Miranda Richardson

[7] Director Tim Burton puts his stamp on Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, casting his Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands star Johnny Depp in the role of Ichabod Crane. In this retelling, Crane is a 1799 New York forensic investigator sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a string of murders. The townspeople tell him the victims are decapitated and their heads haven’t been …

[5] If you love the Muppets, this eighth Muppet movie won’t disappoint you too badly, though it’s far from their best effort. Director James Bobin (Flight of the Conchords) and writer Nicholas Stoller return for their second entry in the franchise, after the great success of 2011’s The Muppets. This time, Kermet is replaced with the world’s most dangerous frog, a Russian gulag escapee named …

[9] The Hours is a fascinating exploration of three women living in different times and different places, each of them struggling to find their personal bliss against the pressures and expectations of marriage and motherhood. The film is a meditation on death and sacrifice — obviously not the kind we associate with men on the battlefield, but the quiet, stifling kind suffered by people, traditionally …

[8] Spielberg explores World War II through the eyes of a young British boy (Christian Bale) separated from his parents in Shanghai and forced to live in a Japanese internment camp. For a director who often celebrates innocence (and sometimes wallows in it), it’s nice to see a darker examination of the subject. In Empire of the Sun, innocence isn’t just lost.  It’s almost shattered.