A commercially successful film director has the idea to make a socially-concious film that takes a hard look at the realities of the world outside the gilded-walls of “Hollywood” but his studio bosses want him to deliver another blockbuster hit to fatten their wallets. A common scenario in the contemporary film industry? Sure, but it’s also the plot of Preston Sturges’ 1941 movie Sullivan’s Travels with Joel McCrae in the title role as a movie director wanting to make a difference. Frustrated by the studio’s insistence on churning out mere product, Sully disguises himself as a hobo and goes out on the road to research his project himself. With a plush studio van and assistant Veronica Lake in tow, Sully’s not quite suffering himself, but his journey opens his eyes to both the good and the bad of real-life human drama. Opens Friday at SIFF Cinema.

Also at SIFF: Duck Soup, one of the best of the Marx Brothers comedies is Saturday morning’s Films4Famlies movie. Saturday and Sunday see Wagner’s Das Rheingold in HD at 2:00 pm.

Actor Mary Stuart Masterson makes her debut from behind the lens as the director of The Cake Eaters, opening Friday at The Grand Illusion. Two families in a small town caught up in a complicated web of emotions by death, reunion and the exposure of old secrets have to find a way to come to terms with their lives.

Late night at the Grand Illusion: George Romero’s original 1968 creepfest, Night of the Living Dead, clever social commentary via a genuinely frightening story that set the gold standard for all the many zombie films that followed it.

A father walks out on his job without telling his family and spends his days hanging out with others who are secretly unemployed. One son spends his lunch money on secret lesson and another joins another nation’s army. The mother who holds the family together finds herself starting to come undone. Tokyo Sonata opens Friday at NWFF, accompanied by a five-minute short, This True Story of Dad Club.

Also at NWFF: A man who loves two women faces spiritual crisis and redemption in a Mennonite community in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Silent Light‘s cast is made up of non-actors from actual Mennonite communities speaking their native Plautdietsch. With English subtitles and accompanied by a short called Chronicles of a Professional Eulogist Field Report No. 3, the Juror’s Choice Award winner from the Black Maria Film & Video Festival.

Midnight at the Egyptian: Madeleine Stowe is a psychiatrist, Brad Pitt is the emotionally unstable son of a famous virologist and Bruce Willis is excellent as the time-travelling prisoner from a devasted future Earth who encounters both of them during his trips back and forth in time at the behest of scientists seeking a solution to the destruction that’s befallen them.

Twelve very different people are brought together as a jury deliberating the guilt of a young Chechan man accused of the murder of his step-father, a Russian army officer in 12, opening Friday at the Varsity.

That Blue Velvet is a disturbing film is no news to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the movies of director David Lynch but as a definite non-fan of the man’s work, I was surprised by how much I liked this when I watched it simply to humor a friend. A fine cast (including Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern and Hope Lange) is a big part of what makes this movie so great but Lynch deserves the bulk of the credit for the choices he makes, turning what could’ve been a garden-variety “things aren’t always what they seem” mystery into a provocative and stylish dream of a story. Central Cinema