Mike Newell

Some books put up one hell of a fight on the way to the multiplex, and they're not always the ones you'd expect. Ever since "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, much has been written about the difficulty of adapting...

"HARRY Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is no stand-alone film or even part of a constantly reinvented franchise like James Bond. Rather it's a cog in a brisk, well-oiled machine, the fifth in what ultimately will be a series of seven films that...

For fans of "Prince of Persia," the long wait for a theatrical movie release just got a bit longer. According to the industry trade papers, Disney has pushed back the release of its Jerry Bruckheimer-produced video game adaptation from June 19, 2009 to...

Hollywood loves salable series, and as vital as Harry Potter, Shrek and the Transformers might be to the bottom line, the studios are increasingly embracing an even more established and often better-selling franchise: the video game. Friday's opening...

With the fantasy kicked up a notch and a new director, Harry Potter catches 'Fire.'It's taken them long enough, but the movies have finally gotten Harry Potter right. Despite the reported $2.7 billion earned by the series' three previous attempts, it's...

Ever since Richard Curtis and Mike Newell perfected the British rom-com with "Four Weddings and a Funeral," other writers and directors have been trying to re-create that film's perfect blend of giddy character comedy, swooning romanticism and deftly...

Cartagena de Indias, Colombia — THE suitor was determined, impassioned, even obsessed. But however fervently he pressed his case, he couldn't win over the object of his desire. Time and again he was told: I will not yield to you, not now, not ever....

Friday April 23, 1999      With the manic world of air traffic controllers as a backdrop, it's both fitting and unnerving that "Pushing Tin" has the feel of a near-miss. It's an intriguing film, one of the year's most interesting, but involving as much...

Friday February 26, 1999      When people celebrate New Year's Eve, they feel they've just got to have fun--and that of course means having someone important in your life to enjoy it with. Director Risa Bramon Garcia and writer Shana Larsen, in their...

Friday September 10, 1999      "Best Laid Plans" is a sharp contemporary noir thriller that may be a tad too clever for its own good at the finish, but getting there is sufficiently tense and intriguing that you may not mind too much that the overly...

Friday March 31, 2000      "What came first," Rob Gordon (John Cusack) desperately wants to know, "the music or the misery?"      Over-stimulated by the sounds coming out of his outsize headphones, morose Rob is seizing the moment of his breakup with...

"I Capture the Castle" is a singular experience. It's a rich, emotional story, a wonderfully appealing film made with humor and intelligence, but there is also something almost magical about how it takes the stuff of innumerable previous films —...