Have you recovered from your holiday eating binge? Are you ready for some pie? Reviewing Waitress at Sundance earlier this year, Cinematical's James Rocchi described it as "a light, breezy romantic comedy with a crackerjack cast and a certain degree of faux-Southern charm that never descends to cornpone mawkishness, and also has a whip-smart comedic sensibility in every scene." The late Adrienne Shelly wrote, directed, and co-stars with Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion and Andy Griffith. The DVD includes several featurettes and an audio commentary with Russell and producer Michael Roiff.

The Namesake very much impressed our own Kim Voynar, who called it "a deeply felt look at the ties of family and birthplace, the loneliness of living far from your home, and the connections that hold everything together, sometimes in ways we don't appreciate until much later." Mira Nair directed; the film stars Irfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn and Sahira Nair. The DVD features an audio commentary by director Nair and several featurettes, plus deleted scenes.

Critics gave high marks (83% positive, per Rotten Tomatoes) to documentary Manufactured Landscapes. It's said to be an "investigation of photographer Edward Burtynsky's legacy, with its aesthetic studies of industrial landscapes. ... It uses the topic of Burtynsky as a springboard." Jennifer Baichwal directed. The DVD includes additional scenes, a stills gallery and a discussion with Baichwal and Burtynsky.

We can never get too many rebellious child prodigy dramas, can we? Vitus fairly well divided critics: 34 positive and 21 negative, according to Rotten Tomatoes. The veteran and versatile Bruno Ganz is the most recognizable name in the cast. The DVD features an interview with Ganz, a "making of" feature and an audio commentary by director Fredi M. Murer.

The 2007 Oscars were held on Feb. 25, which means the studios started thinking about the 2008 Oscars right around Feb. 26. But all that thinking -- the strategizing, the planning, the conniving -- didn't go public until this week. Now the Los Angeles Times reports that Fox Searchlight has fired the first shot in the upcoming Academy Awards battle by sending screeners of three of its biggest contenders to the people who vote for the Oscars and Golden Globes.

Once, Waitress, and The Namesake are the titles, and DVD copies of them arrived today on the desks of everyone in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (that's the Oscars) and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (that's the Golden Globes).

In case you didn't notice, it's barely September. Studios usually don't start sending screeners out until November. So why the hurry? Well, Fox Searchlight struck gold last year with Little Miss Sunshine, which opened in July (not typically an Oscar-friendly month) and went on to earn four Academy Award nominations and one Golden Globe nod. The studio credits that at least partially to its early screeners -- the film went out to voters in early October -- and figured what they heck, let's try it again.

It might work, too. Once and Waitress both had their U.S. premieres at Sundance in January, earning ecstatic reviews from critics and festival-goers alike. More acclaim followed when they were released theatrically in May. I haven't talked to anyone who's seen either film who didn't at least like them, if not love them. Personally, I adore Waitress more than anything I've seen all year, and I liked Once quite a bit.

The Namesake, on the other hand, hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire since its bow at Telluride a year ago. You don't hear people talking about it nearly as much as they do the other two. Yet it's quietly built up credibility, currently scoring an impressive 85 percent at Rotten Tomatoes. (Waitress is at 88 and Once has a whopping 97!)

But that raises a question: If the movies are so good, does Fox Searchlight really need to send out screeners this early? The answer is probably yes. Releasing Oscar-friendly movies in November and December, when voters are more likely to remember them, is commonly understood as being a wise, even necessary strategy. These three films all came out in the first half of the year, and none of them were financial blockbusters. There's a good chance that voters haven't seen them. So it makes sense to give them the opportunity now, before they get inundated with dozens of other contenders. In Hollywood, the cream doesn't necessarily rise to the top. Sometimes it needs a little push.

The Namesake, director Mira Nair's adaptation of the book by Jhumpa Lahiri, is a deeply felt look at the ties of family and birthplace, the loneliness of living far from your home, and the connections that hold everything together, sometimes in ways we don't appreciate until much later. Nair examines these issues by focusing her lens on two generations of the Ganguli family: husband Ashoke (Irrfan Khan) and wife Ashima (Tabu), a Bengali couple who immigrated to New York from India, and their children, Gogol and Sonia, who were born and raised in America.

Ashima moves halfway around the world to live with her new husband, Ashoke, following an arranged marriage. Leaving behind the warm, familiar climate of Calcutta, Ashima must adjust to life in New York in winter. Lonely, cold and depressed, Ashima nonetheless does her best to make her way in her new home, as she learns to love her new husband. Before long two children, son Gogol (Kal Penn) and daughter Sonia (Sahira Nair) have expanded their little family and bound them to their new country, and the Gangulis move to a house in the 'burbs in Nyack.

Director Mira Nair's latest film, The Namesake, adapted from the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, is a story about a young Indian-American man who wants desparately to fit in among his fellow Americans, even as his parents are unwilling to let go of their heritage and traditions. James Rocchi had the opportunity to sit down with Nair for a video interview to talk about her film. You can download the video here (42.1MB, 10:08 minutes) or watch it over at Netscape.

Today was the first day of the Telluride Film Festival. I have lots of lovely pics sitting on my digital camera to show you; unfortunately, the cable I need to download the pics is in Seattle, and the closest place to buy a replacement is 40 miles from here. Telluride is beautiful, but very isolated. Never fear, though, for the charming and delightful Eugene Hernandez, one of Cinematical's pals from indieWIRE, has a cable with him that he's going to let me borrow. If we can work out the complexities of our respective viewing schedules long enough for me to download my images tomorrow, then tomorrow night's dispatch will be decidedly more visual.

So, Day One. I got in Thursday evening after a full day of travel that included a three-hour drive from Gunnison after several hours of plane travel. The drive was lovely, so it went quickly enough, but I was too tired Thursday night to do anything other than check in at the Press Office, mosey up the mountain to my lodgings, order dinner in and collapse for the night. Friday dawned bright and sunny after Thursday's menacing clouds and occasional rain, and I can honestly say I've never seen anywhere prettier than Telluride on a clear and sunny day, not even Seattle. It's just majestic. I took the gondola down to the Press Orientation, where I picked up the official bright yellow "press" lanyard that distinguishes press from everyone else with a bright yellow badge. Much like at Sundance, every is always eyeballing each other's badges to see if you're someone important -- especially the blue badges, which are for guests, many of whom are filmmakers.

In only its first year of life, the RomeFilmFest (See how they mush the words together? That's a sign of hipness.) is pulling out all the stops in an effort to compete with its financially trouble big brother in Venice. Though the full slate won't be announced until the end of September, proud RFF officials revealed this weekend that Steven Shainberg's much-anticipated Diane Arbus biopic Fur will hold its world premiere in Rome, opening the Festival on October 13. And, as if that's not enough, Nicole Kidman (the film's star) is expected to attend the screening, making the RFF red carpet the place to be, if only for one night.

In addition to Fur, Fest officials indicated that N -- the first (and, since it stars Daniel Auteuil, surely the best) of the many upcoming Napoleon flicks heading to our screens -- will premiere in Rome, with costar Monica Bellucci in attendance. It's also expected that Mira Nair's (Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala) The Namesake will appear, shortly after its world premiere in Toronto.

I'm not exactly sure what it is, but there's something special about male bonding. Some of the greatest times of my life have been spent sharing a pitcher of beer with my best buddies, telling stories and poking fun at one another's stupidity. Unlike women, while guys are extremely competitive in nature, they rarely let it get too personal. If a man is upset with another man, they tend to confront one another and lay all the cards out on the table, instead of pretending and whispering behind each others' back. But that's guys. And that's what guys do.

This is not to say that male bonding is better or more fulfilling than female bonding. The two are just different. Probably because men are less emotional than women. They don't need as much. Guys tend to connect through their history together and not over a similar taste in shoes. Heck, I wouldn't even wear shoes if the ground weren't so dirty.

The following films all feature the different ways in which men bond -- whether on the battlefield or the playing field, inside the home or outside at the bar. The characters here are all men being men, sharing their hopes, their dreams and bonding just like one of the guys. Welcome to this week's Trailer Park: