Anne Pick

Natalie Portman is amazing. The 29-year-old actress has perfectly crafted her career – making stunning choices for the films she stars in and her most recent project doesn't find her veering off course. Black Swan stars Portman in a both mentally and physically challenging role as Nina, a ballerina who is cast as the Swan Queen in a ballet troupe's revamped production of Swan Lake. While the storyline may leave you a bit confused, there will be no question when you leave the theater that Portman should run away with the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Finally, the gods of Hollywood have fulfilled one of my biggest hopes and dreams in cinema – Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie are staring together in a movie. As pathetic as that may sound, you know you were secretly hoping for the same thing. The big question looming on everyone's minds though: Will they have the kind of chemistry we've made up for them in our twisted, celebrity-obsessed consciousness? And will the movie itself live up to our fantasies? Here's how The Tourist stacks up:

Burlesque takes place during present day, which was a shock to me, as the trailer made it seem like it was the roaring '20s. The movie employs a story that's all too familiar – Ali (Christina Aguilera) moves from middle America to Los Angeles in order to make it big and escape the confines of her small town.
While searching for a job as a singer or dancer, she stumbles upon The Burlesque Lounge, where she instantly falls in love with the idea of performing on their stage. Despite being turned down for an on-stage job, she grabs a tray and waitresses her way into a job slinging drinks. Ali lives on Bartender Jack's (Cam Gigandet) couch and through studying the girls' dance moves is able to convince the lounge owner, Tess (Cher), to give her a dancing job.

Here's the problem with romantic comedies: Most of them are so formulaic that you can anticipate the plot of the entire film before you even step foot inside the theater. To the contrary, the best romances are rarely comedies. Still, every couple of years we're treated to a truly entertaining romance like The Notebook or When Harry Met Sally. Love and Other Drugs is neither of these, but stands above most romantic comedies because of Anne Hathaway's stellar performance.

It seems that several literature-to-film series are coming to an end and, finally, looming questions will be answered. This week both the final Harry Potter (or at least the first half) opened in theaters as well as the more adult The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Whereas fans of the Harry Potter series have waited patiently through six previous films, followers of the Millenium series were treated to all three Swedish-language films over the course of 2010.

Morning Glory's Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) is relatable, but at the same time her character is flawed. We all know her, or at least we've all met someone exactly like her. She (or he) was the person sitting in the front row in every class. She's enthusiastic about her job and she's incredibly driven. For those of us who studied broadcasting, it goes a little further because we know someone who is a Becky Fuller incarnate – the person who was always the first in the editing room and the last to leave, and when they said they'd someday work for The Today Show, you believed them.

I recently read an article in the New York Daily News, in which Due Date director Todd Phillips divulges that the secret ingredient to making a great comedy is danger, and by danger he means the element of surprise. Anyone who's watched his smash hit The Hangover can agree with that statement, but when it comes to Phillips' most recent film, it would be fair to say he played it safe, rather than dangerous. Sure, cars are flipped and stolen, and the odd-couple duo of Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis face danger in the most physical sense of the word, but the storyline and comedy are anything but dangerous.

It seems just about everyone is on Facebook these days. From your mom to your grandma to your boss, people you don't necessarily want to share every aspect of your digital identity with have sent you a friend request, but they aren't the only ones. You're also inundated with messages from people you've never met. Even before Facebook, the Internet provided a platform for people to “meet” other people from all over the world. We're more connected than ever before, but how do we know the people we are connecting with online are really who they say they are, and what happens when our “friends” aren't being exactly truthful about who they are? Earlier this month, The Social Network showed us the beginnings of a website that changed the way the world communicates. Now, Catfish takes that medium and documents the way it can be used to manipulate our perception of reality.

Jackass reminds me of high school. Not only because its target audience is high-school-aged boys, but also because when I was of that age my friends and I would watch the Jackass TV show for hours, laughing hysterically. Sometimes you just need a good laugh and as the guys of Jackass have learned, a guy getting kicked in the groin by a donkey is sure to win a few gut-busting chuckles.