This ambitious biographical drama is so intent on defining persecuted Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas by his homosexuality that we never quite grasp a sense of his artistic accomplishments. Javier Bardem, nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Arenas, strains valiantly to fill in the gaps, but it still feels like an incomplete

Big Momma’s House meets Misery meets Enough. Who would want to combine a Martin Lawrence cross-dressing comedy, a Stephen King story about a tortured crippled man and a Jennifer Lopez melodrama about domestic abuse? Tyler Perry, who adapted the movie from his own stage play and stars as a sassy grandmother. His slapstick painfully grates

As another writing-directing effort from Hollywood sensitive male Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire), this carried the burden of high expectations. I watched it holding my breath, waiting for the arrival of that singular punch to the gut that all of Crowe’s movies deliver. It never comes. Elizabethtown flounders, flopping about in search of a consistent theme,

Normalcy is an undervalued commodity in Hollywood, which leaves true drama – the sort we experience every day – to independent filmmakers such as Nicole Holofcener (Lovely & Amazing). Holofcener once again explores the minor triumphs and tragedies of average women’s lives, and she’s only further honed her talent for seeing the personal truths that

As unintentionally silly and heavy-handed as it often is, this feminist landmark ó based on Ira Levin’s novel ó still works because of the brilliance of its central, satirical metaphor: the housewife as automaton. Katharine Ross plays young mother and aspiring photographer Joanna Eberhart, who reluctantly moves to the suburban enclave of Stepford, where the

Acting chameleon Edward Norton finally finds a color he can’t match, and it’s a surprisingly conventional hue: that of a tragic romantic lead. Norton plays a magician in 1900 Vienna who discovers his childhood love (Jessica Biel) is unhappily engaged to a sinister crown prince (Rufus Sewell). Norton should set the tone for this moody,

9 Songs flits back and forth between concert footage of contemporary rock bands and explicit scenes of actors Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley – as a fictional couple named Matt and Lisa – having actual sex. It doesn’t take long for both elements to become incredibly boring. You might think some sort of arty, intellectual