Sep 11, 2007

Acclaimed Drama

Sarah Polley (Secret Life of Words, The Weight of Water) directs Away From Her, a story about a married couple and the obstacles they face when Alzheimer's Disease. Julie Christie (Finding Neverland, Billy Liar) stars as the afflicted wife in a performance that has inspired talks of Oscar nominations.

Snow Cake stars Sigourney Weaver (The Ice Storm , Aliens), Alan Rickman (Truly Madly Deeply, Love Actually), and Carrie-Ann Moss (The Matrix, Memento) centering around people drawn together after an unexpected tragedy. Our new romantic comedy this week is Griffin & Phoenix, a love story pairing Amanda Peet (Syriana, Saving Silverman) and Dermot Mulroney (The Wedding Date, Zodiac) as a couple that may find true love, if they can overcome a secret. A Vegas gambling thriller, Even Money is an ensemble cast picture as unconnected gamblers, bookies, and performers interconnect, and features performances by Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland, Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai), Danny DeVito (Big Fish, Living Out Loud), and Kim Basinger (Cellular, The Real McCoy). Three girls in a Japanese rock band recruit a Korean singer (with a dodgy sense of the Japanese language) three days before they play their school festival in Linda, Linda, Linda.

A pair of documentaries are new this week: 51 Birch Street is an exploration of what had been assumed was a perfect marriage, in a perfect family, but as more facts are unearthed, relationships turn out to be much more complex, and American Cannibal, a behind the scenes "making-of" detailing a reality TV program from conception to pitching to execution, and all the compromises along the way.

New TV series this week include the second seasons of the medical/police procedural Bones and mystery thriller Supernatural, and the third seasons of the hospital drama Grey's Anatomy and Canadian reality-style comedy Trailer Park Boys. Two series are drawing to a close, as we have the final seasons of both the magical Charmed and Helen Mirren in the outstanding BBC police procedural Prime Suspect.