The Plot: After serving as a bridesmaid 27 times, a young woman (Heigl) wrestles with the idea of watching as her sister marries the man (Marsden) she's secretly in love with.

THE BUZZ: Director Anne Fletcher found success this time last year with Step Up, and her follow-up might have the same kind of crossover potential what with Katherine Heigl's new-found, post-Knocked Up star status. Add the busy Malin Akerman to the mix, and you have the type of date movie that men will love to look at. Somewhere, Jennifer Garner is trying to figure out why she wasn't asked to read this script.

The Plot: High school student Dawn (Weixler), still a stranger to her own body, discovers she has a physical advantage when she becomes the object of male violence.

THE BUZZ: When our boss saw this film nearly a year ago, he said: "... perhaps the biggest discovery is Jess Weixler as Dawn, the young woman with a set of radulated teeth in her vagina in Mitchell Lichtenstein's funny, scary, smart Teeth. Weixler is a great comedienne, able to convey much with just her eyes but whose delivery is pitch-perfect. She pulls off moments of great despair, disgust, lust, duplicity and hope, reminding me of a young Reese Witherspoon. The film, as tacky and lurid as it sounds (and is!), is a daring blend of comedy and horror, something that almost never works. It's anchored by Lichtenstein's direction and his ability to never let the scenarios get too broad while nodding ever so slightly to the horror genre he's tampering with. Dawn's innocence gives way to world-weary experience as she is propelled into the world of her own sexuality and Weixler makes the transformation both tender and horrible, much like most initiations into sexuality. It's a crackerjack film which transcends the horror film genre and is sure to be a staple of college courses on feminism and cinema for decades to come."

The Plot: Farmer Daimon (Statham) sets out to rescue his kidnapped wife and avenge the death of his son -- two acts committed by the Krugs, a race of animal-warriors who are controlled by the evil Gallian (Liotta).

THE BUZZ: INK, Uwe Boll's widest release to date (approximately 2,500 screens, as of this writing), is one of three films backed by upstart distributor Freestyle Pictures and Boll's surprising ability to secure financing from a secret stash of private investors. Originally conceived as a two-part release back in 2006, the spendy picture (a reported $60 million budget) took its share of early knocks until Postal was unveiled. And before any of us tsk-tsk Statham, Liotta, et. al, we should consider how infrequently they receive a decent paycheck.

The Plot: Four guys and their galpal plan a cross-country trip in order to steal a print of Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace from Skywalker Ranch so their dying friend can see it before its world premiere.

THE BUZZ: Remember those halcyon days before the Star Wars episodes were renumbered and Jar Jar Binks was under wraps at Skywalker Ranch? We've heard this comedy isn't nearly as funny as you'd want or expect, and if you have trouble believing the rumors, consider this: director Kyle Newman saw production on his recent project, a Revenge of the Nerds remake, halted after the studio, Fox Atomic, saw the initial dailies ...

The Plot: As a drug war spirals out of control in their favela, the revelation of a deep-seeded family secret drives best friends Acerola (Silva) and Laranjinha (Cunha) apart -- and into greater danger.

THE BUZZ: A spin-off from the somewhat sunnier television series of the same name CoM is a return to the dark material of its source subject, Fernando Meirelles' City of God. So why wasn't this positioned as Oscar bait with a late-2007 release? We're completely unsure and digging for details; in the meantime, here's a link to one of the production company's sites for the film ...

The Plot: Unaware that he has a magnetized brain, a man (Jack Black) accidentally erases every tape at the video store where his friend (Mos Def) works. In order to satisfy the store's most loyal renter, an aging woman with signs of dementia, the two men set out to remake the lost films.

THE BUZZ: Michel Gondry's second solo script finds Jack Black victimized by his own attack against a local power plant, a scenario that sets up the most anticipated art film of the year. The story, along with the exciting pairing of Black and Def (wasn't Kirsten Dunst supposed to be in this, too?), is an easier sell than The Science of Sleep, a narrative experiment that didn't earn for Gondry his typical level of acclaim. On paper, we hear Be Kind is definitely the filmmaker at his most accessible -- no signs of the darkening edges that cause his work with Charlie Kaufman to resonate with audiences. Imagine if that collaboration with Dan Clowes ever materializes, though?

The Plot: A family tragedy forces a young student to drop out of her private school and return to her old neighborhood, where she eventually rediscovers her love of step dancing.

THE BUZZ: Go Canada! This low-gloss take on the world glimpsed in movies such as Stomp the Yard was picked-up by Paramount's indie arm in a multi-million dollar deal at Sundance last year. Director Ian Iqbal Rashid's drama also has earned comparisons to Girlfight, as the titular She, Rutina Wesley, finds her place within an all-male step troupe.

The Plot: A 1987-set drama that chronicles a Romanian college student's effort to get an abortion while living in a Communist regime.

THE BUZZ: Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu burst onto the international film scene this year with his prize-winning drama and enough compelling pullquotes to easily qualify as one of the best-spoken, most-promising writer-directors of tomorrow. Check out his perspective on winning the Palme d'Or: "I don't see myself as an arthouse filmmaker, making films for small theaters and few people. ... I care about awards ... but I just want to reach more people who would get something from the story." Art-house types, regardless, will salivate for his long takes, life-under-Ceausescu political context, and unforced dialogue. We hear the centerpiece scene is a feat of overt boldness and surprising subtlety.

Update:In November of 2007, while she was in Turin working on Francesco Munzi's La Notte, star Laura Vasiliu was briefly detained by the Italian police because her name was similar to a woman wanted for trafficking minors.