JANUARY 2006

LAST HOLIDAY: Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Timothy Hutton, Gerard Depardieu, Alicia Witt, Giancarlo Esposito (Directed by Wayne Wang; Written by Peter Seaman and Jeffrey Price; Paramount) Last year, in “The Ladykillers,” Tom Hanks played the wannabe master robber first played by Alec Guinness in the 1955 film bearing the same title. This year, the role that the incomparable Guinness played in 1950’s “Last Holiday” is being played by the incomparable Queen Latifah. What’s the role? A dutiful, hard-working American sales clerk who decides to take a European vacation when she’s diagnosed as terminally ill. Naturally, she knocks the socks off those Euroslugs with her wit, courage and determination to have fun, fun, fun. To read Diane Baroni's 1991 interview with Gerard Depardieu, click here. Now Playing

GLORY ROAD: Josh Lucas, Derek Luke, Austin Nichols, Jon Voight, Evan Jones, Schin A.S. Kerr, Alphonso McAuley, Emily Deschanel (Directed by James Gartner; Written by Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois; Disney) Seemingly from out of nowhere, El Paso’s unheralded Texas Western college basketball team blazed a path to victory and wound up stealing the 1966 national championship title from UCLA. The all-black team’s triumph was largely responsible for the subsequent integration of college basketball throughout the south, and more than a little credit for this major advance goes to Don Haskins. He’s the white coach who fought bigotry and made many personal sacrifices in order to stand by his men. Haskins is played by Josh Lucas, and Derek Luke is cast as high hooper Bobby Joe Hill. To read about many more new biopics, click here. Now Playing

TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK & BULL STORY: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Jeremy Northam, Shirley Henderson, Gillian Anderson, Stephen Fry, Ian Hart, Kelly Macdonald, Naomie Harris, Elizabeth Berrington, James Fleet, Kieran O’Brien, Stephen Rodrick (Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Written by Martin Hardy; Picturehouse Films) “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,” Laurence Sterne’s stubbornly uncategorizable 18th-century classic, is a dark, bawdy, frequently hilarious work of art that no sane director would dare attempt to translate to film. Yet that’s what Michael Winterbottom, the daring auteur of “Jude,” “Welcome to Sarajevo,” “Wonderland,” “24 Hour Party People,” “9 Songs” and the upcoming “Road to Guantanamo,” has done. Or so it seems. The film, said to be respectful, bold and smashingly entertaining, mixes passages from the novel depicting Shandy’s outrageous life and times with contemporary scenes showing the frustation and panic of the cast and crew as they struggle to complete their absurd shoot. Jeremy Northam, a much underrated actor, drew the plum role of director Winterbottom (who, for reasons unknown, answers to the name of Mark in the movie). Opens 1/29