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Harmony Korine’s dizzying, trashy, and bold new film Spring Breakers stars Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine as four bored and sexy college girls on an uninspiringly small and vapid university campus, who, like most of their peers, can’t scrape the cash together to go down to Florida for Spring Break. So, what do they do? What most of us would us would—they don their ski masks and rob the local Chicken Shack, ya’ll!

Johanna Bennett and Mandy Ward are the co-founders of the First Time Fest, a brand new film festival that offers a staggering opportunity for the first-time filmmaker: a distribution deal. Partnering with Cinema Libre Studios, the twelve films in competition this weekend in New York City will vie for the honor of having their film released in the U.S. as well as get the chance to meet some of their cinematic heroes. Darren Aronofsky will be on hand to receive the John Huston Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinema, an award being presented by none other than the great Martin Scorsese.

Artifact, a fascinating new documentary directed by actor and 30 Seconds to Mars front man Jared Leto (under the pseudonym Bartholomew Cubbins) made its US premiere at the Doc NYC Fest last night in Chelsea. Focusing on 30 Seconds to Mars’ desire to leave its label, corporate behemoth EMI, the film reveals how the band discovered the seven-year contract termination choice loophole in its contract and the record label’s plans to sue them—for thirty million dollars.

The Paperboy, the new film from Precious director Lee Daniels, is a searing, character-driven thriller set in the southern Florida backwater, and features some dirty, smoldering, and messily spot-on performances from Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, John Cusack, and Macy Gray (yes, even Macy Gray). But it’s Nicole Kidman’s sexed-up performance as a desperate woman trying to prove her husband’s innocence and release him from death row. Last night Kidman was honored at the New York Film Festival where The Paperboy, which opens in limited release on Friday, was screened for an eager audience. We caught up with the actress to discuss the film, how far she slipped into character, and her affinity for white patent-leather high heels.

Ai Weiwei is the internationally artist, prankster, architect, sculptor, photographer, social and cultural critic, curator, internet agitator and Twitter activist who was arrested by Chinese authorities and held for over three months in 2011 after a life-time of government harassment and a childhood filled with memories of his father’s own persecution the very same year he was short-listed for Time’s “Person of the Year.” His arrest caused a world-wide fervor, especially since Weiwei had been blogging and Twitter-documenting this pestering, stalking, annoyances, and, finally, in the span of a few year’s time- his eventual beating, house arrest, video spying, studio razing and eventual imprisonment by the Chinese government.

Alex Karpovksky departs from his snarky 'Girls' character in his role as a jilted lab technician in the psychological thriller 'Rubberneck.'