Over the years, the Harry Potter series has attracted some of Great Britian’s greatest acting talent. Imelda Staunton, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, David Thewlis, Kenneth Branagh, and Gary Oldman have all appeared in the films. And Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, and Michael Gambon (who replaced the late Richard Harris) are series regulars. (It’s to JK Rowling’s endless credit that she has written characters so juicy, these scene stealers simply can’t resist.)
But what I truly marvel at is the casting of the three main children. After all, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson were all about 11 years old when they were first cast in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. And I have a hunch that if the producers were recasting the film eight years later, they’d assemble the exact same group. Radcliffe’s role is the toughest—he has to make Harry virtuous and earnest without being dull. But Radcliffe has a natural heroism about him, an understated confidence, and he plays Harry with a slight hint of sadness that adds depth. (...

The following review is intended for adult readers.

I’ve always said that it you’re going to be outrageous and offensive, at least be funny. Humor often is the end that justifies the means, and Sacha Baron Cohen is one funny dude. His is humor in extremis—taking an already absurd scenario to its most cringe-inducing, over-the-top (yet strangely inevitable) outcome. He is the permanent answer to “oh no you didn’t.” Oh yes, he did.
That being said, I’m not buying into this notion of Cohen as the Jonathan Swift of our time. In his guerrilla-style comedy, he does two things: He takes regular people and puts them into situations so outrageous that they are forced to respond in uncharacteristic ways. He sees these as “gotcha!” moments. But to me, these are not glimpses into the true nature of people. They’re examples of how we respond when confronted by absurdity. (The answer: We respond absurdly.)
The other thing Cohen does is take people who are easy targets for ridicule, and mocks them. His admirers call that probing...

The thorny ethical issue at the core of My Sister’s Keeper is the stuff of juicy late-night debates: What if a family had a sick child and essentially engineered another child to give that sick child bone marrow and blood? And what if that younger, healthy child got tired of being stuck with needles and hospitalized and decided to sue her parents for emancipation of her own body? Whose side would you be on?
In both Jodi Picoult’s novel and Nick Cassavetes’ film adaptation, you find yourself mostly sympathizing with young Anna (Abigail Breslin), partly because her mother (Cameron Diaz, unglammed and completely believable) has such crazy tunnel vision when it comes to her eldest daughter.
At the same time, the mother’s fierce protectiveness is touching: I have one sick child, Diaz’s Sara says at one point, so she is the child I simply must care about the most. Her other two children—there is also a son, played by a sad-eyed Evan Ellingson—are slightly neglected, but they are relatively well cared for. You can almost take...

I’m trying to figure out if I liked The Proposal more when it was called What Happens in Vegas or when it was called The Wedding Date or when it was called Green Card.
Come to think of it, I’m trying to decide if I like this story better when Sandra Bullock plays the demanding boss, as she does here, or when she plays the put upon assistant, as she did in Two Weeks Notice.
You get the point. Been there, done that with this rom-com formula: Bullock’s Margaret Tate is a humorless book editor who has her staff jump through hoops, no more so than her dutiful personal assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds). Andrew is tethered to Margaret because he wants to become an editor himself, and she’s his ticket to a promotion. So when Margaret demands that Andrew marry her (she’s been threatened with deportation), he reluctantly agrees.
Of course, there’s a suspicious INS agent, forcing Andrew and Margaret to take a trip to Andrew’s hometown of Alaska for the 90th birthday of his “Gammie” (a...