James Marsden

Emmy winner Allison Janney is making the move from White House drama to Baltimore song-and-dance, joining the ensemble of New Line's "Hairspray." According to Variety, Janney will play Prudy Pingleton, ultra-conservative mother of Amanda Bynes' Penny...

"Me and You and Everyone We Know" 3 ½ stars (out of four) "Heights" 2 ½ stars (out of four) We are all alone. We e-mail our cubicle mates instead of talking. We screen calls. We watch reality TV. Reality weddings, if we're being honest. We wear...

Of the many things I have enjoyed over the course of the "X-Men" franchise, the regular, dead-serious use of the word "mutant" has been my favorite. "Mutant" is the champagne of teen insults, and "X-Men" holds a special place as the paragon of teen misfit...

Jim Broadbent's run in "Hairspray" appears to have been a short one, as fellow Oscar-winner Christopher Walken has replaced him in the New Line pic. According to Variety, Walken has now been signed on to play Wilbur Turnblad in the Adam Shankman-directed...

"Superman Returns" is a hummingbird in reverse. The tiny beast shouldn't be able to fly but does, while the massive movie should soar but only sporadically gets off the ground. Though "Superman Returns" is the first motion picture about the Man of...

The first voice you hear in Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" is the late Marlon Brando's Jor-el, recorded for Richard Donner's 1978 "Superman." The first music you hear is John Williams' triumphant Oscar-nominated theme from Donner's film. The credits,...

HBO is setting out to find God, via an adaptation of Vertigo Comics' popular 1990s series "Preacher." The network has begun developing an hour-long series based on the comic, about a disillusioned minister who, after merging with a supernatural being...

"Lies & Alibis" isn't as jaunty as its title and dilutes a serviceable premise for a mild diversion that just lapses into confusion. Directors Matt Checkowski and Kurt Mattila and writers Noah Hawley and Collin Friesen work up more complications than...

The prose in Nicholas Sparks' romantic potboiler "The Notebook" isn't simply purple — it's a violent purple, as blue-black and slobbery as a chow's tongue. A triumph of kitsch emotion and easy-does-it style, the book vaulted up bestseller lists on...

Friday July 24, 1998      Movies like David Nutter's "Disturbing Behavior," written by Scott Rosenberg, the author of last summer's worst movie, "Con Air," are the reason valet parking attendants in Beverly Hills leave scripts on the seats. They give...

Friday July 14, 2000      To be a teenager is to feel different, misunderstood, perhaps even a bit of a mutant. It was the gift of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the creators of the Marvel comic decades ago, to realize with "X-Men" that conflicted...

Monday January 29, 2001      "Sugar & Spice," which New Line Cinema released Friday without benefit of advance screenings for critics, despite appearing to be just another cheerleader flick is also amusingly subversive, thanks to sharp writing and...