Scheck on the Arts

Area 51, director Oren Peli's long-delayed follow-up to his smash hit Paranormal Activity, concerns three friends who break into the government facility. To read my Hollywood Reporter review, click here.

The documentary Groundswell Rising chronicles the rise of grassroots opposition to the controversial form of energy extraction known as fracking. To read my Hollywood Reporter review, click here.

------Frank Scheck

Justin Bartha and Elizabeth Reaser star in Permission, the new play by Hand to God author Robert Askins, about married couples participating in Christian Domestic Discipline. To read my Hollywood Reporter review, click here.

Quincy Rose stars in Miles to Go, his directorial film debut about a commitment-phobe struggling to make things work with his ex-girlfriend. To read my Hollywood Reporter review, click here.

------Frank Scheck

Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski star in Neil LaBute's new play The Way We Get By, about the aftermath of a drunken hook-up. To read my Hollywood Reporter review, click here.

Youngsters living in NYC's foster care system wrote and star in the gritty urban film drama Know How. To read my Hollywood Reporter review, click here.

-----Frank Scheck

Anne Baker's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Flick, about the employees of a run-down Massachusetts movie theater, has reopened in a commercial Off-Broadway engagement with its original cast. To read my Hollywood Reporter review, click here.

The post-Civil War drama Echoes of War concerns a violent conflict between two Southern clans. To read my Hollywood Rep0rter film review, click here.

------Frank Scheck

The religious-themed drama Where Hope Grows concerns the redemptive friendship between an alcoholic ex-baseball player and a young man with Down syndrome. To read my Hollywood Reporter review, click here.

The globe-trotting documentary Shake the Dust profiles the hip-hop culture in such countries as Uganda, Cambodia Yemen and Colombia. To read my Hollywood Reporter film review, click here.

-----Frank Scheck