Story of the Year

Zooey Deschanel's efforts as the host of 'Saturday Night Live' were, kind of surprisingly, quite great. Though, when a news story as big as Whitney Houston's death breaks mere hours before the live show, it does put 'SNL' in the weird position of being a 'topical' live show, but not really. (The same thing happened last year on the day of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona.) An image of Whitney Houston alongside Molly Shannon was appropriate (but perhaps a little too late in the show for someone who was a two-time musical guest.) Regardless, after a run of mediocre episodes, last night's 'SNL' gave us the best show of 2012.Sketch of the Night'Les Jeunes de Paris' (Taran Killam, Zooey Deschanel, Jean Dujardin, Kristen Wiig, Bobby Moynihan, Nasim Pedrad, Andy Samberg) I've been a fan of the last three incarnations of 'Les Jeunes de Paris.' I'm a fan of 'The Artist.' So, smash those two entities together and you get this little nugget of joy. First, I love any 'SNL' sketch in which it's so obvious how much work went into the choreography. Second, I really hope Jean Dujardin becomes a huge star in the United States. Between this and his Funny or Die video, boy, that guy just gives it his everything. (Also, for a split second, I thought Kristen Wiig was actually Berenice Bejo.)Score: 9.5The Good 'Clint Eastwood Chrysler Ad' (Bill Hader) Separated into three parts throughout the show, Clint Eastwood -- with his pants getting ever higher and higher -- scolds us for misinterpreting his Super Bowl ad. Also, he calls Rick Santorum a 'pussy' before the whole thing becomes an ad for 'The Dark Knight Rises.' I would have no problem with Hader's Clint Eastwood being a part of every show for the rest of the season. Score 8.5'Bein' Quirky With Zooey Deschanel' (Abby Elliott, Zooey Deschanel, Taran Killam, Kristen Wii

From gifted actor-turned-director Jalil Lespert, Against the Wind (Des vents contraires) is a radiant, emotional and superbly realised story of one father's challenge to keep his family together. One morning, Sarah (Audrey Tautou) vanishes, leaving her husband Paul (Little White Lies' Benoit Magimel) and their young son and daughter reeling, without a word as to her whereabouts or a clue about when she will return. As time passes, Paul anxiously but tenderly tries to sustain some sense of normalcy and after a year, in an attempt to start over, he reluctantly returns to his coastal home town. There, he takes a job as a driving instructor, reunites with his estranged brother and befriends a local police officer (Isabelle Carr ). But still he dreams of Sarah, refusing to let go. Why did she leave, and will she return? Based on a best-selling novel by Oliver Adam (the cowriter of Philippe Lioret's Welcome), Against the Wind is a deeply moving family drama with immense depth and heart.

Feature trailer for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close' tells the story of one young boy's journey from heartbreaking loss to the healing power of self-discovery, set against the backdrop of the tragicevents of September 11. Eleven-year-old Oskar Schell is an exceptional child: amateur inventor, Francophile, pacifist. And after finding a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, he embarks on an exceptional journey--an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. As Oskar roams the city, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity, who are all survivors in their own ways. Ultimately, Oskar's journey ends where it began, but with the solace of that most human experience: love.

Trailer for the documentary West of Memphis. West of Memphis tells the untold story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light; a fight to stop the State of Arkansas from killing an innocent man. Starting with a searing examination of the police investigation into the 1993 murders of three, eight year old boys Christopher Byers, Steven Branch and Michael Moore in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas, the film goes on to uncover new evidence surrounding the arrest and conviction of the other three victims of this shocking crime Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. All three were teenagers when they became the target of the police investigation; all three went on to lose 18 years of their lives imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. How the documentary came to be, is in itself a key part of the story of Damien Echols' fight to save his own life. The film reveals how close he, his wife Lorri Davis, along with his legal team, friends and supporters, came to losing that battle. But as Echols, who spent eighteen years on death row, himself has stated '... in the face of such horror, in the face of resounding grief and pain, you cannot give up... you must never give up.'