Eric Lavallée

I bet you this is the only "thesis" film in the Top 100 list. Among Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film people of 2010, the first of several first-time filmmakers on our list, Julius Onah' debut is backed by executive producer Spike Lee and comes carrying an eclectic combination of young players in Columbus Short, Wilmer Valderrama and Alicja Bachleda.

I wouldn't be surprised if Kahn's last two films draw blanks for U.S cinephiles -- as both L'avion (2005) and Les regrets (2009) failed to be picked up for distribution. The French are specialists in relationship dramas of the draining realistic kind, and in many ways Kahn has a knack for memorable opposite sex matched screen pairings such as Roberto Succo and 2004 film Red Lights - one of my favorite films of the 00's. I'm liking the idea of what the pairing of Guillaume Canet and Leila Bekhti could potentially bring to the big screen.

The 2008 Black List favorite from which this is based on is actually a pretty solid read and it's got some wacky characters all the way down to trio of kids that are being babysat. Sam Rockwell who worked with DGG on Snow Angels gets teamed here with Jonah Hill whose stock went up in my books with Cyrus..and we'll probably think even highly of the actor with the release of Moneyball in September. With an Adventures in Babysitting on crack formula, this should pay better dividends than his stoner comedy of 2008.

Imogen Poots has joined Ethan Hawke and Synecdoche, New York duo Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener in Yaron Zilberman's feature debut, A Late Quartet. We believe Poot replaces the once attached Olivia Thirlby as the youngest member of the quartet.

At the beginning of every month, IONCINEMA.com's "Tracking Shot" features a handful of projects that are moments away from lensing and in the same token, we feel are worth signaling out. We ring in the new year with nine titles going into production this month that are worth pointing out. Among the projects that were originally slated for January but are slightly pushed back we have Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton's Will starring Paul Rudd Zach Galifianakis, the new Stephen Daldry film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Polanski's Carnage. This January can officially be called the "Abi Morgan" month as the scribe has not one but two projects that'll be lensed.