New reviews from The Movie Snob:

p.s. (C-). My better judgment was to avoid this movie because its plot is so similar to that of the terrible Nicole Kidman vehicle Birth. But I plunged in anyway, mostly because it stars Laura Linney, whom I have liked ever since seeing her for the first time in the wonderful You Can Count on Me. I thought I saw somewhere that there’s some other connection between that movie and this one, maybe the same producer or something. But Linney’s fine performance can’t overcome the inherent problems of the storyline. In this movie, Linney is Louise Harrington, admissions director of Columbia’s fine arts program. Her life, which appears none too happy, is thrown into turmoil by the appearance of the grad-school application of one F. Scott Feinstadt (Topher Grace, of That 70’s Show), who turns out to be the spitting image of Harrington’s long-deceased high-school sweetheart (who was also named Scott Feinstadt). Harrington quickly departs from the approved admissions process where young Feinstadt is concerned, and other disturbing behavior by other characters is discussed if not actually shown on screen. I liked it better than Birth, probably because this apparently reincarnated lover is at least in his early 20’s, instead of being ten. And I think the characters in this movie react to the bizarre coincidence of Feinstadt’s existence a little more believably than the characters in Birth did to their mystery boy. Still, is p.s. a good movie? No. Do yourself a favor and go rent You Can Count on Me instead.

Titanica (D+). While I was home for Thanksgiving, I made my usual pilgrimage to Arkansas’ only IMAX theater to check out the new movie. It turned out to be this very old and not very good movie about the Titanic. The focal point was a 1987 Soviet (!) expedition to the wreck, and there was some decent footage from the expedition’s deep dives to the site. And interspersed throughout the film were a few comments about the wreck from a survivor of the disaster (she was seven at the time). But the movie felt very padded, and ended quite abruptly. James Cameron’s 3-D IMAX movie about his expedition, Ghosts of the Abyss, was much better and more informative.