Writer/director Laurent Firode‘s 2000 film Happenstance (Le Battement d’ailes du papillon) is a fabulous French-language romantic comedy starring Audrey Tautou, one of my favorite actresses, as Irene, the leading character. It is a romantic comedy that uses its simplicity to showcase the elements of Chaos Theory or the Butterfly Effect, where one action leads to a series of progressively larger actions so that, for example a butterfly in Indonesia can cause a hurricane in Florida.

The Incredibles was an amazing family-friendly action-adventure comedy that still managed to stuff in some adventure and action here and there.  It can truly be something that entertains the entire family and not something that is simply child-friendly and adult-tolerable.

Elf is a wholesome holiday comedy that tells us the story of a human raised by elves at the North Pole.   Buddy, skillfully played by Will Ferrell, is mistakenly brought back to the workshop after crawling into Santa’s toy bag.  He is adopted by Papa Elf (Bob Newhart) and raised like an elf until he discovers that he’s actually a human.

Along Came Polly is the most recent film in Hollywood’s long tradition of cookie-cutter plots.  Reuben Feffer, portrayed by Ben Stiller in a rather mediocre performance, lives a comfortable, if cautious life where his professional efforts are so focused on the prevention of any type of risky behavior that he lives a very quiet and very carefully planned life.

The third and final installment of Baz Luhrmann‘s “Red Curtain” trilogy is the first musical in recent memory to capture public notice. Moulin Rouge is the story of a young writer named Christian (Ewan McGregor) trying to get a break in 1899 Paris. The focus of the Bohemian community in which he resides, is a nightclub called the Moulin Rouge, where Satine (Nicole Kidman) is a dancing courtesan.