Movies Released December 5, 2003

Set in the late 1870s, this epic film depicts the beginnings of the modernization of Japan, as the island nation evolved past a feudal society, as symbolized by the eradication of the samurai way of life. We see all this happen from the point of view of an alcoholic Civil War veteran turned Winchester guns spokesman, Captain Woodrow Algren (Tom Cruise), who arrives in Japan to train the troops of the emperor, Meiji, as part of a break away from the long-held tradition of relying on employed samurai warriors to protect territories, as the emperor's new army prepares to wipe out the remaining samurai warriors. When Algren is injured in combat and captured by the samurai, he learns about their warrior honor code from their leader, Katsumoto, which forces him to decide which side of the conflict he actually wants to be on.

A chronicle of the true story of Kurt Gerron, a well known and beloved German-Jewish actor, director and cabaret star in Berlin in the 1920's and '30's. Among his greatest accomplishments, he co-starred with the legendary Marlene Dietrich in the film classic, "The Blue Angel." He also sang "Mack The Knife" in the original production of "Threepenny Opera." Ultimately, Gerron was captured and sent to a concentration camp, where he was ordered to both write and direct a pro-Nazi propaganda film.

This documentary investigates the stories of the dozens of thousands of Jews who emigrated to Israel in 1948 from Iraq, making up 25% of the new nation's Hebrew population. Leaving an Iraq in the 1940s in which Jews lived in peace with Christian and Muslim neighbors, these emigres found themselves pitched into a new political environment in which they were not exactly welcomed, with Ben Gurion once saying of the Iraqi Jews, "We kicked out good Arabs and brought in bad Jews". Director Samir interviewed a quartet of elderly survivors from that time (who also happened to be Communists, which was another reason they were not welcomed), along with NYU film historian Ella Shohat, to make a film that combines their testimony with light-hearted fragments of the last 100 years of Jewish culture as documented in the movies, to demonstrate the sometimes thin, sometimes thick lines between Arabs, Jews, and those who have claim to both heritages (ie, the "Mizrahim", or Eastern Jews).

This is the story of Honey (Jessica Alba), a tough sexy dancer from the inner city, who becomes a successful music video choreographer, a career which is threatened when her mentor makes him either sleep with him... or get blacklisted within the industry. She ultimately decides to pursue her lifelong dream of opening her own dance studio for inner-city youths.