Seeking a Friend for the End of the World on AllMovie Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

Steve Carell and Keira Knightley star in this apocalyptic comedy following two neighbors who set out for one last road trip after learning that a massive asteroid will wipe out all life on Earth in just three weeks. Dodge (Carell) and Penny (Knightly) are both having a very bad day. Shell-shocked after hearing that the last hope of destroying the massive asteroid on a collision course with Earth has failed, Dodge watches helplessly as his wife bounds out of their car and vanishes into the night. Later, as the now-reluctant loner ponders what to do with his remaining time on the doomed planet, sobbing waif Penny appears at his window lamenting her breakup with self-centered boyfriend Owen. When the sun rises the following morning, the two neighbors who had barely exchanged passing glances in the hallway have forged a tenuous yet very real connection. Tensions rise, however, when Dodge learns that Penny inadvertently received an inviting love letter from the ex he's always loved, and that she failed to give it to him before all of mankind was doomed to a catastrophic fate. When Dodge announces a plan to reconnect with his ex while he still has the time, guilt-ridden Penny vows to help him accomplish his goal at all costs. But the more time this mismatched pair spend on the road together, the more their journey takes on a new meaning -- one that neither could have ever seen coming, but which both sense was the way things were meant to be.

Friends With Kids on AllMovie Friends With Kids (2011)

Jennifer Westfeldt wrote, directed, and stars in the romantic comedy Friends With Kids. She plays Julie, a Manhattanite whose biological clock is about to run out, so she convinces her longtime platonic best friend, Jason (Adam Scott) to father a child with her. They seem to have a much easier time juggling the responsibilities of new parenthood without the complication of being in a relationship with each other, which is in contrast to the two couples they are closest to. As their friends' marriages implode, Julie and Jason's happy equilibrium topples over as well when he falls for a hot young artist (Megan Fox) and she begins dating a successful businessman (Edward Burns). Friends With Kids played at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.

Promised Land on AllMovie Promised Land (2012)

A small-town teacher stands up to a pair of drilling representatives who are determined to exploit the local resources, and receives some unexpected support as the community rallies to drive away the persistent interlopers in this drama from director Gus Van Sant. Steve Butler (Matt Damon) is a corporate salesman with a reputation for getting results. When the company he works for draws up plans to drill for natural gas in an economically depressed farming community, Steve and his partner (Frances McDormand) attempt to convince the locals that they have an opportunity to profit from the project. At first the locals are welcoming, but when venerable teacher Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook) voices objection, concerned locals Dustin (John Krasinski) and Alice (Rosemarie DeWitt) help to launch an effective grassroots campaign against the drilling. In addition to co-producing and co-starring in Promised Land, Damon and Krasinski also collaborated on the screenplay for the film, adapted from a story by Dave Eggers (Where the Wild Things Are, Away We Go).

Arbitrage on AllMovie Arbitrage (2012)

Writer Nicholas Jarecki makes his feature directorial debut with this drama centering on a Wall Street hedge-fund tycoon and family man who scrambles to maintain a picture-perfect façade as his empire slowly begins to topple behind the scenes. Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is about to turn 60. One of the most successful businessmen in New York City, he lives a life of luxury that few will ever experience. But there's a storm coming, and nobody knows it better than Robert. If he can finalize the bank purchase of his trading empire before any evidence of his shady business dealings is unearthed, there's a chance he could emerge relatively unscathed. Not even Robert's wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon) or their astute daughter Brooke (Brit Marling) have any idea of the hole their family patriarch has dug, but they are about to be swallowed up by it as well. At the crucial moment when his plan falls apart, however, a deadly complication leaves Robert with no choice but to seek the help of shady Jimmy Grant (Nate Parker), a man the wealthy financier never expected to see again. Just when it seems the situation couldn't get any worse, NYPD detective Michael Bryer (Tim Roth) realizes he may have uncovered a key piece of evidence that will ensure Robert pays for his sins.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen on AllMovie Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)

A handful of curious Brits become fish out of water when they get mixed up in the dream project of an eccentric sheikh in this satirical comedy. Emily Blunt is Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, a British businesswoman who manages the financial affairs of a wealthy but eccentric Arab named Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked). Muhammed's latest proposition involves paying fifty million pounds to fully stock a Yemeni river with salmon, and thus engender sport fishing in the desert region. To better gauge the feasibility of this wild plan, Harriet contacts Dr. Alfred "Fred" Jones (Ewan McGregor), a Scottish scientist who specializes in establishing fisheries. Jones shoots the plan down instantly, but soon Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas), the press secretary to the British prime minister, catches wind of it and sees it as the ideal way to promote better international relations between England and the Middle East, especially in light of the torrent of bad news concerning terrorism and general unrest in the Arabic countries. She does everything she can to turn Jones around. Though the scientist will have no part of it at first, he's threatened with job termination if he refuses, and then sets out to create a fully stocked lake in the middle of the desert. As Jones takes on a project that ranks somewhere between ridiculous and impossible, he also finds he's falling in love with Chetwode-Talbot, though the fact that he's married and she has a boyfriend (Tom Mison) fighting in the Middle East makes things sticky. Based on the best-selling novel by Paul Torday, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen received its world premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.

Bernie on AllMovie Bernie (2011)

Director Richard Linklater teams with writer Skip Hollandsworth for this darkly comic docudrama detailing the unusual friendship between a likable Texas mortician and a wealthy but reviled widow, and the shocking crime that followed. Inspired by Hollandsworth's 1998 Texas Monthly article that first caught the attention of Linklater, Bernie takes place in Carthage, TX, where effeminate mortician Bernie Tiede (Jack Black) enjoys a reputation as a friendly and upstanding member of the community. Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine), on the other hand, couldn't hold a lower position on the local social scale. Repressed and bitter, nasty Marjorie has isolated herself from her neighbors, and as a result has been essentially shunned in her small town. The moment Bernie shows Marjorie a shred of kindness, she clings to him tightly and refuses to let go. Meanwhile, as Marjorie becomes Bernie's sugar mama and the pair becomes inseparable, the local rumor mill begins to churn. Eventually, her intense jealousy becomes too much for Bernie to take. When the caustic widow's body is discovered stuffed in her own freezer, local District Attorney Buck Davidson (Matthew McConaughey) vows that justice will be served, but he finds it difficult to build a convincing case against Bernie as the locals rally to his defense.

Fun Size on AllMovie Fun Size (2012)

A high-school senior loses her little brother while trick-or-treating, and recruits three of her classmates to help bring him back home before her mother finds out in this teen comedy from first-time director Josh Schwartz (executive producer of TV's Chuck and Gossip Girl). Sardonic Wren (Victoria Justice) hails from an unusually dysfunctional family. She can't wait until she escapes to college and leaves them all behind, but in the meantime, an invitation to the biggest Halloween party in the area at least offers her an excuse to get out of the house for a night. But when Wren is placed on babysitting duty so her mother can dash out and party with her handsome young boy toy, the dejected teen reluctantly takes her little brother Albert out for a night of trick-or-treating. Later, when Albert vanishes into a sea of costumed kids, his panicked sister enlists the help of her best friend April, wannabe womanizer Peng, and his charmingly geeky pal Roosevelt to track down her missing brother, and get him safely back home while their mother remains none the wiser. Meanwhile, over the course of one wild and unpredictable Halloween night, the group's frantic search lands them in some pretty outlandish situations, and provides Roosevelt with the perfect opportunity to impress his longtime crush Wren.