Spotted: Kristen Bell trying the Amy Adams approach to mainstream success, embracing a Disney-fied take on romance in NYC. What will Upper East Siders have to say about this, as well as Bell's rabid cult audience? Her fortune is shining in the Eternal City, though it's unlikely she'll ever head back to Neptune, CA for the once-promising "Veronica Mars" movie. In fact, I feel like this fantasy comedy mirrors Ms. Bell's career, since she's found luck on TV with as a guest star on "Heroes" and the titular narrator of "Gossip Girl", but she has yet to find a big-screen vehicle for her considerable success. Something tells me she might have pitched a coin or two when the cameras weren't rolling.

This movie radiates tension in and out! Packaged by super-producer Graham King (The Departed) right before the Screen Actor's Guild strike in 2008, Edge had trouble finding a studio, which was attributed, of course, to Mel Gibson being blacklisted by Hollywood. Not so! Said King. And then Robert De Niro backed out of the co-starring role right as filming began. To me, this is all merely early publicity for a project that doesn't fully engage me otherwise. In truth, De Niro being replaced by Ray Winstone drew my attention back to the film, and I'm primed to see how another terrific actor, Danny Huston, fits into the plot, which promises to twist until the end thanks to William Monahan, Graham King's Oscar-winning screenwriter from The Departed.

Marks are high for director Philipp Stozl's second feature (he's an experienced music-video director and adman as well), which was described "Touching The Void in flat caps and hobnail boots" by one clever reviewer. I'm also keeping an eye on the picture's distributor, Music Box Films, which had two successful releases last year (Il divo and Seraphine) and has the buzzing Girl with the Dragon Tattoo coming out in March (Sony recently optioned remake rights to Tattoo).

I think there are four or five more subplots afoot in Hue Rhodes's road comedy, and since this is his debut feature, I'm concerned as to whether the result will be a cohesive road comedy or a mish-mash of quirky situations. Given the polite-to-dismissive reviews, all of them celebrating the cast and little else, I'm sensing this was, at worst, a pristine first exercise for Mr. Rhodes.