Sexy Dresses

Running time 100 minutes
rated PG-13
includes Binus Features
Special Edition DVD Movie

Frankie (Ione Skye) is looking for a man "with the soul of a poet and eyes like Frank Sinatra." Her world is black and white--literally in this film--until the blue eyes of David (Mackenzie Astin) enter the cafÃ© where she works with her uncle and cousin. But Frankie's about to leave San Francisco for L.A. with her best friend, Allison (Jennifer Aniston), where they'll both become actresses. Time is running out for Frankie to convince David that she's the love of his life.

Unfortunately for Frankie, and this film, the lackluster plot and trite characters don't give her much to work with. The dialogue is atrocious (Frankie says, with complete sincerity, "I'm going to circumnavigate his soul until he's anchored on all sides by my love"), and her character is so utterly spoiled and! obnoxious you can't understand what David--or her friends--see in her. What makes the film all the more disappointing is the promising cast. Jennifer Aniston is underused, and Michael Landes does the best he can with his clichÃ©d role as a gay man who desperately wants to come out to his father but can't work up the courage. Dream for an Insomniac tries too hard to be the kind of hip '90s love story that films such as Walking and Talking and Naked in New York succeed in being. --Jenny Brown In this charming critically-acclaimed tale of first love, Lloyd (John Cusack), an eternal optimist, seeks to capture the heart of Diane, an unattainable high school beauty and straight-A student (Ione Skye). He surprises just about everyone-including himself-when she returns the sentiment. But Diane's over-possessive, divorced Dad (John Mahoney) doesn't approve and it's going to take more than just the power of love to conquer all.Seven years after he earned ! his first screen credit as the writer of Fast Times at Ridg! emont Hi gh, former Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe made his directorial debut with this acclaimed romantic comedy starring John Cusack and Ione Skye as unlikely lovers on the cusp of adulthood. The casting is perfect, and Crowe's rookie direction is appropriately unobtrusive, no doubt influenced by his actor-loving, OscarÂ®-winning mentor, James L. Brooks. But the real strength of Crowe's work is his exceptional writing, his timely grasp of contemporary rhythms and language (he's frequently called "the voice of a generation"), and the rich humor and depth of his fully developed characters. In Say Anything... Cusack and Skye play recent high school graduates enjoying one final summer before leaping into a lifetime of adult responsibilities. Lloyd (Cusack) is an aspiring kickboxer with no definite plans; Diane (Skye) is a valedictorian with intentions to further her education in Europe. Together they find unlikely bliss, but there's also turbulence when Diane's fa! ther (John Mahoney)--who only wants what's best for his daughter--is charged with fraud and tax evasion. Favoring strong performances over obtrusive visual style, Crowe focuses on his unique characters and the ambitions and fears that define them; the movie's a treasure trove of quiet, often humorous revelations of personality. Lili Taylor and Eric Stoltz score high marks for memorable supporting roles, and Cusack's own sister Joan is perfect in scenes with her onscreen and offscreen brother. A rare romantic comedy that's as funny as it is dramatically honest, Say Anything... marked the arrival of a gifted writer-director who followed up with the underrated Singles before scoring his first box-office smash with Jerry Maguire. --Jeff Shannon

Louis Ives (Paul Dano) heads to New York City following an embarrassing incident that forces him to leave his job. He rents a room in the apartment of Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline), a penniless, wildly eccentric playwright. Additionally, he accepts a position with an environmental magazine, where he encounters green-obsessed co-worker Mary (Katie Holmes). But it s Louis new home life with Henry tha

Inspired by one of the world s most iconic families, this eight-part scripted drama/miniseries ventures upstairs at the White House to chronicle the saga of America s first royal family during the 1960s.It's not hard to see why the History Channel declined to air The Kennedys after members of America's "royal family" objected to the series' more salacious aspects. To be sure, there are plenty of them: drug habits, mobsters, election fixing, enough philandering to shame Tiger Woods, bad behavi! or ranging from cynical manipulation to outright crueltyâ€¦ and Marilyn Monroe. But it's not as if these things haven't been covered at length elsewhere. And in any case, this is hardly a documentary; the eight-part miniseries, which spans the years from just before World War II to 1968, has been variously described, including by the filmmakers themselves, as "history through personality" and "a Greek tragedy," with a dose of hagiography added for good measure. The emphasis on the personal approach (commingled with major political events like the Bay of Pigs debacle, the Cuban missile crisis, and the forced integration of the University of Mississippi) is something of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there's something appealingly juicy about being privy to the private conversations of this very public family; but at the same time, the dialogue created for such scenes is often on the nose ("Men can't say no to me," Monroe says as she tries to seduce Robert Kennedy), melodr! amatic, and risibly portentous ("I've never been so happy in m! y life," says Jackie Kennedy to her husbandâ€¦ as Air Force One lands in Dallas on November 22, 1963).

The complete absence of Edward Kennedy--who is never mentioned, let alone seen--is peculiar; sisters Kathleen, Eunice, and Jean are also nowhere to be found. That leaves the primary focus on paterfamilias Joseph Kennedy Sr., wife Rose, sons Jack and Bobby, and Jackie, and the portrayals of these near-mythic characters are among the best ever filmed. Tom Wilkinson plays Joe as a thoroughly ruthless, imperious kingmaker who, after his own and eldest son Joe Jr.'s presidential ambitions are ended (Sr. was fired from his post as British ambassador after disagreeing with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's war policies, while Jr. died in combat), forces the reluctant JFK to enter politics. As Jack, Greg Kinnear beautifully conveys the late president's humor, charisma, and compassion, while Barry Pepper is a revelation as the rebellious but strait-laced and dutiful Bobby, whose princip! al responsibility seems to be cleaning up after his older brother's many sexual indiscretions (Katie Holmes's long-suffering Jackie is a bit of a cipher, as was the first lady in real life). That these and other performances, including Diana Hardcastle's Rose and Don Allison's Lyndon Johnson, are in the service of material better suited to a soap opera than a serious drama hardly matters; any way you look at it, The Kennedys is compulsively watchable and never less than entertaining. --Sam GrahamANNIE HAS THE GIFT. SOME FEAR HER, OTHERS CLAIM SHE'S A WITCH. BUT NOW, A MURDER HAS BEEN COMMITTED AND ONLY SHE CAN SOLVE IT. ON A TWISTED TRAIL OF OPEN INFIDELITY AND JEALOUS RAGE, SHE SEES VISIONS THAT WILL HAUNT HER AND DISCOVERS A TRUTH THAT WILL TEAR THE TOWN APART.Take a pinch of psychic phenomenon, add a dash of Southern gothic, stir in a sharp cast of talented actors, and you'll come up with The Gift, director Sam Raimi's ingenious gumbo of a thriller. ! It doesn't hold together as well as Raimi's earlier A Simpl! e Plan, but the two films are stylistically connected--The Gift was cowritten (with Tom Epperson) by A Simple Plan's costar, Billy Bob Thornton, who in turn draws from the Deep South milieu that informed his own Sling Blade and his earlier collaboration with Epperson, One False Move. A similar sense of mystery permeates The Gift, in which a small-town Georgia psychic (perfectly played by Cate Blanchett) is tormented by tragic loss and visions connected to the murder of a local vamp (Katie Holmes) whose schoolteacher fiancÃ© (Greg Kinnear) is a prime suspect.

Other suspects include a hot-tempered bully (Keanu Reeves) whose battered wife (Hilary Swank) is one of the psychic's regular clients, and a traumatized local (Giovanni Ribisi) who is tenuously stabilized by therapy and antidepressants. While this trio of potential killers keeps the mystery alive, the requisite red herrings don't add much to the film's low-level suspense. Instead, Raim! i is far more effective in creating an atmosphere of anxious dread that wells up from each of these finely drawn characters, starting with the widow psychic's extended mourning for her lost husband, the agonized terror of a beaten wife, and the percolating anger of a cuckolded spouse. All of this makes The Gift a worthy showcase for its esteemed cast, even as its plot twists grow increasingly familiar. --Jeff Shannon "Once Upon A Time there lived a lovely girl named Samantha. She had everything she could possibly wish for, and lived in a beautiful white house. The White House Katie Holmes stars as First Daughter Samantha Mackenzie _ a sheltered young woman who just wants a normal school experience, away from the influence of her parents. Only trouble is, her dad (Michael Keaton) is the President of the United States! But nothing will stop Samantha, so, under Secret Service surveillance and a nonstop media glare, she meets _ and falls hard for _ a handsome stud! ent who has a secret existence of his own."Playing the preside! nt's kin in the modern fairy tale First Daughter is the most grown-up role yet for Dawson's Creek cutie Katie Holmes. Samantha McKenzie (Holmes) has lived all her life on the edge of the political spotlight, but she hopes that she'll get away from it all when she leaves the White House for college. No such luck. Even though she's able to make friends with her roommate (singer Amerie) and meet a nice guy (Marc Blucas), security is tight in an election year, and the Secret Service follows her wherever she goes. First Daughter isn't particularly original (it was the working title for Mandy Moore's Chasing Liberty, which opened in theaters earlier the same year, 2004), but it's a chuckle-inducing girlie movie that's worth watching for Holmes. Also, Michael Keaton is especially likable as a president and dad. That's a big change for Holmes, who as Dawson's Creek's Joey Potter was a poster child for daughters with dysfunctional fathers. --David ! HoriuchiYou can admire Abandon more for what it attempts, as opposed to what it actually achieves. Making his directorial debut after winning an OscarÂ® for scripting Traffic, screenwriter Stephen Gaghan emphasizes character dynamics and time-shifting structure over action and plotting, and the results are intelligent but oddly detached. As a recovering alcoholic detective (Benjamin Bratt) is assigned to reopen the two-year-old disappearance of an arrogant college student, we're drawn into the thoughts and emotions of the missing person's former girlfriend (Katie Holmes), whose behavior--especially when her volatile ex-boyfriend suddenly reappears--is key to the slowly unfolding mystery. Abandon is all about mood and atmosphere--shadowy gloom is dominant throughout--and viewers may grow impatient as the tissue-thin plot leads to an anticlimactic revelation. Still, Gaghan's sharp dialogue draws fine work from Holmes, and his supporting cast (especial! ly Zooey Deschanel and Melanie Lynskey, as fellow students) ad! ds much- needed energy on the fringes of this lugubrious psychological thriller. --Jeff ShannonOscarÂ® winner Anna Paquin and Katie Holmes lead an all-star cast in The Romantics: a generational â€œdramedyâ€ about friendship, rivalry and loyalty. Alliances are tested when seven college pals reunite to watch two of their own say â€œI doâ€ at a seaside wedding. But the maid of honor (Holmes) and the groom (Duhamel) share a passionate history, and the bride (Paquin) isnâ€™t the only one whoâ€™s wondering if itâ€™s all in the past. Based on the acclaimed novel by Galt Niederhoffer, The Romantics proves that nothing complicates friendship like love. The Romantics sets up a delicious premise, a reunion for a wedding of two of a group of college friends, now making their way in their late 20s. In the vein of movies like The Big Chill, Peter's Friends, and Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Romantics has friends who may not exactly be friends, marriag! es that may not exactly be happy, and longing passions that may not exactly be secret. The all-star cast includes Katie Holmes (who gives a real leading-actress performance here, behind her sleek glamour), Anna Paquin, Josh Duhamel, Malin Akerman, Elijah Wood, Adam Brody, Dianna Agron, and Candice Bergen. Paquin is the blushing (and insecure) bride, Holmes her maid of honor, and Duhamel the groom-to-be who had a long romantic past with Holmes's character. Is that passion truly behind them? The groom's wedding weekend might not be the best time to find out, but that's what makes The Romantics compulsively watchable.