Nicholas Hoult in Jack the Giant SlayerJACK THE GIANT SLAYER

It happened to Hansel and Gretel. It happened to Red Riding Hood. It happened to Snow White. (It happened to a couple of Snow Whites, actually.) And now it's Jack, of "... and the beanstalk" fame, who's getting a pricey, kitschy, effects-filled makeover, serving as protagonist for director Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer. At the rate this trend is going, I can hardly wait for the inevitable big-budget updating of The Pied Piper with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, and Harvey Fierstein taking on the role of a lifetime in The Frog King.

Emily Watson and Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk LovePUNCH-DRUNK LOVE

Punch-Drunk Love is exactly what its writer-director, Paul Thomas Anderson, claims it to be - "an art-house Adam Sandler movie" - yet I can't be alone in thinking: What's the point of that? Is Anderson merely trying to show up the hacks who've directed Sandler in other films? (Again: What's the point?) All throughout, the movie is beautifully filmed, exquisitely composed, and filled with Anderson's uncanny knack for stretching a scene out longer than it should humanly run and making you hang on every delirious second of it.

Minnie Driver and David Duchovny in Return to MeRETURN TO ME

There's so much goodwill built into Return to Me - the promise of an audience-pleasing romantic comedy, the likability of the cast, the presence of director/co-writer/co-star Bonnie Hunt, the prospect of David Duchovny smiling - that I feel like something of a heel for saying that the movie itself is pretty crummy.