Old-school hog farming makes a comeback, thanks to some fine swine from Frankenstein.
Here's how you become one of those people who screams at his kid's coach.
Transgender hookers with rap sheets are successfully fighting deportation--by asking for asylum.
GRACIE
Cast: Carly Schroeder, Elisabeth Shue, Dermot Mulroney
Director: Davis Guggenheim
In a sports drama inspired by events in her own family, coproducer Shue stars as the mother of a teenage girl (Schroeder) who decides, in the summer of 1978, to take her older brother's place on a boys soccer team after he's killed in a car accident. Directed by Davis "Inconvenient Truth" Guggenheim. (Picturehouse) Opens nationwide.
KNOCKED UP
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Seth Rogen
Director: Judd Apatow
The Hollywood hype-meisters are predicting that this comedy about a slob (Rogen) and a gorgeous TV reporter (Heigl) who get drunk, have sex and inadvertently make a baby, is going to make Grey's Anatomy star Heigl the next Julia Roberts. No pressure there. Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) writes and directs. (Universal) Opens nationwide.
MR. BROOKS
Cast: Kevin Costner, Demi Moore, Dane Cook, William Hurt
Director: Bruce A. Evans
Costner plays a rich Portland businessman who moonlights as a serial killer, a sideline at which he excels -- until a smart cop (Moore) and a blackmailing photographer (Cook) start messing with his master plan. (MGM) Opens nationwide.
PIERREPOINT THE LAST HANGMAN
Cast: Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson, Eddie Marsan
Director: Adrian Shergold
A drama based on the life of Albert Pierrepoint (Spall), an English grocery clerk whose secret life as an executioner for the state he's credited with putting 450 people to death, including Nazi war criminals is exposed, making him a social pariah. (IFC) Opens New York and Los Angeles June 1, with additional cities to follow.
SHOWBUSINESS: THE ROAD TO BROADWAY
Director: Dori Berinstein
This documentary promises unfettered backstage access as four musicalsWicked, Taboo, Avenue Q and Tony Kushner's Caroline, Or Changeinch their way to opening night on Broadway. (Regent) Now playing New York, opens Los Angeles June 1; additional cities to follow.
TEN CANOES
Cast: Crusoe Kurddal, Jamie Gulpilil
Director: Rolf de Heer
Set in the Australian outback some one thousand years ago and drawn from Aboriginal stories passed down as oral history, this film dramatizes the tale of two brothers feuding over the love of one woman. (Palm) Opens New York June 1, with additional cities to follow.
JUNE 6
12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST
Cast: Mircea Andreescu, Teodor
Corban, Ion Sapdaru
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
In this Romanian comedy, a small-town TV host wants to debate whether anyone in town actually participated in the overthrow of Communist leader Ceausescu 16 years earlier. The problem is that the only available guests are a history teacher with a hangover and a lonely old man. Winner of the Camera d'Or (best debut film) at Cannes 2006. (Tartan) Opens in New York June 6, with additional cities to follow.
JUNE 8
BELLE TOUJOURS
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier,
Ricardo Trêpa
Director: Manoel de Oliveira
For this delightfully unexpected project, 99-year-old Portuguese director de Oliveira, a master himself, wonders what might have become, in their later years, of Severine and Henri, the two main characters from Luis Buñuel's 1967 masterpiece, Belle de Jour. Piccoli reprises the role of Henri while Ogier takes over as Severine, a part originally played, so indelibly, by Catherine Deneuve. (New Yorker Films) Opens New York June 8, with additional cities to follow.
BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!
Director: Guy Maddin
This new 90-minute silent film from Canadian filmmaker Maddin is a black-and-white comedy/melodrama/tragedy about a man who's flashing back to a childhood spent in the orphanage his crazy parents ran inside a lighthouse, on a remote island. There's a mad scientist, twin teen detectives and a mother who takes turpentine baths to "wash away the sin!" (Tartan) Now playing New York, opens Los Angeles June 8, Denver July 15, with additional cities to follow.
HOSTEL PART II
Cast: Lauren German, Bijou Phillips,
Heather Matarazzo, Roger Bart
Director: Eli Roth
In a decidedly unkempt Slovakian dungeon, three vacationing Americans are flayed, decapitated and generally mistreated by insane rich men with knives. Summer movie fun for the whole family. (Lionsgate) Opens nationwide.
LA VIE EN ROSE
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud,
Jean-Paul Rouve, Clotilde Courau
Director: Olivier Dahan
Raised in a brothel, blind for a time as a child, and suspected of murder, French chanteuse Edith Piaf is long overdue for a biopic. The year's first bit of Oscar buzz is building for Cotillard's fierce performance. (Picturehouse) Opens New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco June 8, with additional cities to follow.
OCEAN'S THIRTEEN
Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt
Damon, Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin
Director: Steven Soderbergh
A band of very pretty people rob a casino. (Warner Bros.) Opens nationwide.
SURF'S UP
Voice Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Jon Heder,
James Woods, Jeff Bridges
Directors: Ash Brannon, Chris Buck
Yet another penguin movie: A teenaged penguin travels from Antarctica to Hawaii for a surfboarding competition. Animated. (Sony) Opens nationwide.
TRIAD ELECTION
Cast: Louis Koo
Director: Johnnie To
Young Hong Kong gangster Jimmy (Koo) is trying to go straight, but pending corruption charges force him to battle his way to the top of the crime family. (Tartan) Limited.
YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME
Director: Keven McAlester
A documentary on the life of Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson, whose 1960s band the 13th Floor Elevators are considered the inventors of "psychedelic rock." After a drug bust, Erickson went into a Texas mental hospital and came out delusional and paranoid. The film tracks an attempt by his younger brother to save him. (Palm) Opens limited, with additional dates to follow.