George Clooney is that American who, like in real life, decides to take some time off and rest a while in Italy. But this isn’t reality, and Clooney is playing a hitman who’s gone there to wait and hear from his bosses, who are supposed to give him his next, possibly final assignment. The film relies less on action and more on Clooney sitting around letting viewers guess what he’ll do next.

It’s the same fantastic James Cameron movie, now including approximately nine minutes of footage that was cut before it was released to theaters. I’ve seen the original three times, and am looking forward to this fourth one.

Based at least partly on fact, this is the story of Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), a Depression-era backwoods Tennessee hermit who decides to throw his own funeral and party, and preside over them, just so he can hear what the local folks think of him. It’s a serious film with comic edges. The cast features Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek.

It’s a long way between the two American coasts, and it’s that distance that’s referred to in the title. The two members of a young couple (Drew Barrymore and Justin Long) live on each one of them. Their difficulties with the situation are done up in raunchy comic style, directed by Nanette Burstein, who’s making the jump from documentaries (The Kid Stays in the Picture) to features.

Shot in documentary style, but totally fictional, this traces a priest who has been conducting exorcisms throughout his career, but doesn’t actually believe in the process. He agrees to do just one more before retirement, and allows a documentary crew to get the whole thing down on film. Rumor is that things get pretty darn suspenseful.

Todd Solondz’s follow-up – of sorts – to his 1998 film Happiness picks up 10 or so years later, focusing on most of the same characters, each one now played by a different actor. These are sad, confused people trying to deal with the cards they’ve been dealt. But Solondz infuses both films with a dark humor that makes you laugh while making you wonder if you should be laughing. With Allison Janney, Paul Reubens, Charlotte Rampling, Ally Sheedy, Michael Lerner.

A group of seasoned bank robbers (Idris Elba, Paul Walker, T.I., Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen) decide to do one last job that will net them the most money they’ve ever grabbed. But there’s one detective (Matt Dillon) who is determined to do anything to stop them.

Director Jean-Luc Goddard is said to have started the French New Wave 50 years ago with the release of this film about a smalltime crook (Jean-Paul Belmondo) in Paris who kills a cop, then goes on the lam with a young American girl (Jean Seberg) who’s studying at the Sorbonne. The police are closing in on them, but he keeps living his life as if were being played out in a Hollywood movie. In French.

Julia Roberts, who seems to have been on sabbatical for a while, is back onscreen as Elizabeth Gilbert, a woman attempting to find herself after a divorce by leaving everything behind and heading out into the world – to Europe, India, and beyond. Based on the memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert. With James Franco, Javier Bardem, and Richard Jenkins.

Sly Stallone has always liked writing, directing, and starring in films, and does so again here. It’s a thriller about a team of mercenaries who are hired to overthrow a South American dictator. Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Dolph Lundgren are under Sly’s command. But they have lots to worry about from CIA operative-gone wrong Eric Roberts and his pal Steve Austin. Much gunfire and some very special cameos – one of them political.