A Valley woman's dying wish was fulfilled this Mother's Day weekend, thanks to the Dream Foundation.

If you watch the trailer for “Renoir” – a new period drama from French filmmaker Gilles Bourdos – a variety of adjectives are bound to come to mind: conventional, humdrum, lackluster. Sure, they’re trying to sell the story of one of the all-time great painters in a mere two minutes, but nothing about it grabs your attention – let alone, compels you to sit through the actual film. Luckily, this is not exactly the case for the movie itself, which is exquisite to look at but unfortunately devoid of any real insight into Pierre-Auguste Renoir. You come wishing to learn about the artist and his work, but instead leave dwelling on the film’s more engaging supporting characters.

It’s been nearly 10 years since his science-fiction indie “Primer” left audiences spellbound, which makes the arrival of Shane Carruth’s “Upstream Color” an even more momentous occasion.

Practically a childhood right of passage, “A Wrinkle in Time” is a book a lot of adults can credit with sparking a love for science fiction and fantasy — or at least introducing words like “mitochondria” and “tesseract” to their vocabulary. Whether you want to acquaint your own kids with the beloved story or just take a trip down memory lane, you can see the stage adaptation of Madeline L’Engle’s 1963 Newbery Medal-winning book in Tempe.

It's a given at multiplexes these days that despite switch-off-your-cell-phone announcements and the occasional grumbling protest, whatever's onscreen will have to compete with tiny pockets of light from audience members unable to stay off their handhelds. Watching those glow patches come and go during "Disconnect" reinforces the film's position on how desensitized we've become to these technological intrusions. Not that Henry-Alex Rubin's schematic multi-strand drama is at all shy about articulating its themes.

Early in the sleek sci-fi thriller "Oblivion," Tom Cruise, as a flyboy repairman living a removed, Jetsons-like existence above an invaded and deserted Earth, intones his home sickness.

Just about everyone has them — family stories. Yours may be a sweet account of how Grandpa proposed to Gram, or only a whisper of something bad that happened that no one ever seems to want to talk about.

The same local dance company that takes audiences deep into vampire territory each autumn with its acclaimed "A Vampire Tale" is going into uncharted waters.

The judge in Jodi Arias' murder case on Thursday denied a defense motion to order jurors sequestered for the remainder of the trial during a bizarre week when one panelist was removed and videos emerged of Arias' parents telling authorities she has mental problems.

It may not be as mainstream a form of expression these days as, say, Instagram, but poetry, that old-fashioned art of arranging language to create an emotional response through meaning, sound and rhythm, is alive and well.

The Oscars were announced a mere week ago and pundits are already making bets on whom to expect in the 2014 lineup. While it may seem premature, I can’t say I blame them – we have yet another killer batch of films in-store, one that will surely give 2013’s nominees a run for their money. “Fruitvale,” “August: Osage County,” “Wolf of Wall Street” and a couple dozen more are in the pipeline, all of which you’ll want to keep on your radar for fall if they weren’t there already.

I am trying to find a way to legally copy DVDs we own to an external hard drive for storage connected to my laptop. When we take long road trips it would be nice to not have to haul all our movies along. — Bill

This week's "Jack the Giant Slayer," a 3-D retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk legend, contains all the elements of the classic tale: farm boy, beans, giants, etc. But along for the ride is a new character, Princess Isabelle, played by Eleanor Tomlinson.

If you had told me a month ago that my Oscar predictions would look anything like this, I probably would have advised you to go do a little more research. “Argo” poised for the Best Picture win sans a Best Director nod? Unthinkable. Emmanuelle Riva and Naomi Watts as viable Best Actress contenders against youthful powerhouses like Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain? You’re pulling my leg.

“Snitch” is a movie that knows what it wants to say, but fails to get its message across in an unconventional fashion. The film is loosely based on a “Frontline” documentary about Joey Settembrino, an 18 year old who was sentenced to a minimum of ten years in prison for selling LSD. The government offered Joey a reduced sentence in exchange for the names of drug dealers high up on the totem pole. Since Joey was unwilling to cooperate, he had no other alternative but to serve his time. James Settembrino, Joey’s father, did everything he could by independently digging up dirt on drug abusers and drug distributors. His attempts to free his son were futile for the most part though.

By now it's clear that nothing and no one can kill Bruce Willis, whose fifth film in the "Die Hard" franchise, the horribly titled "A Good Day to Die Hard," opened last week.

SAN FRANCISCO — What happens when you ask a group of food world luminaries to come up with their picks for Best Food Scene in a movie?

Potted Potter — The Unauthorized Harry Experience — A Parody by Dan and Jeff: Take a fly-over of the seven Harry Potter books in this funny retelling of the popular fantasy series, featuring the main characters, a fire breathing dragon and a game of Quidditch.

“I’ll always have part of my heart there,” director Sam French says, discussing his move back to Los Angeles after working for nearly five years in Kabul, Afghanistan. It’s a Wednesday afternoon and French is swamped with interviews following the recent Oscar nomination for his live-action short film “Buzkashi Boys,” a portrait of two young teenagers living in modern-day Afghanistan who dream of playing the dangerous blood sport “buzkashi.”

New York Times bestselling author, J.A. Jance, will be at Mesa’s Red Mountain Library, 635 N. Power Road, 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday. Jance will be hosting a book signing to promote her latest mystery novel “Deadly Stakes.”

"Warm Bodies," the latest permutation of the zombie screen phenomenon, places heart over horror and romantic teen angst over sharp social commentary.

“We didn’t really want to waste anyone’s time,” Jason Tippet says of his new documentary “Only The Young,” which he co-directed and shot with close friend Elizabeth Mims. Humble and laidback, but always quick to throw in a playful jab at the other, you couldn’t find two better people to capture the throes of 21st century adolescence.

Now that his reign as The Governator is officially over, Arnold Schwarzenegger is ready to shoot bad guys, sell one-liners, and butcher the English language again.