History Boys, The
From award-winning playwright Alan Bennett comes this witty story of eight boisterous-yet-talented schoolboys hoping to gain admittance to England's most prestigious universities. They're aided on their quest by two teachers, a shrewd young upstart and an inspiring old eccentric, whose opposing philosophies challenge the boys to confront the true meaning of education and the relative values of happiness and success. Adapted from the original Tony Award-winning play and starring the original cast, Vitals: Director: Nicolas Hytner. Stars: Richard Griffiths, Clive Merrison, Frances de la Tour, Stephen Campbell Moore, Sacha Dhawan, Samuel Anderson, Dominic Cooper, Andrew Knott, Samuel Barnett, Russell Tovey, Jamie Parker, James Corden. 2006, CC, MPAA rating: R, 104 min., Drama, Box office gross: $2.672 million, Fox.

Last King of Scotland, The
In an incredible twist of fate, a Scottish doctor (James McAvoy) on a Ugandan medical mission becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the world's most barbaric figures: Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). Impressed by Dr. Garrigan's brazen attitude in a moment of crisis, the newly self-appointed Ugandan President Amin hand picks him as his personal physician and closest confidante. Though Garrigan is at first flattered and fascinated by his new position, he soon awakens to Amin's savagery -- and his own complicity in it. Horror and betrayal ensue as Garrigan tries to right his wrongs and escape Uganda alive. Inspired by real people and events. Vitals: Director: Kevin MaDonald. Stars: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Simon McBurney. 2006, CC, MPAA rating: R, 123 min., Drama, Box office gross: $9.624 million, Fox.

Notes on a Scandal
Two women caught up in a drama of need and betrayal are at the heart of this psychological drama. The twists and turns of the story are noted in the acerbic diary of Barbara Covett (Judi Dench), a domineering and solitary teacher who rules with an iron fist over her classroom at a decaying state-run secondary school in London. Save for her cat, Portia, Barbara lives alone, without friends or confidantes - but her world changes when she meets the school's new art teacher, Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). Sheba appears to be the kindred spirit and loyal friend Barbara has always been seeking. But when she discovers that Sheba is having an incendiary affair with one of her young students (Andrew Simpson), their budding relationship takes an ominous turn. Now, as Barbara threatens to expose Sheba's terrible secret to both her husband (Bill Nighy) and the world, Barbara's own secrets and dark obsessions come tumbling to the fore, exposing the deceptions at the core of each of the women's lives. Vitals: Director: Richard Eyre. Stars: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, Andrew Simpson, Tom Georgeson, Michael Maloney, Joanna Scanlan. 2006, CC, MPAA rating: R, 121 min., Drama, Box office gross: $11.733 million, Fox.

Smokin' Aces
In these interlocking tales of high stakes and low lifes, mob boss Primo Sparazza has taken out a hefty contract on Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven) -- a sleazy magician who has agreed to turn state's evidence against the Vegas mob. The FBI, sensing a chance to use this small-time con to bring down big-target Sparazza, places Aces into protective custody-under the supervision of two agents (Ryan Reynolds and Ray Liotta) at Aces' Lake Tahoe hideout. When word of the price on Aces' head spreads into the community of ex-cons and cons-to-be, it entices bounty hunters, thugs-for-hire, smokin' hot assassins and double-crossing mobsters to join in the hunt. With all eyes on Tahoe, this rogues' gallery collides in a race to hit the jackpot and rub out Aces. Vitals: Director: Joe Carnahan. Stars: Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Peter Berg, Martin Henderson, Taraji Henson, Common. 2007, CC, MPAA rating: R, 108 min., Comic Thriller, Box office gross: $35.520 million, Universal. 

The Criterion Collection has three films dripping with social consciousness this week: Prison melodrama "Brute Force" (1947), directed by a pre-blacklisted Jules Dassin and starring Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo and Ann Blyth; "La Haine" (1995), starring Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde and Said Taghmaoui, a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France; and anti-war drama "Overlord" (1975). As hard-hitting as its title, "Brute Force" was the first of Jules Dassin's forays into the crime genre, a prison melodrama that takes a critical look at American society as well. Burt Lancaster is the timeworn Joe Collins, who, along with his fellow inmates, lives under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey (a riveting Hume Cronyn). Matter-of-fact and ferocious, "Brute Force" builds to an explosive climax that shows that man's desperation for freedom knows no bounds. When he was just 29 years old, Mathieu Kassovitz took the international film world by storm with "La haine" (Hate), a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically in the low-income banlieue districts on Paris's outskirts. Aimlessly whiling away their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia,three men give human faces to France's immigrant populations, their bristling resentments at their social marginalization slowly simmering until they reach a climactic boiling point. Seamlessly interweaving archival war footage and a fictional narrative, Stuart Cooper's "Overlord" is an immersive account of one 20-year-old's journey from basic training to the battle front lines at D-day, bringing all the terrors and isolation of war to its viewers with jolting authenticity. Impressionistically shot by Stanley Kubrick's longtime cinematographer John Alcott, the film is both a document of WWII and a dreamlike meditation on man's smallness in a large, incomprehensible machine. All three films have been restored with high-definition digital transfers.

ON THE INDIE FRONT:
A disheveled, grumpy high school umpire forms an unlikely friendship with a troubled teenager in "Off the Black" (2006), starring Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, Sally Kirkland and Trevor Morgan, from ThinkFilm ... "The Art of Passion (Aka Unconditional Love)" (1994) is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story of Realist and Impressionist painter Arthur Bjorn Egeli, who also directed the film, and his relationships with a teacher and three women who help him discover his craft as well as himself, from Liberation Entertainment/Genius Products ... in "The Third Wish" (2005), starring Jenna Mattison, Sean Maguire, Armand Assante, Jennifer Blanc and Betty White, a bookshop clerk is seemingly granted three wishes after she finds a first-edition copy of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations," from Echo Bridge Home Entertainment.

FOR THE FAMILY:
"George and the Dragon" (2004), starring James Purefoy, Piper Perabo, Patrick Swayze and Michael Clarke Duncan, is a family adventure about an English knight who returns from the Crusades to battle a dragon to save a damsel in distress; originally aired on the Sci Fi Channel; from First Look Home Entertainme