Alan Polsky Movies

The friendship between two teens is put to the test when they run away together on an ill-fated adventure in this independent drama. Lily (Juno Temple) and Alison (Kay Panabaker) are two close friends growing up in a dead-end community near the Salton Sea. Both girls are 15 years old, and Lily is already desperate to pull up stakes and move on to somewhere more exciting. Alison, on the other hand, is content in her hometown and isn't eager to accept the responsibilities of adulthood just yet. But she wants to support her best friend, and when Lily steals her stepfather's truck and announces she's headed for Los Angeles, Alison impulsively agrees to tag along. The girls soon fall in with a gang of scruffy skate punks; Lily becomes infatuated with one of the guys, who barely acknowledges she's around, while Alison becomes increasingly convinced they're bad news, especially when they try to lure the girls into a potentially dangerous scheme to make money. Little Birds was an official selection at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Abel Ferrara's cult crime drama Bad Lieutenant is given a sister film with this Werner Herzog-helmed production that takes its inspiration from the original, but focuses on new characters and plotlines. Nicolas Cage steps into Harvey Keitel's mold of a corrupt and drug-addled police officer, with the scummy setting moving from New York City to New Orleans. Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, and Xzibit co-star in the Nu Image/Millennium Films picture. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi