THE RUNAWAYS - Based on NEON ANGEL, the memoirs of Runaways lead singer Cherie Currie. Dakota Fanning plays Currie and Kristen Stewart plays guitarist and songwriter Joan Jett, in this ode to 1970s teenage ambition, tight leather bell-bottoms, and all-girl rock n' roll mayhem. "This ain't women's lib, kiddies - this is women's libido!" (Kim Fowler, as played by Michael Shannon).

THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA - One of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Documentary, this is the story of Daniel Ellsberg, the high-level Pentagon official who concluded in 1971 that the war was based on decades of lies. So, he leaked 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times (popularly known as "The Pentagon Papers.")

THE LOSERS - The latest comic book adapted into an action-comedy film concerns an elite Special Forces unit who are sent into the Bolivian jungles, only to be double-crossed and left for dead. With the help of mysterious Zoe Saldana (AVATAR), in non-cgi form, they set out to defeat their antagonist, a dastardly villain by the name of Max.

COP OUT - Kevin Smith (CLERKS) tackles the buddy-cop-comedy genre, with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as the bickering Brooklyn duo chasing after a stolen baseball card and finding themselves in wacky situations with a deadly drug ring.

THE JAPANESE WIFE - In this touching drama, Snehomoy, a West Bengali teacher, marries his Japanese pen pal by exchanging rings and vows through the mail. For 15 years they send each other gifts and letters (often hilariously mistranslated), until a Bengali widow comes to live with Snehomoy and his aunt, and he forms a bond with the woman and her son...

PRODIGAL SONS - Kimberly Reed's acclaimed documentary at first set out to capture the reactions of her former high school classmates to her sex-change operation, but it ended up being more about her adopted brother Marc. As confused about his own identity growing up, Marc, who suffered a brain injury in his 20s, finds out that he is the grandson of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, among other things...

ENTRE NOS - When Mariana and her two children leave Colombia to meet up with her husband, who immigrated to New York City years earlier, they are not together long before he announces he's moving to Miami, and will send for them when he's settled. He never does send for them, and Mariana turns to collecting cans to survive, fiercely determined to work her way up the ladder to the "American dream."

NOLLYWOOD BABYLON - Fascinating documentary about the world's OTHER fastest growing film culture, Nigerian cinema: "where Jesus and voodoo vie for screen time." Examining the homegrown film movement from its bootleg VHS roots to its present state, the film is fast-paced, with outrageous, magical clips, and interviews with influential filmmakers like Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen, aka "Da Governor." -

DESPERATE ROMANTICS - Sumptuous, spicy BBC series about 19th-century England's famed Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of artists who could be called the punk rockers of the era. John Millais, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, and William Holman Hunt are the main focus of the series, brothel-hopping and dueling their way through the London art world, with critic John Ruskin and even disapproving Charles Dickens making an appearance. Art history buffs and BBC fans take note!

A TOWN CALLED PANIC - This critically acclaimed, absurdist stop-motion comedy from Belgium features a town populated by plastic toys including the responsible, serious Horse, and his somewhat less intelligent housemates, Cowboy and Indian. When Cowboy and Indian accidentally order 50 million bricks for Horse's birthday gift, it sets off a chain of bizarre events involving giant robot penguins, snowballs thrown between universes, and fish people who steal walls. We know this sounds like a Nickelodeon show, but really it's more like if Michel Gondry had created one, which is pretty cool.

PAULA-PAULA - The latest cult film from uber-prolific Spanish director Jess Franco (VAMPYROS LESBOS). Franco has been churning out stylish, bizarre euro-thrillers since 1959 (see our Jess Franco shelf in the Cult section). In his latest he goes no-budget, with the story of a female cop investigating a murder linked to two dancers named Paula, shot entirely in one apartment. An experimental work released in very limited print, it's subtitled "A JESS FRANCO AUDIO-VISUAL EXPERIENCE."

And here's just a few highlights from our "JUST ADDED" section

of rare and new-to-dvd delights:

BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE - This debut dark comedy from Korea's Spielberg, Bong Joon-Ho (THE HOST), is about a hapless college lecturer who is driven to distraction by a yapping dog somewhere in his apartment complex. First he captures and locks the wrong dog in the basement, then an aspiring news-story-heroine witnesses his attempt to get rid of another dog...

GALAXY OF TERROR - Roger Corman's 1981 sci-fi classic finally makes its DVD debut! Starring Robert Englund and Ray Walston, and featuring a young James Cameron as production designer, the story concerns a rescue mission on a planet where trespassers are made to face their darkest personal fears.

FORBIDDEN WORLD - Another new-to-dvd Roger Corman sci-fi flick, this one from 1982. During a food shortage, scientists create an experimental lifeform known as Subject 20, to sustain the populace. But the organism becomes a man-eater with a constantly changing genetic structure. When a bounty hunter is called in to track it down, he realizes the scientists are hiding something from him...

THE PROFESSIONAL - In this 1981 French spy thriller, suave French New Wave veteran Jean-Paul Belmondo is a secret agent assigned to kill an African dictator. When this plan is suddenly revoked, his superiors turn him in to the African authorities, but he escapes and vows to carry out his original assignment, as revenge against his former employers.

WARNER BROS. FILM NOIR CLASSICS VOL. 5

Warner's latest film noir box set of movies never-before-seen on DVD contains DESPERATE (1947) by Anthony Mann, CORNERED (1945) by Edward Dmytryk, THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955) by Phil Karlson, DIAL 1119 (1950) by Gerald Mayer, ARMED CAR ROBBERY (1950) by Richard Fleischer, CRIME IN THE STREETS (1956) by Don Siegel, DEADLINE AT DAWN (1946) by Harold Clurman, and BACKFIRE (1950) by Vincent Sherman. Stars include Dick Powell, Virginia Mayo, Raymond Burr, John Cassavetes, William Conrad, Bill Williams, and Susan Hayward.

GREENBERG - The latest thoughtful indie dramedy from Noah Bambaugh (THE SQUID & THE WHALE) has Ben Stiller venturing far from Zoolander Land, as a neurotic 40-something New Yorker who's just been released from a mental hospital to stay at his brother's house in L.A. Both horrified by and fascinated with the 20-somethings he encounters there, he embarks on an awkward relationship with one of them, which may be his key to self-salvation. Greta Gerwig steps up from her "mumblecore" film roots to play Stiller's younger love interest, but she keeps it ultra-real.

BOUNTY HUNTER - Sorry everyone, this is not a feature-length version of "Dog the Bounty Hunter." In this light rom-com from the director of HITCH, Jennifer Aniston is a reporter who skips bail, and her ex-husband (Gerard Butler) is the bounty hunter who tracks her down to bring her to justice. Or does he?

CHLOÉ - Written by Erin Cressida Wilson (SECRETARY) and directed by Atom Egoyan (THE SWEET HEREAFTER), this psychological thriller stars Julianne Moore as a doctor who believes her husband (Liam Neeson) is cheating on her. So she tests his fidelity by hiring an escort (Amanda Seyfried) to try to seduce him. Of course, this does not go as planned...

GOD'S OFFICES - This independent French film shot in a cinema verité style follows a group of counselors at a family planning clinic, and the young girls and women who come to them with diverse concerns.

GIRL BY THE LAKE - Winner of 10 Italian Oscars, this mystery-drama concerns the murder of a beautiful young woman in an idyllic northern Italian village where everyone has a secret. The Italian TWIN PEAKS?

SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS - In this absurdist-indie-comedy update on DANTE'S INFERNO, Steve Buscemi plays a recovered gambling addict who gets drawn back into the game on a trip to Las Vegas, while investigating an insurance fraud claim. Sarah Silverman plays his clingy, happy-face-obsessed love interest. More laugh-out-loud funny than many recent Hollywood comedies I've seen.

THE GREATEST - Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan play a married couple coping with the death of their son in a car accident. When a not entirely trustworthy stranger (Carey Mulligan of AN EDUCATION) shows up on their doorstep pregnant with their son's child, it will either put a strain on their marriage or save it. Nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.

OUR FAMILY WEDDING - America Ferrera and Lance Gross play a smitten young couple bewildered by their less-than-accepting families in the latest ROMEO & JULIET inspired comedy. Forrest Whitaker is the Montague to standup comedian Carlos Mencia's Capulet. But with goats and viagara!

MICMACS - The directors of AMÉLIE and CITY OF LOST CHILDREN return to the surreal slapstick/thriller vibe that made their best effort DELICATESSEN so unique. This time a motley band of junkyard dealers are the David going up against a military-industrial Goliath. Available now, only at La Dolce Video!

THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED - This indie dramedy by young NYC filmmaker Josh Safdie, shot on color 16mm film, wears its French New Wave influences on its sleeve. Eleonore is a young New York hipster who also happens to be a kleptomaniac, gliding through life from one seemingly inexplicable theft to the next (from handfuls of grapes, to a car she doesn't know how to drive, to a basket of kittens, among other things).

And here are some new Film Noir highlights
from our big JUST ADDED section
(3 movies, 5 days, 5 dollars)!

WARNER BROS. FILM NOIR CLASSICS, VOL. 5

Warner's latest film noir box set of movies never-before-seen on DVD contains DESPERATE (1947) by Anthony Mann, CORNERED (1945) by Edward Dmytryk, THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955) by Phil Karlson, DIAL 1119 (1950) by Gerald Mayer, ARMED CAR ROBBERY (1950) by Richard Fleischer, CRIME IN THE STREETS (1956) by Don Siegel, DEADLINE AT DAWN (1946) by Harold Clurman, and BACKFIRE (1950) by Vincent Sherman. Stars include Dick Powell, Virginia Mayo, Raymond Burr, John Cassavetes, William Conrad, Bill Williams, and Susan Hayward.

COLUMBIA PICTURES' FILM NOIR COLLECTION, VOL. 2

Columbia brings 5 more film noir classics out of the vault for the first time on DVD, including works from Fritz Lang, Jacques Tourneur, and Irving Lerner, featuring stars Gloria Grahame, Glenn Ford, Fred MacMurray, Anne Bancroft, Richard Conte, and more!