Coffee shops are quite misleading. What appears to be a small and innocent space setup to enjoy your favorite beverage is often overshadowed by your friendly neighborhood “loud talker”. I typically spend a portion of each day in such a venue inevitably seeing and hearing more about other people’s lives than I care to. The ideas of seeing and hearing are no stranger to this site – nor are they to director/writer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (what a name), who took the task seriously as he literally peers into the “lives of others” in his Oscar winning film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others).

Thinking about the relationship between power and knowledge causes me to consider whether or not we are truly free to ascertain the knowledge that shapes our reality. One way to consider this is to wrestle with how knowledge is created. In Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed, we are taken on an exploratory ride into the wonderful academic jungle of power and knowledge, using the Intelligent Design theory as our tram and Ben Stein as our tour guide. Actually, I think Stein would have looked quite perfect in khaki Bermuda shorts and a safari-style hat but his slightly disheveled lawyer-like appearance suits him and the documentary much better. Regardless of Stein's wardrobe selection, the exploration into the creation of knowledge is an important one.

No one creates films quite like Charlie Kaufman. Best known for his screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman constructs stories filled with strange details that demand his audience suspend their disbelief. This doesn’t make Kaufman unique, many of the films we watch every year do the same thing (this month will bring a slew of such films: Wolverine, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation). But before you settle into your comfy, stadium style seat this summer for some explosions and sci-fi, check out a film you almost certainly missed this year: Synecdoche, NY.

Maybe you don't find your hands sweating as much at work as an NBA star, but it would still be cool to start off each work day by pouring talcum powder into your hands and ceremoniously throwing it into the air. Not to mention doing so over top of a pretty cool riff.

This is the idea behind Nike's ad hocking their Zoom LeBron VI sneakers. But it's something more than just hyping LeBron James' already great mythology. Sure, the spot begins and ends with LeBron, but the images in between capture the beauty and the question of this ad: Are we all little LeBron's in our own spheres?

The barber, the baker, the street-baller, the student, the 12 year old girl who's been banned from playing in the boy's league because she's too good... and everyone else who is at the game simply watching LeBron... They all chalk up in the same way the NBA's greatest player today does (I don't want to get into an MJ-LeBron debate here).

"You gotta give ‘em hope" is Harvey Milk's mantra throughout Gus Van Sant's biopic of the San Francisco politician/gay rights activist.  Despite the film's tragic and looming ending, it is difficult not to walk away from the film filled with the hope that Sean Penn's character spreads to everyone he meets.  The film, of course, is timed perfectly with California's recent Proposition 8 vote, but it reaches beyond the scope of California's politics and gives us a vivid picture of a human spirit bursting at it seams with love and hope for everyone.  And while it is rooted in the reality of the civil rights of homosexuals, it transcends the Castro district of the 70s.

Shock value in art is generally something I frown upon because, if for no other reason, it is a cheap attempt to elicit a visceral response from the audience. There is superficial shock effect, as might be seen in a low budget horror movie or an absurdly avant-garde flick (see: "Vampiyaz"), which pale in comparison to subtle, unnerving aspects woven into works that effect long after leaving the museum, after pulling out of the theater parking lot, after closing the cover. Emily Dickinson claimed, "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know it is poetry." If her description holds true, then the movie "Revolutionary Road" is, no doubt, a lyric told from multiple perspectives, often without words.

Sam Mendes tells the story of an unrecognized, or unspoken, emptiness of the American dream in a way similar to his 1999 release "American Beauty," though this rendition lacks Kevin Spacey's lighthearted quips that assuage the bluntness of the broken lives exposed in the movie. Revolutionary Road pulls no punches while maintaining a certain calculated tact throughout, illustrating the nightmare that often haunts those stepping into adulthood: the perpetual routine of a dull existence. Mendes holds a magnifying glass to the deterioration of the Wheeler's, DeCaprio and Winslet, lives, crumbling within the suffocation and apathy that result from the dynamic of their relationship.

What if Conan O'Brien landed a series of interviews with former President George W. Bush?  And what if, towards the end of hours of slightly interesting political banter, the president admitted that there had been no real evidence to go to war with Iraq?  Such an implausible scenario is precisely the story of Ron Howard's Oscar-nominated film, Frost/Nixon.  Having resigned the presidency on the heals of Watergate, the disgraced Richard Nixon is shown plotting his redemption from his Californian ocean-side mansion.  Director Howard portrays the infamous president as a somewhat awkward man with little use for small talk who, despite his public disgrace, believes he will soon return to political power.  An opportunity for such a return presents itself in the unlikely form of British television personality David Frost.

Over the years, Hollywood has managed to condition the viewer with particular movie-going expectations.  We expect to be entertained.  We expect a good story.  And we expect that story to have resolution.  In the Oscar-nominated film Doubt, writer/director John Patrick Shanley goes against this notion of a nicely wrapped Hollywood story when he chooses to leave the film's central question unanswered.

Doubt centers itself around the tenuous working relationship between a free spirited Catholic priest, Father Flynn (Philips Seymour Hoffman), and the parish's austere Principal, Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep).  When Father Flynn begins to give both special recognition and time to the school's first black student, Sister Beauvier begins to suspect inappropriate sexual behavior between the two.  Sister Beauvier successfully rallies suspicion and the audience is left with... did anything happen?

James Marsh's documentary Man On Wire is captivating on many fronts. The film tells the story of the French, high-wire-walker, Philippe Petit's illegal performance between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974.

First, there is the Ocean's 11-like scheming, planning and executing of the long planned performance. Or, there is the fertile ground which spawned such an amazing feat: the bohemian, play-infused life-style that Philippe and his friends live. And then we experience the glaring paradox between what the twin towers inspired Philippe to do, and what it inspired others to do on September 11, 2001.