Director : Allison Anders
With : Illeana Douglas, John Turturro, Eric Stoltz, Matt Dillon

Far and away the most mature film by director Allison Anders (Gas Food & Lodging, Mi Vida Loca), ‘Grace Of My Heart’ tells the story 60′s singer-songwriter Denise Waverly played beautifully by Illeana Douglas. Waverly, born a socialite from Philadelphia, moved to New York to become a singer, is first discovered and is subsequently hired as a house songwriter for a New York artist manager played hilariously by John Turturro. Throughout her tumultuous career Waverly marries twice, to writers played by Eric Stoltz and Matt Dillon, but never fully realizes what we are to believe is remarkale potential. The most memorable scenes in the movie feature Douglas expertly lip-syncing some truly moving pop ballads. Anders does a great job of covering the highlights of the forgotten life of an early pop star. In a way watching the story of someone you know nothing about is more fascinating than seeing that of a celebrity you already know more than enough about. ‘Grace of My Heart’ is a fantastic movie with a lovable cast.

For any guy who has ever made a mix tape for a girl or mulled through used record bins with his friends calling out favorites as you go, “High Fidelity” is a must read. The protagonist, Rob Fleming, is a 35 year-old failing record store owner, who has just lost his girlfriend, and now is faced with the bleak prospect of an professionally unsuccessful and eternally lonely life on his own.

More a series of wonderful lists “Top Five Biggest Heartbreaks,” “Five best Clash Songs,” etc. the protagonist lives in a world of post-adolescent lethargic paralysis that seems both cool and pathetic. As Rob struggles to figure out what went wrong in his once promising life, the reader gets a chance to eavesdrop on someone else who thinking out loud all those same painful thoughts that have occurred to us hundreds of times before.

It is rare that a writer is able to create a character that is so familiar, but Nick Hornby manages to create a world that we can understand, filled with people that we know intimately.

As Rob walks through this novel trying to figure out how to woo his successful last girlfriend, Laura, back into his life we get a chance to see Generation X as not just a bunch of brain-dead morons, but more a bunch of confused people just looking for a way to be happy.

Director : Nick Cassavetes
With : Gena Rowlands, Marisa Tomei

Kind of like an American version of “Kolya,” young Cassavetes has made a film that is sad but not sentimental, and profoundly believable and surprising.