Film

By BARBARA VANCHERI
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
When news of Princess Diana rousts the queen from bed, her husband reacts like an exasperated parent. "What's she done now?" Prince Philip barks.

By BARRY PARIS
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Sexual antics and existential angst of post-9/11 twentysomething New Yorkers merge at the "Shortbus" stop in this steamiest, most sexually graphic American feature film yet made outside the porn industry.

Director John Cameron Mitchell, creator-star of the cult musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2001), for better or worse fulfills the age-old filmmaker's dream of integrating hard-core stuff into a "mainstream" dramatic picture _ real people having real sex in a plethora of creative couplings, while also having real emotional relationships.

It starts off brilliantly, with the niftiest title-sequence intro to New York City since "West Side Story," followed by the heavy-breathing intro of our main characters: ex-hustler James (Paul Dawson), his hunky but dull boyfriend Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and sex therapist Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee).

Mitchell has said he wanted to make a film in which sex wasn't negative, "a small act of resistance against Bush and the America we live in."

Okaaay.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006
A guide to movies from a family perspective:

"Catch a Fire"

_ Rated: PG-13.

_ Suitable for: Mature high-school juniors and older.

_ What you should know: This movie tells the real-life story of Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), an apolitical oil-refinery foreman, family man and soccer coach in 1980s South Africa.

By PHIL VILLARREAL
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
"Bull Durham" was seemingly made with a cosmic destiny: to be one of those movies that bars play at night with the sound off.

Bar law: Any conversation can be broken up with an instant tug on the shoulder.

By CARLA MEYER
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
The wrenching documentary "Deliver Us From Evil" explores the mind of a pedophile as it accuses the Catholic Church of failing to protect children. The film also serves as a kind of time capsule, evoking a more innocent era, before the church abuse scandal rocked the country and inspired greater cynicism.

In the film, Bob and Maria Jyono of Lodi, Calif., speak of gladly letting the Rev.

By PHIL VILLARREAL
Monday, November 06, 2006
"Running With Scissors" is a movie for those who like their coffee black and their humor blacker.

The film makes you laugh, and feel bad for laughing, only to blindside you with another sick joke.

Queen bee and Oscar hopeful Annette Bening ringleads the sick circus as the worst mother a kid could ever survive.

Psychological torture is rarely as funny as it is in the film, directed by Ryan Murphy (TV's "Popular" and "Nip/Tuck"), who adapted the Augusten Burroughs memoir.

By PHIL VILLARREAL
Monday, November 06, 2006
"Conversations With God," a drama based on the writing of Neale Donald Walsch, whose books have sold 7 million copies, is not quite a movie.

It's more of a 109-minute commercial for Walsch's 1995 book "Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue."

The bland, Hallmark Hall of Fame-style film will inspire some.

By PHIL VILLARREAL
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
"Conversations With God," a drama based on the writing of Neale Donald Walsch, whose books have sold 7 million copies, is not quite a movie.

It's more of a 109-minute commercial for Walsch's 1995 book "Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue."

The bland, Hallmark Hall of Fame-style film will inspire some.

By BRUCE DANCIS
Sunday, November 05, 2006
What is a scary movie?

A bloodstained gorefest of severed body parts?

A movie where zombies (or snakes, rats, worms, slugs) take over the earth?

An expertly made suspense thriller like Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"?

Any movie starring Jessica Simpson?

What's frightful and horrific remains totally subjective.