Mona Lisa Smile / Americas Sweethearts (2005)

Beautiful photography of the picture-perfect Wellesley campus combined with a perpetual parade of lovely period costumes makes MONA LISA SMILE a visual delight. Strong performances by each of the actresses, including Dunst uncharacteristically cast as a prim and proper prude, and Marcia Gay Harden as a boring tv-addicted spinster, only add to the splendor of this enjoyable film.

AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS: Gwen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Eddie (John Cusack) are AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS, two wildly popular celebrities who share their love on and off the screen in this farcical romantic comedy. But a messy breakup sends Eddie to a New Age Hollywood healing center and Gwen into the arms of her current affair, a Spanish hunk short on charm (Hank Azaria). When their relationship troubles begin to threaten their superstar celebrity status and the release of their final film together, the studio heads call in legendary press agent Lee Phillips (Billy Crystal) to take charge of the troubled film's press junket. Julia Roberts costars as Kiki, Gwen's personal assistant and sister who has always lived to please her demanding diva sister. Once overweight and severely self-conscious, Kiki's life revolves around her sister's ridiculous demands in this sendup of ego-driven movie star vanity, penned cleverly with cynical insider wit by Crystal and Peter Tolan. Phillips manages to gather the warring superstars and gaggles of press together at a remote desert location for the all-important press junket where his best-laid plans begin to unravel in this hilarious parody of the movie industry replete with neurotic actors, eccentric crazed directors (Christopher Walken in a gem of a cameo), maniacal studio heads, and gossip-starved press who will do anything or anyone for the next big story.