Frozen River (movie)

* Native American actress says break new ground at Cannes * Misty Upham says starring at festival is a dream fulfilled * French director Desplechin's fourth film to compete By Belinda Goldsmith CANNES, May 18 (Reuters) - Native American actress...

Harsh conditions, tough choices, improbably modelesque cheekbones. In writer-director David Riker's drama, Abbie Cornish plays the poverty-line Texas mother of a preteen. The boy has been placed by Social Services with a foster parent, until this big-box-...

At the Tribeca Film Festival, Abbie Cornish's The Girl continued the actress trend toward difficult and dark dramas...

If you think golf is boring -- a movie about golf filled with religious and sports clichés -- will probably bore you, too. This is a story about a recently turned pro golfer (Lucas Black, who I last remember seeing as the child who befriends Karl in...

Hilary Swank is at her best in working-class, little-people roles, and she's found another one with "Conviction," the real-life story of Betty Anne Waters, who put herself through law school on an 18-year fight to clear her brother of a murder rap....

What a mother. Hell-to-pay-if-you-cross-her fierce and with more fire in her belly than either of her sons, or certainly that is the way actress Melissa Leo brought Alice Ward to life in David O. Russell's gritty "The Fighter." Though the fighter in...

For a not-so-brief moment, the Oscars became "The Kirk and Melissa Show." In an evening marked by predictability, Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas and veteran actress Melissa Leo provided perhaps the most spontaneous — and bleeped — sequence...

Being first out of the gate often matters a lot in the Oscar derby. "Frozen River" and "Little Miss Sunshine" reaped top nominations in 2008 and 2006, respectively, after being the first DVDs shipped to academy members. This year, that distinction goes to...

Oscar hopes run high now that "Winter's Bone" received three nominations from the Gotham Independent Film Awards. That's the same number as "The Hurt Locker" reaped last year before it romped at the Oscars. "The Hurt Locker" won best picture at both...

OK,now that the great wave of Oscar-buzzed movies have made themselves known, either in festivals or preview screenings, where do we stand? Are there ten best picture candidates sitting, front and center, here in mid-November? I think so. Here's my take...

That old adage about awards and nominations getting an actress's phone ringing has never been more true than in the case with Ms. Leo. The  “Frozen River” star parlayed that success to dazzling turns in three awards-worthy films this holiday....