Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson had the winning game plan at the box office. | 1 Comment

TORONTO -- Sean Penn was, he says, standing on a hillside somewhere in remote Alaska, about halfway through shooting "Into the Wild," when he asked himself a "pretty primal question": Would an audience be able to relate to this story of a young man who prefers being alone in the wilderness to a triple-shot venti latte? | Post Comment

Since Martin Scorsese's masterful 2005 documentary "No Direction Home," the hidden chambers of the Sphinx have been systematically raided, all with the approval of the Sphinx himself. For an artist who long professed no interest in his former selves, Bob Dylan is the subject of an orchestrated barrage. | 7 Comments

It's been at least four decades since the words "spiritual" and "sexual" were commonly used in the same sentence. But veteran director Robert Benton looks to reacquaint them in "Feast of Love," an adaptation of the 2000 book by Ann Arbor's Charles Baxter. | Post Comment

A lot of satisfying, entertaining action pictures have only an artificial brain to power the machinery. "The Kingdom" is the opposite: It's a smart picture with much to say. But in the end, it elects not to say it. | Post Comment

In 1969, English artist Alan Aldridge published "The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics," supplying visuals in the style of "A Child's Garden of Verses" to accompany lyrics of the songs. It was something you flipped through casually, or used to check a questionable line from "Hey Bulldog" -- unless you were stoned enough to find great meaning in the trippy little embellishments Aldridge threw in for the hipsters. | 1 Comment

Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson is surprisingly nimble as a superstar quarterback who discovers he has a daughter in "The Game Plan," a Disney comedy that tries to overcompensate with cute what it lacks in clever. | Post Comment

In "Vanaja," a 14-year-old girl has her palm read by an old woman at a village festival. Here she learns that she will become a famous dancer. While there is plenty of dance onscreen, don't expect "Vanaja" to be some daffy Bollywood musical. | Post Comment

What parents need to know about the movies: "Across the Universe": Drug use; psychedelic references; drinking; smoking; profanity; implied promiscuity; war footage. Some high-schoolers will love the romanticized take on the '60s. Not for younger teens. | Post Comment

"Trade" takes on a serious, under-addressed international crime against humanity in a style that is somewhere between TV melodrama and drive-in exploitation, undoing its obvious good intentions and some truly provocative moments. Yet it's not enough to justify the suspicion that the filmmakers are looking to find titillation in the subject they want to condemn. | 1 Comment