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Popular magazines for people of color are gaining ground in mainstream publishing. Editors of three top magazines for women of color — Essence, East West and Latina — talk about the mission of their publications.

Adrienne Shelly's comic fable, about a pie-baking genius discovering her inner strength, is by turns amusing, implausible and optimistic.

The film version of Susan Minot's novel about two women who hear their mom's deathbed murmurs about a long-lost love — and how she killed a man in her youth. Vanessa Redgrave and Meryl Streep (plus their daughters Natasha Richardson and Mamie Gummer) combat a melodramatic script.

In this installment of Summary Judgment, a roundup of movie critics' verdicts from the online magazine Slate, we'll hear about Hostel: Part II Ocean's Thirteen and Surf's Up.

The premise of Knocked Up is as blunt — as basic — as its title: An attractive and newly successful TV correspondent becomes pregnant after a drunken one-night stand with Ben, who's not just unsuitable but an unholy monument to self-indulgence. Judd Apatow's film is conventional, even conservative, but somehow it plays like one of the hippest movies ever made.

Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) is king of the dirty-minded-but-sweet relationship comedy, and the chemistry in his latest makes for a screwball movie with a pretty big heart.

Bug, the new psychological thriller from Exorcist director William Friedkin, got its start as a paranoia-driven stage play by actor-writer Tracy Letts. The film version features Ashley Judd as well as Michael Shannon, who starred in the Off-Broadway production.

The Van Cliburn Foundation's Fifth annual International Competition for Outstanding Amateurs is underway this week. NPR's John Ydstie talks to one of the semifinalists, 46-year-old Greg Fisher, a former child prodigy who has worked at his family's glass and mirror installation company in Edmond, Okla., for the past 30 years.

Virginia filmmaker Tom Davenport is best known for his movie adaptations of Brothers Grimm fairy tales — set in Appalachia. Now he spends much of his time making sure people see the work of other filmmakers. His Folkstreams.net is an online archive for documentaries on a range of folk culture, virtually all of them impossible to find anywhere else.

Director Emanuele Crialese is a neorealist with a touch of magical realism to him; he takes his cues from the great art films of the '60s, and this gorgeous coming-to-America picture offers up a feast of imagery to match the almost boundless optimism of its characters. (Recommended)