Liberty Heights

The Academy Award -- winning director of Rain Man and Emmy Award -- winning co-creator of the landmark series Homicide: Life on the Street returns to his hometown, the setting of his Diner, Avalon, Tin Men and Homicide.

The wonderful result is Liberty Heights, a warmly funny, semi-autobiographical tale told with an uncompromising eye for period detail and an eye-filling scale that includes 4,000 extras. The year is 1954, a season of dramatic social flux that Levinson explores through the eyes of a Jewish family, the Kurtzmans (Adrien Brody, Ben Foster, Joe Mantegna, Bebe Neuwirth).

Friendship, romance, rock 'n' roll, courage, racism, Cadillacs, Halloween (Should a nice Jewish boy dress up as Hitler?): the times are indeed changing. The Kurtzmans -- and America -- will never be the same.