The Movie Blog

When Tamara Drewe sashays back to the bucolic village of her youth, life for the locals is thrown upside down. Tamara — once an ugly duckling — has been transformed into a devastating beauty (with help from plastic surgery). As infatuations, jealousies, love affairs and career ambitions collide among the inhabitants of the neighboring farmsteads, Tamara sets a contemporary comedy of manners into play using the oldest magic in the book: sex appeal.

A house wife with little knowledge of horse-racing fosters one of the greatest race horses of all time as the story of the 1973 Triple Crown winner comes to the screen in this inspirational underdog drama starring Diane Lane and John Malkovich. Penny Chenery (Lane) is a devoted mother and housewife whose ailing father is the proprietor of Meadow Stables in Virginia. When her father becomes too ill to tend to his horses, Penny agrees to take over the stables despite her inexperience. Desperate, she turns to veteran horse trainer Lucien Laurin (Malkovich) to help show her the ropes. Up to this point, horse racing has been a decidedly male-dominated sport. But with Lucien’s help, Penny prepares to prove that gender has no bearing on one’s ability to breed a fast race horse. As Secretariat blasts out of the gates to leave his competition in the dust, the whole world watches in amazement, and a legend is born.

In the sleepy town of Riverton, legend tells of a serial killer who swore he would return to murder the seven children born the night he died. Now, 16 years later, people are disappearing again. Has the psychopath been reincarnated as one of the seven teens, or did he survive the night he was left for dead? Only one of the kids knows the answer. Adam “Bug” Heller was supposed to die on the bloody night his father went insane. Unaware of his dad’s terrifying crimes, he has been plagued by nightmares since he was a baby. But if Bug hopes to save his friends from the monster that’s returned, he must face an evil that won’t rest… until it finishes the job it began the day he was born.

Standup comic Robert Schimmel, a frequent guest on Howard Stern’s radio show, has died after suffering serious injuries in a car accident. He was 60.

A man accused of showing up at Paris Hilton’s house wielding two knives has pleaded not guilty to attempted felony burglary.

Actor Chris Klein, who starred in the “American Pie” movies, pleaded no contest to drunken driving and will serve four years probation stemming from his arrest in June.

Charlie Chan might be getting a new lease on life as a popular character, but some storied depictions of minorities in pop culture haven’t aged as well. Below, five of the most dated and stereotyped characters in movies, cartoons, and literature.

After the Swedish original earned raves, Matt Reeves (CLOVERFIELD) directs this remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. In Tomas Alfredson’s 2008 film, a lonely 12-year-old finds a friend in his new neighbor, a girl who happens to be a vampire.