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'The Eclipse' is a haunting romance

Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:00am EDT

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Also reviewed: 'The Harimaya Bridge,' 'Harmony and Me,' 'West of Pluto'

Irish playwright Conor McPherson's agreeably melancholy, spooky and romantic "The Eclipse" -- his third film as writer-director -- gets the most out of assorted hauntings. There's the case of widowed woodworker Michael (Ciarán Hinds), a glum sort with two kids who not only mourns for his wife but begins to see terrifying visions of his still-alive (but in failing health) father.

Movie Review: 'How to Train Your Dragon'

Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:00am EDT

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The writing and directing team behind 'Lilo & Stitch' creates a sweet coming-of-age story set in ancient Viking times.

"How to Train Your Dragon" has taken the age-old story of a teenage boy sorting through his fundamental life issues -- fit in, figure out self, get the girl, don't disappoint Dad -- set it in ancient Viking times and still managed to give it a thoroughly modern spin. A millennium later and this kid would head an Internet start-up or have a reality show on cable. For now, he's just a misfit in Ugg boots. Ingenious.

Review: 'Waking Sleeping Beauty'

Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:00am EDT

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Two insiders take a remarkably unblinking look at the tussles and triumphs of Disney's revival of animated film in the 1980s and '90s.

Hard as it is to believe today, it was not so long ago that animation in general and Disney animation in particular were art forms given up for dead. Things got so bad that in 1984 the studio, which had been kick-started into success by "Snow White" almost half a century earlier, ingraciously booted its beleaguered artists off the lot and onto bleak rented premises.

Movie Review: 'Vincere' is unforgettable look at Mussolini's secret wife

Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:00am EDT

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Marco Bellocchio's film recounts how the dictator locked away a woman who was politically inconvenient.

One of the most surprising things about watching the wrenching "Vincere," the story of Ida Dalser, Mussolini's secret wife and his first-born son, Benito, is that when the relationship went sour and Ida just wouldn't let it rest, that Il Duce just didn't have her killed.

'Hot Tub Time Machine': A blast of laughs from the past

Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:00am EDT

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John Cusack and his buds travel back to 1986 to find politically incorrect jokes and nonstop humor.

Who doesn't have fun in a hot tub? Or hasn't tested, at least once, the more-bodies-more-fun principle?

Movie Review: 'Sweetgrass'

Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:00am EDT

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"Sweetgrass" is an unexpectedly intoxicating documentary, unexpected because it blends high artistic standards with the grueling reality of one of the toughest, most exhausting of work environments.

'Chloe'

Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:00am EDT

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Director Atom Egoyan's attempt to pull off a psychosexual thriller about a woman scorned ends up more puzzling than thrilling.

"Chloe" is a conundrum. Envisioned as a psychosexual thriller about a woman scorned, director Atom Egoyan's latest puzzle is just puzzling, little more than a messy affair with mood lighting, sexy lingerie, heavy breathing and swelling, um, music.