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The season finale of Tyrant clocked in at 50 minutes and one second, and the writers didn’t waste even that last second. After Jamal (Ashraf Barhom) played his part to a tee on last week’s episode, maybe a little too well, Barry (Adam Rayner) was confident that he would succeed in his undertaking. The plan was moving along as expected, his family was packed and on the verge of getting out of harm’s way, and at least Barry would have a final memorable day with his brother before everything hit the fan. Slowly the entire plan unraveled and by the time the screen faded to black tonight, we hadn’t quite reached the extent of worse case scenario, but the characters were all pretty close to it.

Let’s talk about hindsight. In hindsight, Hakim (Yussuf Abu-Warda) wasn’t exactly an inspired choice for a co-conspirator. Viewers experienced...

★★★☆☆ No stranger to the Venice Lido, Amos Gitai's new film Ana Arabia (2013) - in competition this year - is a quiet exploration of love and tolerance in Israel. On the border between Jaffa and Bat Jam exists a small dusty enclave of Arabs and Jews. A young reporter, Yael (Yuval Scharf), arrives to question the inhabitants about a recently deceased resident, a Jewish woman who survived Auschwitz as a child and subsequently fled to Israel where she married an Arab and converted to Islam. Yael interviews her husband, Yussuf (Yussuf Abu-Warda), his daughter Miriam (Sarah Adler) and daughter-in-law Sarah (Assi Levy).

Everyone seem happy to tell Yael their stories and muse on the meaning of them, as well as occasionally having neighbours butt in to joke and/or flirt with the pretty journalist (or just to exchange gossip). The one outstanding feature of Gitai's Ana Arabia is that it...

2010 is in full swing and some really great movies are hitting store shelves this week for the first time and for the first time on Blu-ray. This week’s releases include Moon, Halloween II, Cliffhanger, Kathy Griffin: She’ll Cut a Bitch, I Can Do Bad All By Myself and the Blu-ray release of The Hurt Locker (pictured above).

Check out this week’s releases:

Movies

Amreeka ~ Yussuf Abu-Warda, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat (DVD)

Big Fan ~ Patton Oswalt, Michael Rapaport, Matt Servitto (DVD and Blu-ray)

Cliffhanger ~ Sylvester Stallone (Blu-ray)

Departures ~ Masahiro Motoki, Ryoko Hirosue (DVD)

8 1/2 (The Criterion Collection) ~ Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Claudia Cardinale (Blu-ray)

Halloween II (Unrated Director’s Cut) ~ Scout Taylor-Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie (DVD and Blu-ray)

I Can Do Bad All By Myself ~ Tyler Perry, Taraji P. Henson (DVD and Blu-ray)

In the Loop ~ James Gandolfini (DVD and Blu-ray)

The Hurt Locker ~ Ralph Fiennes,...

From writer-director Cherien Dabis, Amreeka takes on a loaded subject, strips it of its political ramifications and draws out the common humanity underwriting even the most divisive of hot button issues. About a Palestinian family struggling to adjust to immigrant life in America, the film turns on the everyday challenges, poignant small triumphs and burdens of the daily grind they face and strive to overcome. There’s no aggrandizing or preaching, just an understanding of the difficulties that arise in any sort of clash of cultures and the hopeful suggestion that, were we just more willing to talk to each other, some of them might be solved. The picture, set in 2003 at the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, stars the wonderful actress Nisreen Faour as Muna Farah, mother to Fadi (Melkar Muallem), who seizes on the opportunity to move with her son from their restrictive West Bank home to small town Illinois, where...

U.S. Dramatic Competition

This year's 16 films were selected from 1,026 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.

Adam (Director-screenwriter: Max Mayer)

A strange and lyrical love story between a somewhat socially dysfunctional young man and the woman of his dreams. Cast: Hugh Dancy, Rose Byrne, Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving, Frankie Faison.

Amreeka (Director-screenwriter: Cherien Dabis)

When a divorced Palestinian woman and her teenage son move to rural Illinois at the outset of the Iraq war, they find their new lives replete with challenges. Cast: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Alia Shawkat.

Big Fan (Director-screenwriter: Robert Siegel)

The world of a parking garage attendant who happens to be the New York Giants' biggest fan is turned upside down after an altercation with his favorite player. Cast: Patton Oswalt, Michael Rapaport, Kevin Corrigan, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Matt Servitto.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (Director-screenwriter: John Krasinski)

When her boyfriend leaves with little explanation,...

• If you are wondering what are the kinds of films that come out of this particular section - look no further then in current headline grabber examples such as with Ballast and Frozen River. So there is always reason to be excited about the announcement of this section. As expected the debuts from Sophie Barthes, John Hindman and Cruz Angeles will be the make up of 16 film selection (read my predictions here). I'm already familiar with at least half of the projects as with John Krasinski’s debut and Adam Salky’s feature length film project but of course, the rest were completely off my radar. Among the projects we covered here are Lee Daniels’ latest Push (not the Summit film) which includes Lenny Kravitz’ screen debut (which means we can expect him to pick up a guitar for one of them parties). THR announced that Nicholas Jasenovec and

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