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Foreplays is a column that explores under-known short films by renowned directors. Lynn Ramsay's Gasman (1998) is free to watch below.Lynne Ramsay’s Gasman is a film about family, and a film made with family—the director’s own brother and niece play, respectively, the central father and daughter in the story. Two siblings, Lynne (Lynne Ramsay Jr.) and Steve (Martin Anderson), go to a Christmas party with their father (James Ramsay), while the mother (Denise Flannagan) remains at home. They briefly meet with a woman (Jackie Quinn) and her two kids (Lisa Taylor, Robert McEwan). The woman leaves, but her children join the party. Gasman is the story both of a perfectly banal evening, and of an exceptional event that serves to fracture the family unit, messing up all its usual roles, and dissolving the very idea of what is familiar. Ramsay achieves this by never losing sight either of the everyday,...

Showtime has assembled a panel of experts for a companion program to its upcoming movie The Reagans. A roundtable discussion concerning the film's fairness and accuracy will feature Marvin Kalb, senior fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center for the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University; Martin Anderson, a former economic advisor to Ronald Reagan; Carl Sferrazza Anthony, one of the film's producers; Lou Cannon, who authored five books about Reagan's life; and Linda Chavez, a political analyst at Fox News. Controversy: The Reagans will air the day after the Nov. 30 debut of the film, which was originally scheduled to air on CBS but was licensed to Showtime after it kicked up controversy.