No Reservations, by Scott Hicks

For story & plot see "Mostly Martha" [English title for "Bella Martha"], a delightful 2001 German film set in Hamburg about an accomplished female [single] chef who suddenly, tragically finds herself the guardian of her dead sister's young daughter... The original film is excellent and most charming.

Elephant, by Gus Van Sant

The movie starts as a car has a hard time driving straight down the road in a residential area. We think some kid has stolen this car. Nah. It's the dad driving his son to school, and he's drunk. The teenage son must take over. So, adults give up all responsibility towards their children and mayhem can take place. The film shows one day in the life of several teenage students as they go in and out of classes. They live their student lives and we follow their steps through the corridors and doors, taking them as guides one by one, like avatars in a giant video game.

Amazing Grace, by Michael Apted

Behind the song you love is a story you will never forget.

Amazing Grace is about the campaign against the slave trade in 18th century Britain, led by famous abolitionist William Wilberforce, who was responsible for steering anti-slave trade legislation through the British parliament. The title is a reference to the hymn "Amazing Grace" and the film also recounts John Newton's writing of the hymn.

And Now… Ladies and Gentlemen, by Claude Lelouch

A jazz singer and a British jewel thief are brought together by their mutual desire to forget the past.

Valentin is a criminal mastermind, but his exploits don't prove much in the way of satisfaction. Thus, he sets out on a one-man sailing trip around the world in a last attempt at finding meaning in his life. Meanwhile, in Morocco, a burned-out jazz singer named Jane is trying to forget a fizzled love affair. And so begins the journey of these two lost souls who are destined to cross paths.

Pink Flamingos, by John Waters

One of the most vile, stupid and repulsive films ever made.

Sleaze queen Divine lives in a caravan with her mad hippie son Crackers and her 250-pound mother Mama Edie, trying to rest quietly on their laurels as 'the filthiest people alive'. But competition is brewing in the form of Connie and Raymond Marble, who sell heroin to schoolchildren and kidnap and impregnate female hitchhikers, selling the babies to lesbian couples. Finally, they challenge Divine directly, and battle commences...

Sex and the City, by Liz Tucillo

A sensuous and ironic sitcom about four young, desirable, virtually inseparable New York bachelor girls who lead and confide in each-other their ever changing and confusing sex lives, as different as their natures. Carrie Bradshaw is a charming petite columnist, and often the narrator of the story, either writing her copy or off screen, constantly tossing up and rejecting different views on just about anything that does or might impact modern women's sex lives; she tries almost everything, is constantly disappointed, but always seems to return to a certain Mr. Big. Miranda Hobbes is a red-hair lawyer determined to score professionally and to be though in love to, yet her only faithful lover is an insecure nerd. Charlotte York is a gallery-managing wasp from a prestigious, super-rich family, with high old-fashioned moral standards for her lovable but insecure self but unfortunately almost impossible to live up to for any lover, whenever she can find a socially acceptable one. Samantha Jones is every feminist's hero, and the utterly unashamed voice of lust at their meetings: an acclaimed PR agent and unstoppable nymphomaniac man-eater who can flirt the pants off almost any man (often literally and fast) and always feels like more, without a hint of commitment, claiming this is the age for woman to do what men always did to them.