The 32nd Mill Valley Film Festival (Oct. 8-18 at CineArts@Sequoia and the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center) will be chock-full of celebrity sightings. British leading man Clive Owen is honored (Rafael, 10/9, followed by his debut in Croupier). Uma Thurman's astonishing versatility, from Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues to Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, is celebrated in conversation and by her latest star turn in Motherhood (Rafael, 10/10). Juno and Thank You for Smoking director Jason Reitman unveils his latest satire, Up in the Air (Rafael, 10/14). Cassavetes veteran Seymour Cassel appears with Rob Nilsson (Throckmorton Theatre, 10/14). A 50th birthday party for the legendary San Francisco Mime Troupe follows a screening of the 1985 doc Troupers (Throckmorton, 10/16). And Woody Harrelson screens his sensitive war drama The Messenger (Rafael, 10/15).

Guy & Madeline on a Park Bench My pick for this year's most innovative fiction piece goes to Damien Chazelle's spunky portrait of an interracial couple's complex if light-hearted courtship. Combining the spirit of early Cassavetes with the relationship insights of Woody Allen in his prime, Chazelle plunks us down inside a hipster jazz scene and a luminously B/W Boston, with the charming leads captured in expressive close-ups. (Sequoia, 10/10)

Here and There David Thorton is hilarious if deadpan grumpy as a depressed, out-of-work Gotham trumpet player who gets a soul makeover when he trades places with a young Serbian moving man. Director Darko Lungulov doesn't ignore his disgruntled countrymen's misdeeds, but gives them a respectful if darkly funny twist. (Sequoia, 10/10; Rafael, 10/12)

Tenderloin At times, novice director Michael Anderson (script by Ned Miller) is a little eager to spotlight our legendary skid-row neighborhood's bigger-than-life characters, but gradually you warm to this hood's dead-enders, including one furious if saucy tranny hooker. The piece is grounded by lead Kurt Yaeger's touching chemistry with child actor Jack Indiana. (Sequoia, world premiere, 10/16; Rafael, 10/17)

Soundtrack for a Revolution If you didn't witness the up-ending of Jim Crow segregation, this clip reel of the best of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s invocation of non-violence as a tool for change is a must-see. Bill Guttenberg and Dan Sturman allow the era's survivors to describe how they found, often as teenagers, the courage t

Scene from The Messenger.

o resist racist taunts and police-inflicted mayhem by singing gospel, blues and folk-influenced anthems. (Sequoia, 10/10; Rafael, 10/18)

Meredith Monk - Inner Voice Queer fans of the Dutch-born avant-garde vocal artist should find special inspiration in this intimate memoir highlighting 40 years of opera, experimental theatre and film. (Rafael, 10/15; Sequoia, 10/18)

Mill Valley's 5@5 shorts provide an international showcase of expressive quick-form filmmaking. In America is Not the World, Maria Breaux's Lucha shows a lesbian couple just before they are separated by the Central American civil wars. The program The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get shows kids undermining overbearing parents. Spot-on are Michelle Savill's Betty Banned Sweets, a slyly stylized tale of a New Zealand boy who subverts his anal-retentive mom by constructing shoebox dioramas; and a sister and brother miss their gay dad in Boutonniere .

The Messenger Just back from a second or third combat tour, Ben Foster's Sgt. Will Montgomery has been dumped by his girl, had an eye damaged and a leg impaired, and as he sits alone in his room, finds his only option is to re-enlist. That's until he meets a sadder sack, Woody Harrelson's Capt. Tony Stone. Stone, who's profanely nurturing a private sorrow, begins as Will's boss at the Army's Casualty Notification Office, but quickly morphs into drinking buddy and bearer of tough advice: "Never touch the next of kin." As Will and Tony complete their rounds, the hardest task is ducking when the newly bereaved try to touch them. Tony smartly advises, "Be careful of the men, they can hurt you." But then Will stumbles across a young widow (Samantha Morton), and all bets are off.

Foster dazzles as a young man defusing the rage within, the same rage that flowed so effortlessly as the revenge-seeking meth addict in Nick Cassavetes' Alpha Dog. He also provides a glimpse of a gentler but severely conflicted soul. With an emotionally searing payoff between the men, Oren Moverman's understated direction (with co-writer Alessandro Camon) will remind fans of honest war movies such as Hal Ashby's The Last Detail. (Woody Harrelson Tribute, Rafael, 10/15)

The Horse Boy Director Michel O. Scott yanks one of our era's most heartbreaking subjects – the epidemic of autism among kids, particularly from affluent backgrounds – out of the clutches of the Dianne Sawyers of prime time news.

Scott literally straps on a camera and follows his buddy Rupert Isaacson and wife Kristin Neff as they pursue a mad gamble. It's that their severely autistic son Rowan can be helped by a close encounter with the horse-herders and spiritual healers in a desolate part of Mongolia. Taking the time to demonstrate just how taxing it can be for a perplexed parent to ride out the tantrums of an autistic child, Scott and Isaacson pull no punches in showing just how hard the "horse cure" – discovered accidentally when Rowan responded to a neighbor's skittish steed – was in practice. It's an adventure that led to the founding of a breakthrough school for autistic kids. (Sequoia, 10/13; Rafael, 10/14)

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire Pre-sold to fans of the novel, Precious delivers on the story of a young African American girl's victimization by an unrepentant duo: a profane, violent mom (Oscar bait by Mo'Nique) and a sexually rapacious dad who is so surreally depicted he emerges as almost a predatory ghost.

It's when Precious (played with daunting aplomb by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) flees her slum nest – with her second child by her dad, just ahead of a TV hurled like a mortar by a furious mom with the most perverse abandonment issues – that the proceedings get a tad dicey. Precious is adopted by a lesbian couple. Her teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) gives her a notebook with the instruction to bare her soul to a class of malcontents only a Fox TV producer could love.

As with Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, the question is whether the screen can do justice to tears that may have been honestly summoned up on the printed page. (Opening Night, Rafael, 10/8)

Looking for Eric This volcanic British class comedy is Ken Loach lite. The director of the bleak coming-of-age Scottish slum drama Sweet Sixteen and the tragic Irish Civil War epic Wind that Shakes the Barley possesses a wicked, anarchic sense of humor. Giving postal worker Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) a Job-like series of tribulations, Loach (with screenwriter Paul Laverty) provides a fantastical solution that hinges on a weird re-imaging of British soccer hooliganism. (Sequoia, 10/18)

More info at www.mvff.com.