June 26 – July 2
Bottle Shock (2008)
Directed by Randall Miller; Written by Jody Savin
Starring Chris Pine, Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman, Rachael Taylor, Freddy Rodriguez
Rated-PG-13/ drama-comedy / 1 hour 50 min / color
Nominated 2008 Seattle International Film Festival Golden Space Needle Award

In 1976, Steven Spurrier, a sommelier in Paris , comes to the Napa Valley to take the best he can find to Paris for a blind taste test against French wine. He meets Jim Barrett, whose Chateau Montelena is mortgaged to the hilt as Jim perfects his chardonnay. There's strain in Jim's relations with his hippie son Bo and his foreman Gustavo, a Mexican farm worker's son secretly making his own wine. Plus, there's Sam, a UC Davis graduate student and free spirit, mutually attracted to both Gustavo and Bo. As Spurrier organizes the "Judgment of Paris," Jim doesn't want to participate while Bo knows it's their only chance. Barrett's chardonnay has buttery notes and a Smithsonian finish.

July 3 – 9
Goodbye Solo (2008)
Directed by Ramin Bahrani; Written by Bahareh Azimi & Ramin Bahrani
Starring Souleymane Sy Savane, Red West, Diana Franco Galindo, Lane ‘Roc' Williams, Mamadou Lam, Carmen Leyva
Not Rated / comedy-drama / 1 hr 31 min / color
Nominated 2009 Independent Spirit Producers Award; 2008 Venice Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize

On the lonely roads of Winston-Salem , North Carolina , two men forge an improbable friendship that will change both of their lives forever. Solo is a Senegalese cab driver working to provide a better life for his young family. William is a tough Southern good ol' boy with a lifetime of regrets. One man's American dream is just beginning, while the other's is quickly winding down. But despite their differences, both men soon realize they need each other more than either is willing to admit. Through this unlikely but unforgettable friendship, Goodbye Solo deftly explores the passing of a generation as well as the rapidly changing face of America .

July 17 - 23
Wendy and Lucy (2008)
Directed by Kelly Reichardt; Written by Jonathan Raymond and Kelly Reichardt
Starring Michelle Williams, Will Paton, Will Oldham, John Robinson, Wally Dalton, Larry Fessenden
Rated-R / drama / 1 hr 20 min / color

Nominated 2009 Chlotrudis Awards for Best Actress and Director; Winner 2008 Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Russell Smith Award; Nominated 2008 Gijon International Film Festival Grand Prix Asturias; Nominated 2009 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Feature and Best Female Lead; Winner 2009 Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress; Winner 2008 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards for Best Performance, Female and Best Picture

On the heels of her critically lauded Old Joy, Kelly Reichardt delivers another deeply resonant portrait of a dying America with Wendy and Lucy . In Old Joy, two men provided the heart and soul of the story. This time, the film is centered on a young woman, played with utter conviction and selflessness by Michelle Williams ( Brokeback Mountain ). Williams is Wendy, a down-on-her-luck woman who has driven across-country with her dog, Lucy, in search of a better life in Alaska . Wendy can barely support this journey, and when her car breaks down in Oregon and she becomes separated from Lucy, her predicament becomes even more dire. In a world that doesn't seem to know she even exists, Wendy befriends a local security guard (Wally Dalton), who gives her a tiny fraction of hope. Considering this film together with Old Joy, it's obvious that Reichardt has shot up in the ranks of American auteurs. She is becoming a master of minor features that feel like the best short stories, a sort of cinematic Raymond Carver. Credit is obviously bestowed upon the marvelous Williams, who is in almost every shot of the film, and who delivers an astonishingly honest performance. But everything about this film reeks of truth, most noticeably Sam Levy's restrained but beautiful cinematography, and Reichardt's patient editing. Wendy and Lucy is a tribute to marginalized characters that the movies, and the real world, would usually rather ignore.

August 21 – 27
The Great Buck Howard (2008)
Directed and Written by Sean McGinly
Starring Colin Hanks, Tom Hanks, John Malkovich, B.J. Hendricks, Tom Arnold, Jacquie Barnbrook, Ankur Bhatt, David Blaine, Emily Blunt, Regis Philbin
Rated-PG / comedy / 1 hr 30 min / color

Prior to The Great Buck Howard , writer-director Sean McGinly helmed Two Days , a film that deals with themes of show-business failure. McGinly treads similar territory here, but whereas Days mixed dark comedy and tense drama in the internal struggle of a man who merely thinks he's a failed entertainer, Buck is a gentle charmer about a bona-fide washed-up star. When sensible but jaded law student Troy Gabel (Colin Hanks) decides that school isn't for him, he takes off without telling his father (Tom Hanks, whose presence underscores how many mannerisms he and his real-life son have in common) and looks for the job that will get him a proverbial foot in the door of the entertainment industry. In the blink of an eye, Troy finds himself as road manager for the Great Buck Howard (John Malkovich), an aging mentalist in the tradition of the Amazing Kreskin. He may be a corny relic with an act full of piano interludes and lo-fi theatrics, but he's also pretty entertaining and genuinely impressive, especially his signature bit in which he locates his own hidden payment. He's prone to throwing prima-donna fits and blathering on about his 61 appearances on “The Tonight Show” while he regularly performs to half-full rooms; but every time he screams "I love this town!" to the audiences of Wausau, Wisconsin, and Bakersfield, California, it becomes increasingly apparent that he means it. Buck is the best showcase for Malkovich's hilarious eccentricities since Being John Malkovich . But seen through the eyes of McGinly's semi-autobiographical Troy and a perceptive publicist named Valerie (Emily Blunt), he's more than just a caricature: his brief, hipster-irony-propelled resurgence as a national celebrity and the movie's lighthearted satirization of Hollywood suggest he's the kitschy, infantile heart of every entertainer.