
After two previous Oscar nominations, former Dawson's Creek star-turned-in-demand-Hollywood-actress Michelle Williams looks set to three-peat, playing iconic screen legend Marilyn Monroe in the new film, My Week With Marilyn. Adapted from a memoir by Colin Clark, the film takes viewers behind the scenes on the ill-fated 1957 British film The Prince and the Showgirl, which co-starred Monroe and Laurence Olivier (played by Kenneth Branagh here). The two repeatedly clashed during the shoot and Monroe sought solace by briefly befriending Clark (Eddie Redmayne), then a young production assistant. My Week With Marilyn director Simon Curtis spoke with us about Williams' take on Marilyn and why The Prince and the Showgirl probably should never have been made.

No kids allowed...

There were many reasons to dislike Tim Burton's 3D-enhanced (but 1D-executed) version of Alice in Wonderland, but chief among them was the fact that it felt like a Tim Burton movie in name only. The production design and costumes had the familiar Burton touch, but the film itself was practically anonymous -- the personality bled out by the director and his backers at Walt Disney Studios to better ensure mass market appeal. (Of course, considering how poorly the more traditionally Burton-esque Dark Shadows turned out, maybe that wasn't such a terrible thing after all.) So whatever its problems, Disney's newest family blockbuster Oz the Great and Powerful trumps Alice in that it's recognizably a Sam Raimi picture. Granted, it's not exactly the same Raimi who made The Evil Dead back in the day, but his interests and particular set of skills still manage to stand out amidst the big-budget spectacle instead of getting swallowed up by it.

A slow weekend at the multiplex gives you time to catch up with some of the indie features -- like Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz -- currently playing at an art house or video on demand service near you.
