Now that the Iraq War is over we can focus more of our anxiety, outrage, and depression on another flummoxed and bloody miscue, the war in Afghanistan. Already Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's "Restrepo" has recounted with harrowing detail of the day-to-day trials and heroism of an American outpost in one of the country's deadliest frontiers.

In a sense documentarians are the blue collar workers of the cinema world, doing the hard labor, getting their hands dirty dealing with reality, confronting the tough problems to make sure the system works.

And so that's one reason why "The DocYard", the documentary series at the Brattle Theatre, is such a fitting name.

run for your life.

Unless it's in the upcoming movie adaptation of David Dosa, M.D.'s bestselling book, "Making the Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of and Ordinary Cat . A feline resident at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, Oscar has the "gift" (or is it a curse? much potential for dramatic conflict here) of curling up in bed with the next patient with an appointment with the Grim Reaper.

This is kind of short notice, but if you respond by 12:45 p.m. Eastern Time today you can participate in what First Look Studios describes as the "first press day exclusively conducted within social media platforms with the acclaimed director, Werner Herzog, on behalf of his September 14 DVD release of MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? Herzog will respond in real-time to questions tweeted to the First Look Studios' twitter account, @1stlookstudios, with his responses posted on the First Look Studios' Youtube channel, http://www.

For Fatih Akin, it's not such a long way from washing dishes to making an epic. Here he talks about who inspires him and what he aspires to.

PK: Adam Bousdoukos, who was also in "Short Sharp Shock," looks a little like ...

FA: Jim Morrison?

PK: True, but I was thinking more Brendan Fraser.

FA: He's my best friend.

Like the food served up at the title bistro in his latest release "Soul Kitchen" (opens August 27), German-Turkish Fatih Akin's work is a fusion of tastes and traditions. As might be expected, in previous films like his much-lauded "Head-On" (2004) and "Edge of Heaven" (2007) he shows elements of Turkish directors such as Niri Bilge Ceylan and of German directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders

Speaking of R ratings, what the hell are those people at the MPAA thinking? They recently labeled "A Film Unfinished," a holocaust documentary by Yael Hersonski with an R for "disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities including graphic nudity," and is therefore deemed unsuitable for viewers under 17 unless accompanied by an adult.

"The Other Guys" might be the funniest movie of the summer (I haven't seen "Eat Pray Love" yet), but according to this mtv.com article titled "The Other Guys': Five Secrets Revealed" it might have been even funnier if they weren't holding out for a PG-13 rating (unlike, say "The Hangover," which was rated R).

On the one hand the great director Jafar Panahi, released on parole last May after three months held in jail for his opposition to the regime, now might be allowed to attend the Venice Film Festival in September. There he will present his short film "The Accordion," which, according to an article on "The Independent" website, "recounts the adventures of two young street musicians who can no longer play after an incident."

I finally got around to seeing Debra Granik's critically acclaimed (95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes; 90 on Metacritic ) "Winter's Bone," an adaptation of Daniel Woodrell's novel, and I had a couple of reactions.

The first was: how nice that another woman joins the ranks of this year's touted independent directors along with Lisa Cholodenko and Nicole Holofcener.

"You are watching a star being born," says "Kick-Ass" director Matthew Vaughn about Chloe Moretz in the voice-over commentary to the DVD and Blu-ray disc release of the movie, which is out today.

And he's absolutely right. Once she appears on screen as Mindy, a.k.a. Hit-Girl, the 11-year-old costumed vigilante superhero, even Nicolas Cage, who plays her superhero father Big Daddy, can't keep up.