Movie News & Gossip

LOS ANGELES - "The Princess and the Frog" earned a big wet kiss from family audiences as the animated musical leaped to No. 1 with $25 million in its first weekend of nationwide release, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Disney musical is the studio's first hand-drawn animated tale in five years, a contrast to the computer-animated films that now dominate the cartoon world.

- Years pass and tastes change, at least a little. In choosing their top films of the past decade, Associated Press movie critics David Germain and Christy Lemire stuck closely to their favorites from each year.

But here and there, a film that came in a bit lower on their list at the time has crept up in their esteem to make their cut for best of the decade.

- "Invictus" is a sports film that is more about what's happening in the stands than on the playing field.

It's South Africa in 1990 and change — as seen in the first scene of the film — is literally coming down the street. After 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) has been released.