Movies: Return to “Narnia” | Newsweek Movies

Year of the Cougar
Ramin Setoodeh 6/18/2009 12:00:00 AM
Sandra Bullock has fallen in love with so many men, she could give Elizabeth Taylor a run for her money. Let us count the ways: There was the time she was an FBI agent posing undercover as a beauty-pageant contestant and ended up under the covers with her partner (Miss Congeniality). Or when she tried to quit her job as a lawyer, only to be seduced by her nasty British boss (Two Weeks Notice). Or when she worked as a subway fare collector who rescued an unconscious man who had amnesia, pretended to be his fiancée and actually decided she'd rather marry his brother (While You Were Sleeping). Whoa. Falling in love like that can really wear you down, and Bullock certainly has the years to show for it. She's up to her same bag of tricks in the new romantic comedy The Proposal, in which she plays a bitchy Canadian book editor who pretends to be engaged to her assistant so that she can get a work visa to stay in America. There's a new wrinkle this time, though, and we're not talking about Sandra's face. Her love interest in the film is Ryan Reynolds. In real life, he's 32. Bullock is (care to guess?) 44 years young. But shh—don't tell anyone. The plot doesn't even mention the age difference, the studio wouldn't talk about it in an interview and Bullock even gets naked for the first time on the big screen, as if to say, "Look at me, I've still got sex appeal."
Alternative Medicine
Allison Samuels 6/11/2009 12:00:00 AM
On a set in Inglewood, Calif., will Smith busts out of his trailer door and yells at the top of his lungs, "Woman, come rub my feet!" He's speaking, loudly and in jest, to his dynamo of a wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who proceeds to dismiss him by saying, "Don't pay that fool any attention—he has no sense." She should know. She is his boss. In a bit of role reversal, Smith is working on the set of his wife's new project, Hawthorne, a TNT drama about a nurse in your typically (make that stereotypically) chaotic urban hospital. Pinkett Smith, 37, is both the show's star and co–executive producer (along with Will). If the show succeeds, she will arguably become the most powerful black woman in prime-time TV. Before Hawthorne and HBO's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency debuted a few months ago (starring Jill Scott), it had been 35 years since an African-American woman was the lead in a TV drama (Teresa Graves in Get Christie Love!).
MOVIES
Enterprise Ethics
Marc Bain 5/6/2009 12:00:00 AM
Despite whatever robots and aliens roam the landscapes of science fiction, the genre's real subject has always been people. Since "Star Trek" first hit the airwaves in 1966, the show has worked as part of this tradition, using extraterrestrial settings to ask ethical and philosophical questions about the way people behave. In this way, the TV series commented on most of the big issues of the past 40 years: war, sexism, racism, animal rights, the environment, religion, sexuality.
KIDS
Where the Wild Things Die
Jesse Ellison 4/18/2009 12:00:00 AM
There's a scene early in the gorgeous new documentary "Earth" in which a wolf stalks a caribou calf through the grasslands of northern Canada. The chase, filmed in slow motion, feels epic. At points the calf seems on the verge of escape. Then, in a blink, its little legs buckle. The movie doesn't show what happens next, but in the theater where I saw it, everyone got the point—including the little girl sitting in front of me, who jumped into her father's lap and buried her face in his neck. She was terrified. So was I.
ENTERTAINMENT
Spring Movie Guide
4/4/2008 12:00:00 AM
Indiana Jones, Speed Racer, the Incredible Hulk and Carrie Bradshaw? Talk about a power-packed spring. Admit it, that John Williams' "Raiders" theme is already stuck in your head. Not only are the characters big, but the directors—Spielberg and the Wachowski brothers among them—bring heft to this spring's blockbusters. So grab your popcorn (don't forget to check to see if the film is playing at an IMAX theater) and get ready to have your mind blown.
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