BEDTIME STORIES

Director: Adam Shankman 
Stars: Adam Sandler, Keri Russell, Courteney Cox 
Studio: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
The Plot: Somehow, someway, the lavish bedtime stories that a hotel handyman (Sandler) tells his niece and nephew start to magically come true.
THE SPIRIT

Director: Frank Miller 
Stars: Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson
Studio: Lionsgate

The Plot: A rookie cop (Macht) returns from the dead to fight crime from the shadows of Central City. His [...]

Once upon a time, superhero roles were considered career-killers. But not anymore, not with Christian Bale, Will Smith, Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Jackman proving that if the glove fits, you should wear it. Still, for Gabriel Macht, who suits up as the latest masked man in ” The Spirit,” which opens Christmas Day, there [...]

Famed for her opulent theatrical style in films like “Strictly Ballroom” and “Moulin Rouge!,” production designer Catherine Martin is probably the last person you might expect to find in the remote Outback of Australia knocking up a film set.
 
But this is exactly where the two-time Oscar-winner ended up in her role as co-producer of her [...]

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet tear each other apart more thoroughly than an iceberg ever could in “Revolutionary Road,” a brutal — and brutally tedious — depiction of marital malaise.
Director Sam Mendes covered this territory before with more verve and imagination in his 1999 debut “American Beauty.” And similar to that film, “Revolutionary Road” carries with it the [...]

Only at the movies (and in old “Hogan’s Heroes” reruns) is it ever permissible to enjoy the company of a Nazi. To be sure, the real Nazis were horrifying death merchants responsible for igniting World War II. But at the movies they become complex psychological portraits or loony B-movie villains or, weirder still, comic relief.
You [...]

Scholars tend to lionize directors who develop groundbreaking styles, or who come to dominate and define a genre — men like Hitchcock, Welles, Hawks and Ford. But what of the filmmaker who didn’t try to stick out so much as fit in; the man-for-hire who could saddle up to any studio assignment — even a [...]

George Clooney will star in “Up in the Air,” along with actress Vera Farmiga. Oscar-nominated “Juno” director Jason Reitman is in charge of the big-budget film, writing and directing it. Production crews will set up on Jan. 5 and could be working in the Gateway City for up to five months.
READ IT AT ST. LOUIS [...]

Laura French of Roseville, Minn., claims that she’s “terrified of technology.” But she enjoys watching TV and movies on her laptop computer so much that she dropped her premium satellite TV channels.
Grant Edwards of Minneapolis says he’s watching broadcast TV a little less now that he can watch online video on his living room TV [...]

In their new film “Marley & Me,” Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson pick up where most couples in romantic comedies end — at the start of a happily-ever-after marriage.
The movie, which opens Christmas Day, follows John and Jenny Grogan as they evolve from career-focused newlyweds to parents of three young children. It afforded both actors [...]

A maniacal villain seeking immortality, a bevy of deadly beauties and snowy streetscapes under the watchful eye of a shadowy, masked hero: this must be a job for — Frank Miller.
Miller, 51, an icon of the comic book world credited with bringing the genre to a wider audience, has returned to the big screen with [...]