The year 2008 was a rough one in American finance-recession, job losses, pessimism, a loss in the stock market to such an extent that most investors who did not sell when the selling was good lost half their Wall Street wealth. Those with little faith in the future sold out when the market was at the bottom, while the optimists correctly guessed that in the good old American way, the market would rebound. And it did with a vengeance. In the same way, there's nothing more heartening than a tale of a person suffering loss, whether of a romantic partner or otherwise, then recovering what was swept away. Such a person would have a keener appreciation of what he now has.

By Susan Granger - Astute minds are guiding Robert Pattinson's career. Segueing from his vampire role in the "Twilight" franchise, he's transitioned into tortured, misunderstood young man mode.

In the summer of 2001, moody, rebellious Tyler Hawkins (Pattinson) is still haunted by the fact that his idolized older brother committed suicide on his 22nd birthday, a tragedy that split his wealthy Park Avenue family. While Tyler has reached an understanding with his now re-married mother, Diane Hirsch (Lena Olin), and adores his 11 year-old sister Caroline (Ruby Jerins), he's still at odds with his frosty, Wall Street lawyer father, Charles Hawkins (Pierce Brosnan). In fact, 21 year-old Tyler's only friend seems to be his loud, obnoxious, thoroughly irritating roommate, Aiden (Tate Ellington).

By Susan Granger - If you haven't had enough of the Iraqi War with the Oscar-winning "The Hurt Zone" and are intrigued by re-teaming of director Paul Greengrass with Matt Damon, star of his "Bourne Supremacy" and "Bourne Ultimatum," this political thriller interweaves fact with fiction delving into the chaotic early "shock and awe" days in Baghdad in 2003.

Girls just want to have fun, sings Cyndi Lauper, and there's no logical reason to believe that "girls" ever outgrow this perfectly human desire. This point is driven home in just a brief seventy-five minutes by Gianni Di Gregorio, who wrote and directed "Mid-August Lunch" (Pranzo di Ferragosto, or "Ferragosto Holiday Lunch" in the Italian title). Using non-professional actors, the first-time director, who takes the major role and inhabits virtually every frame, delivers a witty, charming tale that may be too small-potatoes to afford it a top critical grade but is a diverting piece of pre-prandial entertainment.

If ever a product placement for an industry permeates a movie without the industry's even being mentioned, trust "After.Life" to be a commercial for the cremation business. We witness the gruesome method of one possibly psychotic mortician-how he drains the blood, sews the mouth closed, puts huge needles into the necks of the dead as part of the embalming process, then adds rouge and lipstick to make corpses look as though they were live. All of this is carried on quietly by a calm, seasoned undertaker who has papered the wall of his laboratory with the people he has worked on.

They say that when you marry, there are five people in bed with you. Aside from your wife (hopefully) you must make room for your parents and hers. This is realistic. Unless you are an out-and-out individualistic couple who can dismiss the interjections of the people who brought you into the world, you'd do well to have a smooth relationship with the older folks. When you and she come from different ethnic groups within the U.S., your love may last a lifetime, but if the parents and in-laws are more traditional, they may be shocked if you do not "stick to your own kind," as the Greek chorus in "West Side Story" sings.

If I were asked to choose any country in the world for a trip where all expenses would be paid and would include a guide from a nation that would allow me access everywhere, I'd pick North Korea. This would sound like rank insanity by most of the people living there. After all since North Korea split from the South after both the Soviet Union and the U.S. liberated the entire country from the Japanese in 1945, the North to fall under Soviet communist influence and the South under the U.S., 300,000 people have risked their lives to leave. The reason for my odd ambition? The forbidden fruit. Anybody and his second cousin can travel from the U.S. to London, Paris and Rome, but I'd guess that fewer than 1,000 Americans have ever gone over to the Pyongyang regime to explore the world's most isolated country. This is a region that has no idea what's going in the world except to hear that Americans are evil and that their own state is a workers' paradise. They get no outside TV, no Internet access, at least from what one gathers from N.C. Keiken's documentary, and though Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il is said to have a vast treasury of Hollywood films in his residence, presumably only an elite corps of North Koreans have seen anything made outside their own propaganda mills.

By Susan Granger - Few American moviegoers had ever heard of this Irish-French-Belgian co-production until it was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Animated Feature, squeezing out "Ponyo," "Monsters vs. Aliens," "Cloud With a Chance of Meatballs" and "A Christmas Carol." Once you see it, you'll realize why.