Gag Reel/Bloopers/Outtakes

Pile together a blue-ribbon cast, a screenplay high in quirkiness, and the Sundance stamp of approval, and you've got yourself a crossover indie hit. That formula worked for Little Miss Sunshine, a frequently hilarious study of family dysfunction. Meet the Hoovers, an Albuquerque clan riddled with depression, hostility, and the tattered remnants of the American Dream; despite their flakiness, they manage to pile into a VW van for a weekend trek to L.A. in order to get moppet daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) into the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.

Unwanted pregnancy might sound like a risky subject for slapstick comedy, but Knocked Up is from writer-director Judd Apatow--so we are in the hands of a man who likes to push things. And like Apatow's predecessor, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up is a shaggy crowd-pleaser, a comedy strewn with vulgarity but with a sweet heart at its center. A one-night stand between the utterly mismatched Ben (Seth Rogen, his first starring role) and Alison (Katherine Heigl) results in said pregnancy, and the two people reunite for mutual support--even though they barely know each other.

The North American anti-terrorist force Team America attacks a group of terrorist in Paris. Later, the leader of the organization, Spottswoode, invites the famous Broadway actor Gary Johnston to join his world police and work undercover in Cairo in a terrorist organization and disclose their plan of destroying the world. The Team America destroy the cell of terrorists, but then the Panama Canal is attacked by the criminals as a payback. Gary feels responsible for the death of many innocents and leaves the counter-terrorism organization.

British horror/comedy Shaun of the Dead is a scream in all senses of the word. Brain-hungry zombies shamble through the streets of London, but all unambitious electronics salesman Shaun (Simon Pegg) cares about is his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), who just dumped him.

Bend It Like Beckham is true girl power. This glorious comedy centers on Jess (Parminder Nagra), an Indian girl born in England whose only desire is to become a football--or, as we say on this side of the Atlantic, soccer--star like her idol, David Beckham; but her traditional family refuses to even consider it. With the help of her new friend Juliet (Keira Knightley), Jess secretly joins a girls' team under the guidance of a male coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). As the team starts to gain some attention, Jess's secret can't be kept forever.

Snakes on a Plane knows exactly what kind of movie it is, knows exactly what moviegoers expect from a title like Snakes on a Plane, and delivers the exact pleasures of a movie in which poisonous snakes are unleashed on a plane to kill an eyewitness to murder. Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, The Long Kiss Goodnight) knows exactly what he's doing in this movie and knows exactly when to pull out the superbad Samuel L. Jackson stare and deliver the infuriated Samuel L. Jackson bellow.

Some comedy is like a scalpel; the Scary Movie series is a hand grenade, spewing bodily fluids and big-breasted women in all directions as they lampoon the latest horror. In Scary Movie 4's case, the main targets are War of the Worlds, The Village, The Grudge, Saw, and Tom Cruise jumping all over Oprah's couch (the scariest of the lot). Along the way, potshots get taken at non-horror fare like Brokeback Mountain and Million Dollar Baby, as well as obvious targets like Michael Jackson and George W. Bush, among others.

An absolute delight, L'Auberge Espagnole captures a moment in a life, seemingly about nothing and everything all at once. Xavier (Romain Duris), a young Parisian not sure what his life is about, decides to spend a year in Barcelona studying economics--leaving behind his unhappy girlfriend (Audrey Tautou, AmÈlie) but joining an international mix of students in a hectic, crowded apartment.

Denzel Washington and the director Carl Franklin, who worked together on the sultry "Devil in a Blue Dress," team up again in a thriller about a Florida police chief who must solve a double homicide that he's been unjustly accused of committing. It's a standard crime movie that rises above its conventional twists and turns thanks to the taut, intelligent direction of Franklin and the strong performances by supporting players (Eva Mendes and Nora Dunn, among others) who would all be at home in an Elmore Leonard novel.

The late "Pistol" Pete Maravich made basketball history as the most spectacular college scorer ever, and he's still inspiring kids through this movie based on his first season of high school varsity basketball (which he played when he was in eighth grade). This 90-minute film explores the supportive father-son relationship that pushed him to the heights of achievement and fame (Dad was a former pro and Clemson University coach) and includes a story line on the stirrings of the quest for racial equality in the late 1950s.