Filmmaker John Sayles (Lone Star, Limbo) – who finds movies in towns where the rest of us find a place to fill up on gas – depicts a coastal Florida community weathering a storm of real estate development. The standout of the ensemble cast is Edie Falco of “The Sopranos,” a constant surprise as a

Dripping with irony and full of Donnie Darko vibes, Thumbsucker at first seems to be just another Sundance-spawned exercise in suburban teen alienation, but then the movie opens up to consider the adults in its central high-schooler’s life. The title teen (Lou Pucci) suffers from typical adolescent angst, yet Thumbsucker also considers how that angst

Denzel Washington plays a working-class father who takes a hospital hostage to force the heart transplant his son needs but his insurance won’t pay for. As a rousing, self-righteous melodrama, John Q gets your blood pumping, but as a subtle portrayal of what it’s like to be poor and underinsured, the movie is ludicrous.

Inoffensively sentimental, the Scotland-set Dear Frankie follows a single mother (Emily Mortimer) who is trying to keep her 9-year-old son from the harsh truth about his missing father by claiming he works on a ship that is always off on far-flung journeys. When the boy starts pushing for answers, she hires a stranger (Gerard Butler)