2006 Dir: Sylvester Stallone Script: Sylvester Stallone Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Milo Ventimiglia, Tony Burton, Antonio Tarver, Geraldine Hughes, James Francis Kelly III, Lou DiBella With Adrian succumbing to cancer four years ago, Rocky Balboa (Stallone) owns a small Italian restaurant in Philadelphia. When an ESPN broadcast depicts a computer simulation between an in-his-prime…

2005 Dir: Gavin Hood Script: Gavin Hood Cast: Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto, Kenneth Nkosi, Mothusi Magano, Zola Murderous thug Tsotsi’s (Chweneyagae) life is thrown into introspection after he steals a car containing a three month-old baby. The Soweto slums surrounding Johannesburg, South Africa are the backdrop for this urban fairy tale, based on the novel…

2006 Dir: Ryan Fleck Script: Ryan Fleck, Anna Boyden Cast: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthony Mackie Dedicated, idealistic inner city junior high teacher Dan Dunne (Gosling) forms an unlikely bond with meek student Drey (Shareeka Epps) when she discovers his crack habit. At first glance Half Nelson’s formulaic plot denotes a drug-addled Dead Poets Society,…

1999 Dir: Woody Allen Script: Woody Allen Cast: Sean Penn, Samantha Morton, Anthony LaPaglia, Uma Thurman Woody Allen returns to the mocumentary format he perfected in Take the Money and Run, and stretched beyond use in Zelig, with Sweet and Lowdown, the ‘life story’ of Emmett Ray (Penn), an incompetent, tactless jazz guitarist now considered…