Title: Margaret Director: Kenneth Lonergan Starring: Anna Paquin, J. Smith-Cameron, Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon, Jean Reno, Jeannie Berlin, Kieran Culkin, Matthew Broderick,  Kenneth Lonergan, Rosemarie Dewitt, Allison Janney “Margaret,” the first film behind the camera from writer-director Kenneth Lonergan in more than a decade, is a hot mess. Considering its behind-the-scenes wrangling and long road to release, however, that’s not really that surprising. In 2000, Longergan helped bolster the mainstream careers of Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo with “You Can Count On Me,” the engaging, Oscar-nominated story of a fractured adult sibling relationship. In 2005 he shot his follow-up, “Margaret,” about a troubled high school teenager who witnesses a terrible bus accident…

Title: Thunder Soul Director: Mark Landsman The glut of studies — seemingly released almost weekly — showing the slippage and relatively poor international ranking of American high school students in core academic subjects like math, science and history is troubling, certainly, and indicative of a need to redouble efforts in those areas. But as anyone who still has a honest connection to their adolescence will admit, the role of extracurriculars and artistic electives is often integral to a teenager’s sense of engagement and self-worth, and certainly the type of well-roundedness that helps produce open-minded individuals who can work well with others. Not everyone has the aptitude to be a professional singer, musician, artist or…

Title: Wild Cherry Directed by: Dana Lustig Starring: Rumer Willis, Tania Raymonde, Kristin Cavallari, Tia Carrere and Rob Schneider. Running time: 85 minutes, Rated R, Also available on standard format DVD Three girls in their senior year of high school discover they’re the targets of the football team’s time honored tradition of deflowering delegated virgins in order to help them win at the end of the football season. When they discover the “Buccaneer’s Bang Book” where their names are listed, they vow to enact revenge on these boys and destroy the book. This film was completed in 2009 and released in 2011, which is a clear indicator there is something…

A pinch of wry fatalism, and the ability to step back and view the trials and tribulations of adolescence as moments in time, fixed suffering on a much broader horizon, is an attractive quality in teenagers (and especially so once they age out a bit more, into their twenties, and begin to reflect back on younger years). It’s that sort of emotionally jumbled ironic detachment that drives writer-director Gavin Wiesen’s feature film debut, ’The Art of Getting By’, a coming-of-age tale in which bright but undermotivated slacker George (Freddie Highmore) is befriended by and finds a kindred spirit in Sally (Emma Roberts). We had a chance to speak one-on-one with Wiesen recently, about his previous…

Title: Seconds Apart Directed by: Antonio Negret Starring: Orlando Jones, Edmund Entin and Gary Entin Running time: 89 minutes, Rated R Seth and Jonah are twins with telekinesis and have a fondness for video camera voyeurism. When the stars of the football team are found dead after a completed game of Russian Roulette, Detective Lampkin (Jones) sees them as prime suspects and the twins’ classmates and strangers they encounter begin to die in bizarre ways. Jonah’s relationship with the new girl in school causes a rift of jealousy and mistrust that threatens their bond and their “project.” Edmund and Gary Entin are perfectly creepy in the roles that seemed were…

Watch a sneak peek from tonights “The Root of All Evil” from Comedy Central titled “American Idol vs. High School”. Both high school and American Idol feature harsh social criticisms, popularity contests, and shady characters – be it Ryan Seacrest, or the neighborhood creep. But which is more evil – calculus homework, or bad renditions of Aretha Franklin songs aired three times a week? To decide, Patton Oswalt and Andy Kindler go head to head in the court of the honorable judge Lewis Black, the ultimate evaluator of evil. Tune in tonight at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.