6.4

The Invention of Lying

2008, USA

• Actors: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Louis C.K., Jeffrey Tambor, Fionnula Flanagan, Rob Lowe, Tina Fey, Donna Sorbello, Stephanie March, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, John Hodgman, Nathan Corddry, Jimmi Simpson, Martin Starr, Jason Bateman, Christopher Guest, Alton Fitzgerald White, Roz Ryan, Michael Patrick Gough, Arnie Burton, Ashlie Atkinson, Bobby Moynihan, Shaun Williamson, Stephen Merchant, Cole Jensen, Conner Rayburn, Lisa Gerber, Matt Stadelmann, Jared Voss
• Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
• Director(s): Ricky Gervais
• Available languages:
  • English English.

It's a world where everyone tells the truth - and just about anything they're thinking. Mark Bellison is a screenwriter, about to be fired. He's short and chunky with a flat nose - a genetic pool that means he won't get to first base with Anna, the woman he loves. At a bank, on the spur of the moment he blurts out a fib, with eye-popping results. Then, when his mother's on her deathbed, frightened of the eternal void awaiting her, Mark invents fiction. The hospital staff overhear his description of Heaven, believe every word, and tell others. Soon Mark is a prophet, his first inventive screenplay makes him rich, and he's basically a good guy. But will that be enough for Anna?

  8.3

Gran Torino

2007, USA, Germany

• Actors: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Brian Haley, Geraldine Hughes, Dreama Walker, Brian Howe, John Carroll Lynch, William Hill, Brooke Chia Thao, Chee Thao, Choua Kue, Scott Eastwood, Xia Soua Chang, Sonny Vue, Doua Moua, Greg Trzaskoma, John Johns, Davis Gloff, Thomas D. Mahard, Cory Hardrict, Nana Gbewonyo, Arthur Cartwright, Austin Douglas Smith, Conor Liam Callaghan, Michael E. Kurowski, Julia Ho, Maykao K. Lytongpao, Carlos Guadarrama
• Genre: Drama
• Director(s): Clint Eastwood
• Available languages:
  • English English.

Walt Kowalski is a widower who holds onto his prejudices despite the changes in his Michigan neighborhood and the world around him. Kowalski is a grumpy, tough-minded, unhappy an old man, who can't get along with either his kids or his neighbors, a Korean War veteran whose prize possession is a 1972 Gran Torino he keeps in mint condition. When his neighbor Thao, a young Hmong teenager under pressure from his gang member cousin, tries to steal his Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. Drawn against his will into the life of Thao's family, Kowalski is soon taking steps to protect them from the gangs that infest their neighborhood.

  5.3

Sex and the City

2007, USA

• Actors: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, Candice Bergen, Jennifer Hudson, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, Jason Lewis, Mario Cantone, Lynn Cohen, Willie Garson, Joanna Gleason, Joseph Pupo, Alexandra Fong, Parker Fong, Kerry Bishé, Polina Frantsena, Kate Rockwell, Amy Flanagan, Celina Carvajal, Amanda Setton, Ching Valdes-Aran, Malcolm Gets, Lorna Kelly, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Patrick DeMarchelier, André Leon Talley, Plum Sykes
• Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
• Director(s): Michael Patrick King
• Available languages:
  • English English.

After moving in together in an impossibly beautiful New York apartment, Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big make a rather arbitrary decision to get married. The wedding itself proves to be anything but a hasty affair--the guest list quickly blooms from 75 to 200 guests, and Carrie's simple, label-less wedding gown gives way to an enormous creation that makes her look like a gigantic cream puff. An upcoming photo spread in Vogue puts the event--which will take place at the New York Public Library--squarely in the public eye. Meanwhile, Carrie's girlfriends--Samantha, the sexpot; Charlotte, the sweet naïf; and Miranda, the rigid perfectionist--could not be happier. At least, they couldn't be happier for Carrie. Charlotte still has the unrealized hope of getting pregnant. Samantha is finding a loving, committed relationship more grueling than she could have imagined. Miranda unwittingly lets her own unhappiness--created when Steve admits to cheating on her just once--spoil Carrie's. After a heated encounter with Steve, she happens to spot Mr. Big and tells him he's crazy to get married. She's really only thinking of her own marriage. But her angry remark gets Mr. Big to thinking.

  7.1

Gossip Girl

2007,

• Actors: Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford, Taylor Momsen, Ed Westwick, Kelly Rutherford, Matthew Settle, Kristen Bell, Jessica Szohr, Zuzanna Szadkowski, Connor Paolo, Nicole Fiscella, Margaret Colin, Amanda Setton, Robert John Burke, Sara DeRosa, Yin Chang, Dreama Walker, Michelle Trachtenberg, James Schram, Sebastian Stan, Nan Zhang, Anna Kuchma, Sam Robards, Aaron Schwartz, Kate Gorney, Dennis Larkin, Caroline Lagerfelt, Wallace Shawn
• Director(s): Norman Buckley
• Available languages:

Welcome to New York's Upper East side where the wealthy and connected mingle at benefits and try to deal with their always dramatic love lives, not to mention picking colleges. Blair Waldorf is the so-called toast of adolescence in her world; she and her friends, Kati Farkas and Isabel Coates, go to a prep school and fancy parties with their rich parents. Blair is envied by her adversaries because she is thought to have the perfect life, not just because of her gorgeous boyfriend, Nate Archibald, but because she's also planning on getting into her dream college, Yale. With everyone worried about college(or procrastinating on worrying, which everyone seems to be doing), and senior year dragging along, her seemingly perfect life is interrupted by her ex-best friend, the beautiful Serena van der Woodsen, coming back into town after getting kicked out of boarding school. Serena comes back into her life, and into the eyes of Blair's boy friend. When everything Blair knows starts to fall apart, everyone will realize that her life is far from perfect. Will life in the the Upper East Side redeem itself of what it's really supposed to be? Or will the false facade reveal that the rich have the same problems as the not so rich (Jenny and Dan Humphrey), if not more. And just maybe Jenny and Dan are all the more happy with their simple, not so expectant lives.