"The Woman in Black"

Richard's Review: 4 stars

Once again Daniel Radcliffe finds himself butting heads with the supernatural. No the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort haven't come back to haunt him, but a certain forlorn female ghost has. It's not quite "Harry Potter Meets the Woman in Black," but it's almost as entertaining.

Radcliffe is lawyer Arthur Kipps. Leaving his son behind in London, the widower travels to a remote English village to settle the affairs of Alice Drablow. Ms. Drablow may have shuffled off this mortal coil, but the locals are convinced she still haunts her old house. Worse, because she still mourns her son Nathaniel -- a toddler who drowned on her estate, whenever she is seen a village child dies. His presence at her home, the dilapidated Eel Marsh House, stirs up her spirit and soon the local children start dropping like flies. The question is will he be able to get to the bottom of her sad tale before his son arrives and becomes a victim of the curse?

Based on Susan Hill's novel of the same name and interpreted by the storied Hammer Films, "The Woman in Black" is letter-perfect gothic horror. A sad gloom hangs over the entire picture, from the perma-dour look on Radcliffe's face --his own son draws a picture of him with a downturned mouth explaining, "That's the way you look daddy" -- to the melancholy mist that envelopes the town and the dark shadows that colour every scene.

As haunted houses go, this is a doozy. It's remote, old and rambling. Doorknobs turn by themselves, faces appear in windows and there are stuffed monkeys and creepy Victorian wind-up toys everywhere. With toys like this to play with it's a wonder Victorian kids weren't scared half-out-of-their-minds all the time.

Add to that the titular ghostly presence and you have a movie with lots of scares, but not the kind we've become used to. "The Woman in Black" revs up anticipation, playing on its ample atmosphere to create an aura of tension. When the frights do come, they're effective because we're primed for them. It's an anti-torture-porn movie, an old-school horror film -- there's no blood and guts -- but the shocks are effective and lasting.

Radcliffe is in virtually every scene and despite a lack of dialogue -- most of the key scenes in the house are completely silent save for some spooky music -- he anchors the film. It's difficult not to see Harry Potter in his face, but here he takes a good stride away from the typecasting of his most successful role.

"Big Miracle"

Richard's Review: 3 stars

Like the title suggests, "Big Miracle" is a big movie with big stars like Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski, big ideas, culture clashes, network news parodies and a big running time at almost two hours. But most of all it has a big heart.

Krasinski plays Adam Carlson, an ambitious television reporter paying his dues in Alaska. When he uncovers a story about three whales trapped beneath the ice in the remote community of Barrow the story goes national, attracting the attention of everyone from his ex-girlfriend, a Greenpeace activist played by Drew Barrymore, to an oil baron (Ted Danson), the American public and Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev (Favorite line in the movie? "Gorby, it's Ronnie!").

"Big Miracle" has many story threads running throughout. The plight of the whales is the starting point for the film to examine the culture of the north, the ruthlessness of the news business, the Cold War co-operation between the US and Russia and the oil business. There's even a love story thrown in for good measure.

This many ideas shouldn't really work, but somehow the film's earnestness helps everything gel. No great answers are provided and most everything is painted in broad, family-friendly strokes. But like I said in the intro, the film has heart and in this case that goes a long way.

It also has to be noted that the whale puppets used throughout are smarter and have more soul than many of the human characters. Barrymore, in particular, seems like a hysterical stereotype rather than an effective activist. But it's worth getting past her histrionics to catch a glimpse of a certain Alaskan celebrity who makes a brief, unexpected cameo near the end.

"W.E."

Richard's Review: 2 stars

In recent years, filmmakers haven't been content to simply tell one story. Recently, Steven Soderbergh semi-successfully wove together a multitude of storylines to create the germ-o-phobic tapestry of "Contagion." The film "360" sees Anthony Hopkins leading an enormous cast of characters vying for screen time.

Madonna is a little less ambitious in "W.E.," melding only two stories together. But it's still one too many.

Cutting between 1990s New York and the scandalous 1930s love affair between Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) and King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy) that shook the world, the film struggles to make a connection between the two story threads.

In New York Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish) is a desperate housewife married to a doctor. Wally becomes obsessed with the decades-old love story. She visits Sotheby's every day, admiring the Simpson artifacts up for auction. There she meets a handsome security guard (Oscar Isaac) who helps her see happiness through her fog of depression.

Running parallel to this is Simpson's story.

If you squint and look very closely you may be able to find a thread of logic that connects these two stories. As presented, it's a stretch. The Winthrop story is tiresome and takes away from the historical aspect of the story, which, in light of the recent success of "The King's Speech," might have worked as a love story.

The film is sumptuously laid out and shot, but Madonna (who also co-wrote the script) seems content to ignore Simpson's Nazi sympathies and some of the unseemly aspects of her relationship with Edward. Nonetheless Andrea Riseborough as Simpson and James D'Arcy as Edward acquit themselves quite well. It's just a pity they don't have a more focused movie to showcase their talents.

"Albert Nobbs"

Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars

The title character of "Albert Nobbs" is described as "the strangest man I ever met," which makes sense because he's actually a woman. Glenn Close, in an Academy Award nominated role, plays a woman who escaped a life of poverty by dressing as a man and taking a job at Morrison's Hotel in 19th century Dublin.

When Albert meets the house painter Hubert Page (Janet McTeer), another woman living in drag and married to a woman, he is encouraged to escape the shackles of conservative Ireland and live a happy life. Her fatal attraction is Helen (Mia Wasikowska), a young maid who has eyes for the handsome new handy-man Joe Macken (Aaron Johnson).

Close played the part of the fastidious butler Nobbs on stage 30 years ago and one can only imagine that the intervening years have deepened the performance. She embodies not only the physicality of the man, but the spirit as well. It's a stunner of a performance, equally ingrained with repression, gentleness and secrecy.

Unfortunately, the towering performances from Close and McTeer are blunted somewhat by a script that isn't as interesting as the character study that is at the center of it.

It stumbles when it tries to address the larger issue of female poverty in a male-dominated society and simply takes too long to make any point at all.

"Albert Nobbs" is a noble failure, a movie with great performances that wants to be important but is ruined by a shallow script.