Film

Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code is second only to the Harry Potter series as the best-selling novel of all time. It has inspired a whole slew of writing on Biblical puzzles, the life of Mary Magdalene, and some debunking of Brown's premise.

Now comes the long-anticipated film, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou. Our film critic says that the real story about this mega-budget movie is that it's an embarrassing nonevent.

Our film critic reviews Down in the Valley, the new film by writer/director David Jacobson, starring Edward Norton, David Morse, and Bruce Dern.

Director and choreographer Busby Berkeley was noted for Hollywood musicals featuring lots of scantily clad show girls filmed from overhead in intricate kaleidoscopic patterns. After seeing some of these films again in a new DVD collection, our critic notices a connection between Berkeley and the avant-garde artists of an earlier generation.

Our film critic reviews Mission: Impossible III, starring Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Four films by French director Louis Malle, who died in 1995, have been released on DVD by Criterion. They include Elevator to the Gallows, his first feature, and a new boxed set with Murmur of the Heart, Lacombe, Lucien and Au Revoir Les Enfants. Our critic at large says that watching these films years after their release made him see Malle in a different way.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews United 93, the dramatized version of events on the plane that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after being hijacked Sept. 11. Learning that other planes had been flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, passengers fought back for control of the plane.

Jeff Goldblum recently returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa., to star alongside his new girlfriend in a two-week run of The Music Man. Directors Chris Bradley and Kyle LaBrache filmed Goldblum's escape from celebrity, resulting in a genre-bending documentary with appearances by Ed Begley, Jr., Illeana Douglas and Moby. Goldblum talks about Pittsburgh, which he produced.

Director Paul Weitz's new film, American Dreamz, satirizes American Idol and stars Dennis Quaid as a dimwitted U.S. president who goes on the show in an effort to save his falling approval ratings. Weitz's other films include American Pie and About a Boy.

Filmmaker Liz Mermin's new documentary, The Beauty Academy of Kabul, is about a group of American hairdressers who open a beauty school in Afghanistan to teach local women how to cut hair and apply make-up, thus making them financially independent.

Catherine Keener recently won a second Oscar nomination for her performance in Capote and appeared in the popular comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Now, she stars in Friends with Money, her third collaboration with writer-director Nicole Holofcener.

British actress Helen Mirren, perhaps best known for her long-running role as Det. Supt. Jane Tennison on TV's Prime Suspect, has had two quite closely related roles recently. She plays Elizabeth I in a new HBO four-part miniseries premiering April 22; then she appears as Elizabeth II in The Queen, a film from Stephen Frears.

The Notorious Bettie Page explores the life of the 1950s pin-up queen, who posed for under-the-counter men’s fetish magazines, and for photos and films for private collectors into the bondage scene.

Bettie Page was considered the "pin-up queen" from 1950 to 1957, based on photographs of her in the men's magazines Wink, Beauty Parade and Titter. Director Mary Harron discusses her new film about Page, The Notorious Bettie Page.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Friends with Money, the new film by writer/director Nicole Holofcener who wrote and directed Lovely & Amazing and Walking and Talking.

Sharon Stone returns as a gorgeous novelist (and apparent psychopath) in a sequel to her 1992 smash hit Basic Instinct. This time, she's matching wits and sexual techniques with British actor David Morrissey instead of Michael Douglas. David Edelstein has a review.

Actor Seymour Cassel has roles in the new TV series Heist and the film Lonesome Jim. Cassel, who comes from a showbiz family, has been acting in film and TV since 1959. His mother worked in Burlesque, and Cassel grew up backstage, amid chorus girls and sequins.

L'Enfant is a new feature film from Belgian filmmaking brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes.

Actor Andre Braugher stars in the new series Thief, which debuts at 10 p.m. Tuesday on FX. Braugher plays Nick Atwater, leader of a small gang of thieves. Braugher is best known for his work on the TV series Homicide: Life on the Streets.

Two new documentaries probe the effects of outside influences on third-world countries. In Our Brand is Crisis, the arrival of U.S. campaign consultants threatens the outcome of a Bolivian presidential election. And Darwin's Nightmare is about the devastation of Lake Victoria in Tanzania.