Just after the first half of the year and before the holiday season begins, most films vying for awards are in a sort of ‘suspended animation' status - a waiting game of sorts. However, there are some breakthrough performances well worth our attention, and they come from a selection of films shown before the start of the holidays.

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We’re most impressed with six particular young actors, some of whom have already proven themselves and are currently considered future leading men in both mainstream and indie productions. One of the films (Hallam Foe) has yet to be released in America, but seeing as it was one of the more celebrated features at the festivals, we made an exception and included it in our line-up!

David McKenzie’s Hallam Foe features Jamie Bell in his next most important role after Billy Elliot and Undertow, and he does a great job as the young voyeur spying on his neighbors in Edinburgh. Sam Riley, a relatively unknown actor, has taken the industry by storm with his deliberate performance in Anton Corbijn’s Control. His role as Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, was widely praised as being one of the year’s best. Joe Anderson, who is also seen in Control, may not yet be a leading man; nevertheless he is an outstanding actor and definitely someone to watch in Across the Universe.

Two young performers who have appeared in previous critically acclaimed films broke new ground this year - Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale) was awesome in The Hunting Party and carried The Education of Charlie Banks into a different level, while Anton Yelchin, fresh from Alpha Dog, was electrifying in Charlie Bartlett. Not to be outdone is young Australian actor Khan Chittenden who appeared in the Australian production West. Chittenden is also in the drama-comedy Introducing the Dwights (aka Clubland) alongside the ageless Brenda Blethyn.

Acclaimed filmmaker and German cinema legend Wim Wenders has a new film! 'The Palermo Shooting’, which boasts an award-winning international cast, is “a romantic thriller that could only be set in Palermo,” according to Wenders.

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What's the Movie About: The film is about Finn, a world-renowed photographer whose photographs appear in museums and magazines around the world. Considered as the 'rock star of the art world', Finn knows that there is something missing in his life. On a photoshoot in Palermo, something surreal happens to Finn that changes his life forever.

The movie stars German rockstar Campino, Dennis Hopper, Lou Reed and Italian top actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno, who is also in the lead for Love in the Time of Cholera.

More of Mr. Nobody: Set in the not-so-distant future, the story follows Nemo Nobody (Leto) who, at 120 years old, is the last mortal surrounded by happy immortals as he relives his real and imaginary years of marriage.

"Nobody" is serving as the English-language feature debut for Belgian director Dormael, who has been trying to get "Nobody" to the screen for the past six years. Dormael's last film was 1996's "Le huitieme jour" ("The Eighth Day"), a Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm nominee. (Borys Kit from the Hollywood Reporter)

Surreal. That seems to be the common consensus about this film. It's the second directorial effort of Hungarian filmmaker György Pálfi, following his acclaimed debut, Hukkle. Says the filmmaker:

"I would like to create a lasting, personal-authorial film, the story of a man tortured by eternal dilemmas, not actual ones. Past exists only in memories."

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What's the Movie About: Taxidermia is: Three stories. Three ages. Three men. Grandfather, father, son. One is an orderly, one is a leading sportsman, and one is a master taxidermist. One desires love, the other success, and the third immortality.

The grandfather lives in his fantasies and on cold winter evenings he warms up his freezing little shed with his feverish dreams. Nothing can stop his fertile imagination. The father stuffs himself. For four years he was the first in his section in the Confectionary Industry. He is still unbeatable in chocolate wafers with an individual record of 2.98 (just as a comparison Igor Vostongonoff was the European champion in Sophia with 3.21.). The son stuffs animals. He was born one and a half kilos. Now he has less than one and a half minutes left. He goes in for something that nobody has ever imagined before.

“Film tends to work best when it's in the safe hands of a storyteller.”

A storyteller, says screenwriting guru Robert McKee, is a life poet “…an artist who transforms day-to-day living into a poem whose rhyme scheme is events rather than words—a two-hour metaphor that says: Life is like this!”

British film director Anthony Minghella is just such a storyteller. His films can be described as poetry in motion picture format, stanzas of sound and light and texture and feeling. From his exploration of love, grief and loss in Truly, Madly, Deeply, through the mysterious and tragic love story of The English Patient into the darkly disturbed mind of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Minghella tells us stories that vibrate with love, mystery and the shifting rhythms of life.

Roots of his craft:

“There was a time, for five years, when I read Beckett almost on a daily basis. The sense of language and poetry in his writing has been the single biggest influence on me as a writer.”

Born in 1954 to Italian/Scots parents, Anthony Minghella grew up on the Isle of Wight, a predominantly rural community with dramatic coastlines, sweeping stretches of farmland, and abundant wildlife, seemingly the perfect setting for an idyllic childhood. But not for the young Anthony. “My father,” he says, “was an Italian ice-cream seller and I was very conscious of the fact that we had a completely different culture to all of my friends. I had one instinct and that was to find some escape route from wearing a yellow nylon jacket and selling Minghella’s Ice Cream for the rest of my life.”

As you may have known by now, Terry Gilliam is currently working on his new film called The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Gilliam is perhaps one of the most acclaimed independent filmmakers of his generation, and up to now, he remains fiercely independent. Gilliam is also noted for his frank, honest views and in recent interviews, he never hesitated to speak his mind and express himself on many issues. Below is an original article written by the director himself, entitled The Joys of Independent Filmmaking. It was posted originally at the Dreams site, which is a resource site for Gilliam, and we thought it would be great to have it here at tMF. Being big on indie films, this article is a gem!

The Joys of Independent Filmmaking by Terry Gilliam

For most of you, the DVD of Tideland will be your first opportunity to see the film. It popped in and out of the major cities faster than you could pull your socks on, cinch up your belt, find the keys to the car and, once near the cinema, fail to find a parking space.

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It seems that without the blessings of sufficient numbers of mainstream critics, there wasn't much the American distributor, THINKFILM, seemed capable of doing to reach the public. Too many films to handle. No time to devote sufficient energy, or the passion and imagination required to inspire the public to take a chance on something different and demanding. They had other films that were easier to sell. They had to deal with corporate changes. They probably had lives to lead.

Do people care if Dumbledore is gay? Is there a direct relationship between world peace and global warming? Is Wes Anderson racist? What's your take on the Korean film called Juno Jenny and why is Diablo Cody pissed?

These are some of the posts I've seen recently, after which I came up with my own top 10. Perhaps you may want to have your say as well...

"When J.K. Rowling announced at Carnegie Hall that Albus Dumbdledore - her Aslan, her Gandalf, her Yoda -was gay, the crowd apparently sat in silence for a few seconds and then burst into wild applause. I'm still sitting in silence. Dumbledore himself never saw fit to come out of the closet before dying in Book Six. And I feel a bit like I did when we learned too much about Mark Foley and Larry Craig: You are not quite the role model I'd hoped for as a gay man... Why couldn't he tell us himself? The Potter books add up to more than 800,000 words before Dumbledore dies in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and yet Rowling couldn't spare two of those words - 'I'm gay' - to help define a central character's emotional identity? We can only conclude that Dumbledore saw his homosexuality as shameful and inappropriate to mention among his colleagues and students. His silence suggests a lack of personal integrity that is completely out of character."

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2. Ang Lee and the Academy: The recent disqualification of Ang Lee’s Lust/Caution is slowly catching fire within the film community. But it may not be a blazing ‘bush fire’ coz who is Ang Lee anyway, he’s not even American (please note the sarcastic tone here). So why would anyone rise up in protest, except, of course, his producers? And to add insult to injury, even the Hong Kong Film Awards has disqualified the film…

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3. A 'chauvinist' at Warner Bros.: Hollywood news site /film first posted the news about how one Warner Bros. executive declared no more women on the lead from Warner. Of course the guy later denied saying anything like that… [ read more ]

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5. Peter Jackson versus Ryan Gosling: We were one of the first to announce the news that Ryan Gosling was no longer part of the new Peter Jackson film, The Lovely Bones. When many sites wanting to add to the controversy started making incredibly annoying and irresponsible remarks, Gosling was compelled to clear up the issue by explaining that things are not what the press has been saying all along… [ read more ]

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It's not easy to sustain a movie career if you only have looks and charm, but no real talent. But such is not the case for Kostja Ullmann and Tom Schilling.

Ullmann, who is one of the lead actors in the hit Summer Storm, is quite shrewd in his choices of roles. Still quite young in the industry, Kostja has proved that the raves he received for the Marco Kreuzpaintner's coming-of-age film are no fluke. One of his recent films involved a lot of risk and guts. In Punish Me, Ullmann took on the role of a young juvenile delinquent who gets involved with a mature older woman, one who is into S&M. The part required the young actor to be naked and submissive to his 49-year-old probation officer (played by the talented Maren Kroymann).

Schilling, on the other hand, is not satisfied to just play in the background or to be a supporting actor to other top young talents. While he played second fiddle in a number of youth-oriented films starring Robert Stadlober, Schilling finally went on to prove that he can carry the lead in a film, and be funny as well. In the new Marc Rothemund film, Pornorama, Schilling plays the role of a young and aspiring filmmaker who is forced to do a sex movie in order to help his older brother. Although there are no scenes that require Schilling to take off his clothes, it is nonetheless a film that tackles a rather mature topic. Perhaps this is Schilling's way of getting out of teen roles and graduating into more fully-developed ones.

While both actors have their own following within Germany, we just think Ullmann has a more international appeal!

Expect the best films to come out this December! If there is one film that truly brings in the excitement, it's none other than the latest teaming up between actor Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton - Sweeney Todd! This is the sixth collaboration between the two and also stars Helena Bonham-Carter (another Burton favorite) and Alan Rickman.

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What's the movie about?: Based on the Stephen Sondheim musical of the same name, Tim Burton's film adaptation stars Johnny Depp as "the demon barber of Fleet Street," Sweeney Todd.

After being wrongfully accused and sent away to Australia for fifteen years, Sweeney Todd (aka Benjamin Barker) returns to London. He find that his wife Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly) and daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener) have suffered severely at the hands of the very man who imprisoned him, Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). With the assistance of his former landlady, Mrs. Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham-Carter) of Lovett's Pies - the worst meat pies in London - Sweeney devises a plan to revenge his unjust imprisonment and the sad fate of his family.

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Niki Caro's upcoming production The Vintner's Luck has made its first pre-sales. It was sold to Icon for the UK and to Dendy for Australia and NZ. Ascot Elite has acquired Swiss rights to the film.

The Vintner's Luck is an irresistible story of love, wine and angels. It tells the tale of Sobran, a peasant wine-maker in 19th century France and his life-long relationship with an angel as they grapple with the sensual, the sacred, and the profane in search of the perfect vintage.

Juno, this year's undisputed indie favorite, has won Best Picture at the Rome Film Festival!

Screendaily reports: Jason Reitman's teen pregnancy drama/comedy Juno won Rome Film Fest's Marco Aurelio Best Film Award, it was announced yesterday. Reitman was in Rome to accept the award, along with screenwriter Diablo Cody.

Film review by Jackie C.

Boy A, based on the novel by Jonathan Trigell, is the latest film from director John Crowley and writer Mark O’Rowe, who previously collaborated on the 2003 film Intermission.

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As the film opens, we see Jack (beautifully played by Andrew Garfield) meeting with his social worker, Terry (Peter Mullan). In this first exchange, Terry gives Jack a pair of Nike shoes and from Jack’s reaction we discover that this is a young man who has not been given much in his life. We quickly learn that Jack, now in his mid-20s, has just been released from prison, having been there since he was 12. Jack (not his real name) has been moved to a new town and given a new identity for his own protection. The newspapers have headlines warning the public about the imminent release of the infamous Boy A, whom they refer to as 'an evil killer'.

“Part of being a narcissist is being terribly insecure,” he says, sitting back down. “If I wasn’t so insecure about myself I wouldn’t work as hard as I do. I am constantly seeking approval.”

That's Jonathan Rhys Meyers talking. The talented Irish actor is on the cover of the latest issue of Details magazine and just as GQ featured Ryan Gosling in a 12-page interview, Details put the spotlight on Rhys-Meyers.

Details reports: It’s hard to determine exactly why Rhys Meyers is as famous as he is. (Does he have the promise of a pre-Brokeback Jake Gyllenhaal? A pre-Walk the Line Joaquin Phoenix?) Why one of his trips to rehab made the headlines in Us Weekly, why his make-out sessions in bars are covered on “Page Six,” why celebrity bloggers care enough to speculate about his sexuality—at this point, these questions are part of his mystery. He’s a TV star, but Showtime’s The Tudors is not really a hit show (the season finale in June drew 465,000 viewers). He’s a movie star, but he’s never been the marquee name on a big one (although this month’s mystical epic August Rush should change that).

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Since his breakout role as the heartthrob coach in the 2002 you-go-girl movie Bend It Like Beckham, his career has been a herky-jerky ride through a bewildering list of independent and Hollywood films. Ever seen The Tesseract? The Emperor’s Wife? Octane? Rhys Meyers has also shown up in big-budget action movies like Mission: Impossible III and Alexander. But along the way he’s also turned in enough compelling performances—the effeminate glam rocker in Velvet Goldmine, the homicidal social climber in Woody Allen’s Match Point—to establish himself as a provocatively talented, and potentially massive, star.

[ More of Rhys-Meyers in Men.Style dot com ]

There were five particularly good films released during the first half of 2007 that included strong performances from actors who are not yet popular with mainstream American audiences. However, most of them have already established their reputations in world cinema, and just about to start fascinating filmgoers in the U.S. But don’t expect these actors to play Fantastic Four-type characters or don a red cape any time soon!

We’re talking about one of France’s top leading man, Romain Duris in Molieré, the rising French star Malik Zidi in Poison Friends, the underrated Jonny Lee Miller in The Flying Scotsman and the next great Scottish actor, James McAvoy.