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Serial Drama
The biggest release this week is the second season of the acclaimed AMC series Mad Men, set in a 1960's advertising agency, spotlighting a past era's tendency towards sexism, racism, homophobia, and anti semitism, and a different take on smoking, drinking, and adultery. Jon Hamm (Kissing Jessica Stein, Ira & Abby) stars as the Sterling Cooper advertising agency's successful copy writer with a complicated life and a shadowy past... but Mad Men is an ensemble drama, flashing through the lives of a variety of people involved in suburban and corporate life in the time period, including the new girl (Elisabeth Moss: Day Zero, Girl Interrupted) just learning how to survive in the corporate world, and the entitled young exec (Vincent Kartheiser: Killing Zelda Sparks, Alpha Dog) from a wealthy family.
The other new TV releases this week are the 6th season of the BBC procedural Wire in the Blood, and the Rifftrax version of the Vincent Price movie House on Haunted Hill, with commentary by the voices of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Ladies...
Brittany Murphy (Little Black Book, Sin City) is lost in Tokyo in The Ramen Girl after following her boyfriend oversees. When he walks out, the noodle house across the street offers her comfort and a new direction in life-- to study under the ramen chef (Toshiyuki Nishida: Sukiyaki Western Django) and learn his trade. But the chef is gruff and tyrannical; he speaks no English and she doesn't speak Japanese... will a girl who never sticks with a plan be able to change her ways?
Singing in the underground during WWII, Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley: The Duchess, Pirates of the Caribbean) runs into her first love... poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys: Love and Other Disasters, Deathwatch) in The Edge of Love. She also finds herself face to face with Dylan's wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller: Stardust, Factory Girl)... but the three become fast friends, and the free spirited Caitlin entices Vera to open up and even accept the courtship of a soldier (Cillian Murphy: The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Girl with a Pearl Earring). Their lives change drastically as the war progresses-- Thomas is recruited to write pro-war pictures, and the soldiers are deployed, leaving the women to themselves.
Dakota Skye (Eileen April Boylan: Sleepover) is an eighteen year old girl who can always hear the truth when someone is lying-- the truth comes to her like subtitles in a foreign film... but constantly living with everyone's half truths and lies has made her bitter and unambitious. She dates Ian Nelson (Bratz, Heavens Fall) because she has enough fun with him and he lies about 
the same as everyone else... until J.B. Ghuman Jr. (Love Don't Cost a Thing, Soccer Dog: European Cup) comes to town: an earnest, low key stoner who never seems to lie.
Jessica Lange (Bonneville, Broken Flowers) and Drew Barrymore (Lucky You, Duplex) are the older and younger Edie Bouvier Beales in the dramatic adaptation of Grey Gardens. Relatives of Jackie Onassis, the mother/daughter pair were glamorous socialites who eventually retreated to their Long Island summer home, Grey Gardens, and withdrew from the rest of the world's everyday reality.
When the Hixon family moves into their new house in The Bracelet of Bordeaux, their young daughter Helen finds a girl named Marie tied up in the attic. Marie had discovered the neighborhood bully stealing local dogs... now the two girls have the help of a magical bracelet to stop the dognapper and set their Texas town to right.
and Gentlemen
As a cancer patient fatigued by long drives, Kyle Gallner (Danika, Veronica Mars) and his family move into a house closer to his hospital in The Haunting in Connecticut... but the new house 
has a disastrous effect on him. His parents (Martin Donovan: The Sentinel, Simple Men and Virginia Madsen: The Number 23, Firewall) think his dreams and visions are brought on by treatment and medication, but when they discover a mortuary in their basement, they learn that the house used to be a funeral home, and call a priest (Elias Koteas: Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) who might be able to help them when the hauntings grow more and more violent.
An adaptation of 12 Angry Men, 12 was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar at this year's Academy Awards. At the trial of a boy accused of murdering his stepfather, the twelve jury members must confront their prejudices and racism in a story based in the Chechen/Russian conflicts.
Dennis Quaid (Vantage Point, American Dreamz) is a widower and police detective trying to hold his life together, between a stressful job and a distant son (Lou Taylor Pucci: Southland Tales, The Chumscrubber) in Horsemen... but his world is shaken by a series of grisly murders. When a mother is found by her adopted daughter (Zhang Ziyi: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, 2046), the girl seems to be the link in uncovering the meaning behind the gruesome crimes.
Eric Roberts (Final Analysis, The Dark Knight) stars as Merle "The Butcher" Hench, an old fashioned mob enforcer in The Butcher. Slowly being forced out by the changing trends in his organization, he finds himself passed by, disrespected, and finally set up to take the fall in a double-cross. But the Butcher is a survivor, and instead of rolling over, he takes his new fight to the top, to the people who believe they are untouchable. With Robert Davi (The Hot Chick, Showgirls), Keith David (My Mom's New Boyfriend, The Oh in Ohio), Geoffery Lewis (Wicked Little Things, Down in the Valley), and Michael Ironside (The Alphabet Killer, The Perfect Storm).
Documentary
Sam George's (Riding Giants) newest documentary is Crips and Bloods: Made in America, detailing the gang violence in southern California over the last thirty years, and telling the story of modern America's most notorious gangs.
Narrated by John Rhys-Davies (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dragon Storm), Reclaiming the Blade is a documentary about the history of the sword, and its impact on culture through the ages. The film focuses on the sword's continued use in film, and it's longevity in the popular imagination, and features legendary swordmaster Bob Anderson, who choreographed Star Wars, Princess Bride, and Lord of the Rings
The Unwinking Gaze compiles three years of access to the Dali Lama, and documents his struggle to be both a spiritual leader and the political man he needs to be to engage China over the fate of Tibet.
