By Sara Schieron

"While Mira Nair was dubbing for Vanity Fair, star Gabriel Byrne came to her raving about Jhumpa Lahiri's debut novel, The Namesake. The novel, which follows the Ganguli family from their arranged marriage in Calcutta through their immigration to New York and the growth of their son, is ideal material for Nair, whose films are often about people creating paths between old ways and new surroundings. Perhaps it wasn't such a coincidence that Byrne caught Nair mid-read." Sarah Schieron caught up with Nair to discuss her new film. The Namesake opens in theaters today.

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

During a recent conversation with Mark and Michael Polish, both 36, about their new movie The Astronaut Farmer, several questions came up about insiders and outsiders. For example, the Polish brothers made their debut with the quirky indie film Twin Falls Idaho (1999), in which the identical twins appeared as Siamese twins. It received some good notices and took in nearly double its initial cost, but it didn't exactly catapult the brothers into the mainstream.