoní Gaudí and Joan Miró. They encounter a celebrated and irresistible artist, Juan Antonio ( Javier Bardem), who makes them an offer that offends prudent Vicky, but not the more adventurous Cristina. The inevitable menage-a-trois that ensues is further complicated when the beautiful, slightly nutty ex-wife María Elena (Penelope Cruz) shows up. As with all Woody Allens there are many sharp bends in the road; some promise dire consequences, but tragedy is always averted and all are the wiser for the experience. Who knows? Maybe Vicky and Cristina learned somthing in Barcelona after all.

Director: Faith Akin

With:Nurgül Yesilçy, Baki Davrak, Rancel Kurtiz, Hanna Schygulla

German, Turkish with English subtitles, Not Rated, 122 Min.

The lives of four or five characters weave together as their stories shift back and forth between Germany and Turkey and backward and forward in time. They are aware of one another's existence, but they never connect. They remain oblivious to how their lives impinge one upon the other. The structure of the film is a metaphor for multiculturalism and globalization. Only we, the god-like viewers, see how dependent they are on one another. An aging widower saves a prostitute from Muslim hoodlums by offering her wages equivalent to her earnings as a hooker if she'll live with him. Her tragic death takes us to Istanbul where we meet her activist daughter Ayten. Then it's back to Germany where Ayten meets and falls in love with Lotte . . . "We are all connected, if only we could stand tall enough, see widely enough and understand adequately." - Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times.

Director: Guillaume Canet

With: Francois Cluzet, Kristen Scott Thomas, Marie-Josée Croze, André Sussollier, Nathalie Baye, Jean Rochefort, Marina Hands

French with English subtitles, Not Rated, 125 Min.

A terrific thriller that owes nothing to "The Fugitive." When two bodies turn up, a Paris pediatrician, Alexandre Beck, comes under suspicion for the murder of his beloved wife Margot eight years earlier. The case is reopened, and Alex is on the run--a beautifully photographed run through the streets of Paris Then comes an anonymous e-mail which suggests Margot may still be alive. It comes with a warning--tell no one." "I've heard of airtight plots. This one is not merely airtight, but hermetically sealed... Here is how a thriller should be made" - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

Director: Marc Forster

With: Khalid Abdalla, Homayon Ershadi, Zekeria Ebrahimi

English and Dari with English subtitles, Rated PG-13, 122 Min.

Two boys fly kites in preinvasion (Russian, American and Taliban) Afghanistan. Amir, son a of a wealthy landowner, and Hassan, a servant to the family, are boyhood friends despite class difference. But when Hassan is attacked by bullies Amir cannot find the courage to come to his friend's defense. Guilt wrings strange reactions from the ego, and even though Amir casts no blame, Hassan deceitfully gets Amir dismissed from the family's service. Twenty years later Hassan is a writer living comfortably in California. He gets a phone call. It's a chance to undo the wrong he has done, a chance for redemption. "How long has it been since you saw a movie that succeeds as pure story?... This is a magnificent film" - Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times.

Director: Matteo Garrone

With:Marco Macor, Toto Salvatore Abruzzse, Don Ciro Gianfelice Imparato, Maria Nazionale

Italian, Mandarin, French with English subtitles, Not Rated, 136 Min.

Camorra (sounds like and looks like the biblical city of the title) is an underworld organization based in Naples, Italy. It far out strips its Sicilian cousin, the Mafia, in global reach, profits and bloody violence. The story focuses not on the big shots who remain anonymous and respectable behind their impenetrable firewall, but on the bloodied and bloody orderlies who kill and die for a faceless organization. Here crime is business, efficient, driven by greed, and managed through fear. "The film is a curative for the romanticism of "The Godfather" and "Scarface" The final shot suggests that the Camorra is invested in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. The film is based on fact, not fiction." - Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times. Winner of the European film Award and the Grand Prize at Cannes 2008.

Director: Alex Gibney

Documenatry narrated by Peter Coyote

English. Not Rated, 110 Min.

Gambling on 1985 energy deregulation, Ken Lay became the darling child of the money magazines and grew his Texas-based company Enron to the seventh largest corporation out there. A year later it came tumbling down dragging with it the reputation of banks and accounting firms and the jobs, nest eggs and pensions of 20,000 people. Naturally the insiders (Lay, Skilling, Fastow, etc.) looted the company before it went belly-up and made off with a fortune. If you are up for a real horror film and one that is just as riveting as a Hollywood splatterfest, try this one, but beware-the horror doesn't stop when you leave the theater. "[Gibney's documentary] provides a detailed autopsy of what happened and it warns against the culture of "synergistic corruption" that has infiltrated all of corporate America. Those who think this couldn't happen again are naïve." -James Berardinelli , Reelviews

Director: Kon Ichikawa

With: Eiji Funakoshi, Osamu Takizawa

Japanese with English subtitles, not rated, 108 min.

"Why do you make such bestial images?" asked Goya's servant referring to the artist's series of engravings, The Disasters of War. "To teach men forever that they must not be beasts," replied the great Spanish master. Kon Ichikawa seems to have worked from the same theory of art when he made his classic Japanese war movie about a soldier, Tamura, left behind in Leyte during the collapse of the Japanese army in the Philippines at the end of WWII. "This is one of the most powerful Japanese antiwar films and includes several explicit scenes of the horrors and cruelties to which men are reduced by war."-Georges Sadoul , Dictionary of Films.

Director: Carol Reed

With: Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard

English, Not Rated , 100 Min.

American pulp fiction writer Holly Martins shows up in post-WWII Vienna on the promise of a job from his boyhood chum Harry Lime. Vienna is bombed to shambles and divided into zones, the American, the Russian, the British. It seethes with black-market entrepreneurs including one of the most cynical-Harry. But on arrival Holly discovers that Harry is dead. Or is he? Whether it's for the haunting zither music of Anton Karas, Robert Krasker's chiaroscuro photography, or the riveting story from the pen of Graham Green, don't miss the romantic thriller that sits among the top ten best of every serious critic that ever reviewed a film. "For lovers of film noir, The Third Man is unqustionably a must-see-one of the masterpieces of the genre... the movie is virtually without flaw." -James Berardinelli, Reelviews.

Director: Tomas Alfredsson

With: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson

Swedish with English subtitles, Rated R, 114 Min.

You know that kid they always bully at school? Beware; he may have formidable friends, maybe even a vampire. Twelve-year-old Oskar lives with his with his single mother in a drab Stockholm suburb. He's a hopeless loner until he meets a soul mate (soulless mate?), Eli. She too is a recluse and not just a little creepy, which makes them perfect for each other. But there is more to her than creepiness; she's impervious to cold, she can't tolerate sunlight, she must be invited before she can cross a threshold and she craves blood. Taken separately they are a couple of kids that are hard to love, but the warmth of their awkward relationship endears them to us to the point that the film might work as well for Valentine's Day as for Halloween. "There are some funny moments. Vampire-funny, you know. "Are you really my age?" Oskar asks Eli. "Yes. But I've been this age for a very long time." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.