Eric Lavallée

Fearful that Andrew Dominik's filmography would be a snail paced one, a big thanks goes to Brad Pitt who essentially put the Aussie filmmaker right back on the map after a less than 4 million dollar domestic gross for his poetic 2007 sophomore pic, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. We've been fans of the helmer since his debut film, Chopper and hope that this criminal underworld, James Gray-like nocturnal set street pic is steel cold and gritty. Animal Kingdom's Ben Mendelsohn casting choice is spot on. One of the many Weinstein Co. anticipated 2012 releases.

We discovered the absurdest humor of Roy Andersson late in his career with Songs from the Second Floor -- which oddly counted as only his second feature film in a four decade run which was interfered by his career of avant-garde commercial work. We loved parts of 2007's You, the Living and apparently this shot on the RED camera is the final part of a trilogy that Andersson mentions will be "enormous, deep and fantastic, humorous and tragic, philosophical, Dostoyevsky film."

The TIFF preemed The Patron Saints was my introduction to the extremely gifted husband and wife directing team of Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky. Some called their vigorous docu-essay depressing, I couldn't have been more animated by this unclassifiable document and I can just imagine how much of an atypical role was designed & developed for their film lead, Melissa Leo. Expectations levels are high enough to think we'll find something more fierce than her performance in Frozen River.

Haven't been this excited for a farm-related drama since the Blu-Ray release of Days of Heaven. It'll be interesting to see how Bahrani and his wingman DP Michael Simmonds tackle a project which is bigger in production value than his previous three indie gems. With Man Push Cart and Goodbye Solo, Bahrani focused on the immigrant experience, and now with purebreds Dennis Quaid and Efron this looks like apple pie Americana. We're hoping something close in terms of family dynamics to Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter - worth noting is the participation of Goodbye Solo's Red West.

Thanks to one Republican party member for giving this project tremendous buzz when it was in the development stage - rumors that an the Academy award winning director had classified Bin Laden information in her possession is beyond ridiculous, but aligning herself with scribe Mark Boal assures an authenticity, fleshed out combat zone situations and characters (soldiers quirks have always been a point of fascination for me. We saw how great journalism and popcorn could be a winning formula on the smaller scaled The Hurt Locker, but working from a backdrop and a form she is accustomed to, this might be slightly less badass than her Oscar wining pic but a great pulled from the headlines account.