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In an interview with People magazine about her new book “By Any Other Name,” author Jodi Picoult revealed her inspiration for the novel came from the “terrible experience” she had with the 2009 film adaptation of “My Sister’s Keeper.”

“It kind of goes back to when I had a really terrible experience turning ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ into a film,” Picoult said. “It took me a long time to kind of wrap my head around the fact that they didn’t ruin my book. My book is still there. And anyone who reads my book is still getting the story that I intended.”

“My Sister’s Keeper,” starring Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin, sits at a 47% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. However, former Variety film critic Justin Chang gave a glowing review upon its release in 2009, writing, “Unsubtle, uneven and undeniably effective, this take-no-prisoners cancer weepie poses a fascinating moral quandary — a girl...

Normally, Nicholas Sparks adaptations are nothing to get excited about, but the cast that is coming together for The Longest Ride, Fox’s latest attempt to find Notebook-style success with a tearjerker from the prolific author, is unusually interesting. We previously reported that Scott Eastwood (yes, son of Clint), Boardwalk Empire actor Jack Huston and acting veteran Alan Alda had boarded the project in leading roles, joining Game of Thrones actress Oona Chaplin and Under the Dome star Britt Robertson, and now we’ve learned that Lolita Davidovich has also signed on.

Davidovich, who recently appeared alongside the late James Gandolfini in HBO original movie Cinema Verite, will play the protective mother of Eastwood’s character, a cowboy who goes out during a blizzard in a race against time to save his family ranch and the love of his life (Robertson). His path intersects with that of an imperiled older...

• Rosa Salazar (Parenthood) has joined the cast of Insurgent as Lynn. Currently filming in Atlanta, the Divergent follow-up from director Robert Schwentke (R.I.P.D.) will again star Shailene Woodley (The Fault in Our Stars), Theo James (Underworld: Awakening), Miles Teller (The Spectacular Now), Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars), Kate Winslet (Labor Day), Jai Courtney (Jack Reacher), and Zoe Kravitz (After Earth), as well as newcomers to the series Naomi Watts (The Impossible), Daniel Dae Kim (Lost), and Octavia Spencer (The Help). In the book, Lynn is described as a bitter Dauntless-born initiate with a shaved head, eyebrow piercing, a tough attitude,...

Lifetime Original Movies have earned a reputation for being movies made for women that usually involve a disturbing amount of brutality towards women. Plot-lines often include domestic abuse, rape, and ripped-from-the-headlines crimes. The Jodi Picoult Collection, which includes Salem Falls, Plain Truth, and The Pact, doesn't exactly break from this trend. Salem Falls is about a high school soccer coach falsely accused of raping an underage student. In Plain Truth, a high-power attorney takes on a murder trial of an Amish girl accused of killing her baby. Finally, The Pact follows a teen couple who make a suicide pact and only one of them dies. While the Lifetime Original Movies might have a weirdly addictive quality to them, the Jodi Picoult Collection is empty TV calories at its best and utterly depressing schlock with anti-woman tendencies at its worst.

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By Allen Gardner

A Separation (Sony) This drama from Iran won the 2011 Best Foreign Film Oscar, telling the story of a couple who file for a legal separation, with the wife pushing for a divorce. He won’t leave his Alzheimer’s-afflicted father behind, while she is wanting to take their young daughter with her to the United States. After a series of misunderstandings, threats and legal actions, the couple find that there is more than just their marriage that’s on the line. Hyper-realistic to a fault, reminiscent of the neo-realist films that came out of post-ww II Europe, but also repressive and redundant in the extreme, with the characters seeming to throw the same temper tantrum for two hours straight while the story, meanwhile, seems stalled. Wildly overpraised film is a real litmus test, with viewers seeming to be staunch defenders or equally impassioned detractors. It did win an Oscar,...