In 1993, guided by some unseen force of chance, I discovered a book: Battles of Flanders and Artois 1914-1918, by Yves Buffetaut. As I was reading it, I came upon an extraordinary passage entitled ?¢¬Ä¬úThe Incredible Winter of 1914.?¢¬Ä The author wrote about the fraternizing between the enemies, the episode of the German tenor applauded by the French soldiers, a soccer match, the exchange of letters, the Christmas trees, visiting each other's trenches. It really bowled me over.

Based on the best-selling novel by Richard Price, Freedomland is a highly charged and gritty mystery of a carjacking, a missing child and a torn neighborhood.Producer Scott Rudin optioned the film rights to Freedomland, a novel about the investigation of a carjacking, when Price was only about halfway through writing the book.

When Michael Tolkin wrote The Rapture, he hardly thought he was following a trend. This rigorous non-studio movie about a lost woman (Mimi Rogers) who finds happiness (for a time) through discovering God stirred up controversy at the recent Telluride Film Festival.

Antonio Banderas, who's rapidly becoming one of the hottest international sex symbols, stars as the mariachi without a name in Desperado, the eagerly-awaited follow-up to the critically acclaimed l992 hit, El Mariachi, a movie that “came out of nowhere” and cost practically nothing.