entertainment - "movies"

'In Search of a Midnight Kiss' manages the difficult task of making Los Angeles appear more like Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' than seemed possible. The city keeps a lot of the desolate character that movies always seem to find when they hole up in downtown LA. But a swoony kind of urban surrealism flourishes while its two main characters prattle and ...

It's 6:30 p.m. on a Friday in Los Angeles. The car ferrying actor Terrence Howard has just left the landmark Orpheum Theatre, the downtown backdrop for such movies and TV shows as 'Dreamgirls' and 'American Idol.' It's where Howard will return the next morning to direct the video for 'Sanctuary,' the soulful love ballad/lead single from his debut album, 'Shine Through It.'

Two much-touted releases that focus on women's relationships and personal desires didn't merely succeed at a time when multiplexes ...