Catherine Zeta-Jones and Gerard Butler in Playing for KeepsPLAYING FOR KEEPS

In director Gabriele Muccino's dramatic comedy Playing for Keeps, Gerard Butler portrays a former star athlete who hopes to reconnect with his ex-wife and son by coaching the kid's pee-wee soccer team, and who is consequently forced to (try to) resist the advances of a trio of beautiful, aggressive, lascivious soccer moms who can't keep their hands off him. This, in the language of Hollywood screenwriters, is what is known as "a problem."

BraveBRAVE

Like many of you, I'd imagine, I applaud Pixar for finally giving audiences a strong female protagonist in Brave, and would've looked forward to the movie itself more had the trailers not been so resoundingly blah. But what I'd forgotten was that several of the animation studio's best outings - Finding Nemo, WALL•E, Toy Story 3 - were also promoted with weak previews, and so it's a pleasure to say that this Scotland-based adventure is one of Pixar's most involving and interesting achievements in years, partly because those generically jokey trailers give you almost no idea of what's actually in store.