Miss Potter (directed by Chris Noonan) After Renée Zellweger's success playing a modern day British single gal in Bridget Jones' Diary, the producers of her movie from last winter Miss Potter must have thought they had a sure thing on their hands. Put Zellweger in a corset, reunite her with the hunky Ewan McGregor, give her an accent and introduce her to the built in Beatrix Potter fan base. It's gotta be solid gold. Of......

Only a few more days until the end of the year (and the cut off for the 2006 Oscar season), so of course the movie theaters are glutted with choice new releases. If you have your copy of Bridget Jones' Diary always near the DVD player for easy access, might we suggest checking out Renée Zellweger in Miss Potter. Sort of like a Sex in the City but set during the Victorian era, Zellwegs plays......

This week, Sarah Michelle Gellar is back for more creepy girls hiding in her hair in the new sequel, The Grudge 2. Amber Tamblyn plays her sister, who also travels to Tokyo and is also infected by the grudge inducing curse. While both American versions of the Grudge movies were directed by their Japanese creator Takashi Shimizu, it would seem that the better material would be in the originals, so we suggest renting those instead.......

The stories coming out of the courthouse where lawyers are trying to select jurors for John Gotti Jr.'s trial continue to be amazing. Apparently, the potential jurors have been less than smart, with Judge Scheindlin saying about one juror, "He wasn't the brightest bulb." And then Gotti's lawyer said, "We've had that a lot." There there was the juror, a "self-taught criminologist," who collected gangster memorabilia - he got bumped. Judge Scheindlin has been upset......

The bright lights and craft services tables have worn out their welcome in DUMBO. The Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting have put a moratorium on production in the neighborhood. Current productions are allowed to finish. Driven by its "gritty urban realism, old factory buildings and sweeping views of Manhattan and the East River," DUMBO has been the go-to NY location for many production companies, but its popularity brings the conundrum of simultaneously wanting......

It'll be a while before we see Tim Burton's version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, but till then, there is Big Fish, about a young man trying to understand his dying father's life (more at Greg's Movie Preview). Albert Finney plays the father, with Ewan McGregor playing the father as a young man, and Billy Crudup as the son; Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman play the mother......

If it's fall, it must be time for the New York Film Festival. This year, the opening night film is Mystic River, the ensemble drama directed by Clint Eastwood. The cast is ridiculously loaded with great actors: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laurence Fishburne. The story is dark, eliciting comparisons to Eastwood's tour de force western, Unforgiven, but its present day setting makes it more wrenching. Sean......

PowerPoint, the bane of many an office wonk's existence ("I can animate this slide with builds and sound effects - just give me an hour") gets reinterpreted by David Byrne in his new book and DVD, David Byrne: E.E.E.I. (Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information). Unlike office wonks, David Byrne gets to look at PP with new eyes and use it in funny, "artistic" ways, like using an outline of Dan Rather's head (unless you work......

News comes that Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah will perform at the Oscars, but not Renee Zellweger. Apparently she declined, and, Ms. Zellweger, we thank you for that. She even admitted not wanting to sing - in a Guardian article, she said, "I was not going to sing for anybody besides my dogs when I'm in the shower, and then Rob Marshall comes along and that was it." Damn you, Rob Marshall! I like Renee......