“Woman Rebel” shows how one soldier challenges Nepalese tradition and also stakes a political claim. She’s not just soldiering. She has a cause. Read more>>

“The Extra Man” flies one freak flag too many. Read more

Nanny McPhee Returns establishes standard class differences between the country cousins and the city cousins — even as both sets of children are in need of retraining by the daunting Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson). Read more>>

Rarely do sequels equal or exceed expectations but this comedy does, offering broad slapstick that’s guaranteed to elicit laughter from small children and their parents. Emma Thompson reprises the magical character she created in 2005’s “Nanny McPhee,” based on Christianna Brand’s “Nurse Matilda” books, not only starring but also writing the screenplay, as she did with the original. Read more

I’m really on the fence about The Switch. I think there are two movies inside this romantic comedy. There’s one plot I dislike for being cliché, boring, ridiculous and helping to spur even more tabloid stories about poor Jennifer Aniston (thank you very much). But there’s also a tender story about a man who loves a woman so much he’ll wait years for her – and, after falling instantly in love with a little boy – will do anything to make the lad’s world complete. Read more>>

It’s remarkable how much 18-year-old Kevin has in common with Ice Cube’s Craig (from Friday), as well as how few structural or political changes have occurred over the past 15 years. Read more>>

New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT) is awarding the newly established Loreen Arbus Disability Awareness Grant to a woman filmmaker with disabilities or to a women filmmaker for a film on disability issues. Read more

The documentary shows how these “average Americans” are all performers in more ways than one. Read more>>

This stirring documentary is a real world response to popular narrative dance films like those in the “Step Up” franchise. My advice: watch “Espiritu De La Salsa at home,” where you can step up and join the dancing if you want to — and, trust me, you will want to dance. Read more>>

Now I have to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir - because this tepid travelogue of a self-involved yuppie writer can’t be what’s inspired so many women. Read more