Matthew Mcconaughey

FOR THOSE not hip to L.A. writer Michael Connelly's series of crime books, "The Lincoln Lawyer" refers to a defense attorney who operates out of his limo. The lawyer in question is Mick Haller, who wheels and deals on the freeway as he's ferried to various precinct jails and courtrooms, trying to keep lower-rung biker/dealer clients out of prison. Connelly's lived-in characters have the reportorial feel of observed truth, captured in this gritty adaptation by (Lafayette Hill native)

"13 Conversations About One Thing" is too busy with philosophical trickery to come out and tell us what that one thing is. Happiness? Fate? Disappointment? Connection? Take your pick; it doesn't seem to matter. Generally overintellectualized (with one sublime exception), the conversations fall from the mouths of mostly disillusioned New Yorkers whose paths cross tangentially. All of them do something they come to regret. A Columbia professor (John Turturro) cheats on his wife (Amy Irving)

The road movie has become a path rutted with familiarity. In taking an elephant walk in Larger Than Life, Bill Murray promises a whole new direction but ends up going pretty much nowhere. Larger Than Life follows in the large footsteps of Operation Dumbo Drop. The Disney comedy, set during the Vietnam War, dropped an elephant in the war zone on the reasonable assumption that after the megatonnage of bombs unloaded by the United States, no one would notice. With Larger Than Life, it would be reasonable to assume that Murray, owner of the deadest pan in the business, could put a little more pep in pachyderm humor than Ray Liotta and Danny Glover managed in Operation Dumbo Drop.

The one "thing" in Jill Sprecher's stunning, provocative and meditative Thirteen Conversations About One Thing might be happiness. But it might well be something even more intangible: fate. Looking at this multicharacter film from certain angles, you might say happiness is the impossible goal and fate is the irregular playing field. Set in contemporary Manhattan, Sprecher's film features Alan Arkin (so superb as to inspire awe), Matthew McConaughey, Amy Irving and Clea DuVall as New Yorkers whose lives don't so much intersect as accidentally bump into one another.

He's a good dad, Mr. Meiks. A widower with two sons, he works hard at the garage in the little Texas town, comes home, and has supper with his boys. He tells them stories and beams love at 'em in ways that seem good and sound and pure. And then one night in Bill Paxton's satisfyingly creepy Frailty, Dad (Paxton, making a deft directorial debut) wakes his kids with an urgent declaration: He's had a vision, he's been chosen by God. There are demons among us and God has appointed him to root them out and smite them down.

Bald and bearded, tattooed and testosteroned, Matthew McConaughey struts into the murk of Reign of Fire chewing a stogie and shouting "Lock and load!" Moving like a cartoon robot (and delivering his lines like one), McConaughey plays a rogue U.S. Army dude named Van Zan - a cocky dragonslayer come to help a commune of weenie Brits cowering in a castle as squadrons of flying beasts exhale napalm on what's left of the world. A clunky conflation of Mad Max post-apocalyptic hysteria and medieval dragon hoo-ha, Reign of Fire begins in present-day London, where construction workers unwittingly unleash winged reptiles from the bowels of the Earth.

When "The Wedding Planner" opened in Los Angeles earlier this week, party planner to the stars Alyse Sobel watched with all the excitement of a first-time bride about to march down the aisle. Sobel, who coordinated the nuptials of such Hollywood stars as Blair Underwood and Marlee Matlin (not to each other), is the real-life wedding planner upon whom Jennifer Lopez's character is loosely based. The film is about a high-profile wedding planner who has all but given up on love until she meets a pediatrician played by Matthew McConaughey, whose wedding she is coordinating.

Considering the wild weekend of professional football we just witnessed and the promise of more this week, the timing of this DVD couldn't be better. Two for the Money peers into the world of gambling from the perspective of a sports-betting advisory company. Think of these guys as stockbrokers for gamblers. They don't actually take bets - which would be illegal in all but one state. They just give advice to gamblers and make their money on a percentage of the winnings. Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey)

Do man-boy movie execs wish Al Pacino were their dad? Teamed with baby-faced Chris O'Donnell in the schmaltzfest Scent of a Woman, teamed with dude-ish Keanu Reeves in the satanic hoot The Devil's Advocate, teamed with Johnny Depp in the excellent Donnie Brasco, teamed with Colin Farrell in the forgettable The Recruit - Al Pacino has, in the last decade, played the gruff, guttural, middle-aged mentor to a slew of young star mentees. So, nothing new in Two for the Money, in which Matthew McConaughey is Brandon Lang, a red-hot sports handicapper who goes to work for Walter Abrams (Pacino)

Dating and diamonds. With these infinitely fascinating topics, how bad can How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days be? Not bad at all, actually. It's just that, despite a few clever insights and twists, it's neither good nor distinctive enough to rise above the level of generic romantic comedy. This, despite appealing performances by Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. And despite a hilarious turn by Bebe Neuwirth as a venomous New York magazine editor, a viper with a black bob. The premise of the film recalls a joke made by that sage Rita Rudner.

FOR THOSE not hip to L.A. writer Michael Connelly's series of crime books, "The Lincoln Lawyer" refers to a defense attorney who operates out of his limo. The lawyer in question is Mick Haller, who wheels and deals on the freeway as he's ferried to various precinct jails and courtrooms, trying to keep lower-rung biker/dealer clients out of prison. Connelly's lived-in characters have the reportorial feel of observed truth, captured in this gritty adaptation by (Lafayette Hill native)

Brad Furman had a dilemma. His low-budget indie debut, "The Take," starring John Leguizamo, had received good reviews and positive buzz at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Furman was being considered a director on the rise. After years directing shorts and music videos and working behind-the-scenes for Julia Roberts, he didn't want to make a bad decision on his follow-up project. "I was struggling not to make the wrong choice," Furman said this week by phone from Los Angeles.

Every time I write off Matthew McConaughey as a set of abs best suited to play a shirtless cad (see: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past , How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days ), he reminds me of how resourceful an actor he is. When the drawling Texan leaves that pigeonhole, he soars. As the bottom-feeder attorney in The Lincoln Lawyer, a twisty, cleverly plotted thriller based on the crime novel by Michael Connelly, McConaughey acts with his head and body. His legal eagle is a predator, all right, but one who retracts the talons in favor of mind games.

From: Gonzalez, John How do you guys feel about the staggered MLB playoff format? It's done so that TBS can show more games, which is ostensibly for the viewers/fans. But the Rangers and Yanks both took 2-0 leads in their respective series before a single pitch was thrown in the Braves-Giants clash. I didn't mind since it took me a day to remember where TBS is in my cable system. At least MLB was smart enough to have the Tim Lincecum Show on prime time. I've seen the Tim Lincecum production before.

AFTER SCORING a success at the Toronto International Film Festival a couple of years back with his low-budget indie "The Take," Lafayette Hill-raised filmmaker Brad Furman fell victim to the vagaries of film financing, with projects announced then halted, developed then put in turnaround. He has a new movie, however, with "The Lincoln Lawyer," based on the novel by Michael Connelly. The legal thriller is set to start shooting in July with Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, William H. Macy and John Leguizamo (star of "The Take")

There are comedies. And then there are Matthew McConaughey comedies, which should be judged by a different standard. Both dance to the beats of attraction, resistance, reversal and romantic resolution. Typically, though, the McComedy relies on Himself's shirtlessness and little else. This creates an impression of McConaughey as one of sculpted pecs and flabby character. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a broad variation on the theme of A Christmas Carol with McConaughey as bug-eyed, Scrooge-y womanizer Connor Mead, tapped as best man at the wedding of his brother, Paulie (Breckin Meyer)

When a Christmas-season movie like "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" is released in the midst of a heat wave, you know something's gone seriously wrong. Hard to say what that something was, for "Ghosts" is a rom-com updating of "A Christmas Carol," but it's obvious that not much has gone right. Start with casting - Matthew McConaughey plays Connor Mead, a celebrated photographer and womanizer who arrives in snowy New England to attend the wedding of his younger brother (Breckin Meyer)

Firestorm of a few pounds No one ever talks about Matthew McConaughey's extra five pounds, if he ever has them, or Brad Pitt's love-handles. Or Steve Carell's extra curves. Ah, but if women are involved, the whole world asks: Who's gaining? Who's losing? And whatever does it all mean? After Jessica Simpson seemed a trifle fuller at a concert Sunday - nice, mind you, more woman than pencil - the bloggers slammed her. How dare she show curves?! Is she preggers? Is she letting herself go?

Tonight Philly will join a dozen North American cities - from Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles to Houston, Chicago and Pittsburgh - to offer an Asian American Film Festival. It's about time, say festival organizers Joe Kim and Franklin Shen, two young local filmmakers who will launch the inaugural Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival (PAAFF) tonight at 7 in University City. It starts with a screening of the critically acclaimed drama Far North, starring Dirty Sexy Money's Michelle Krusiec and Hong Kong movie legend Michelle Yeoh at the Bridge movie theater.