Scott Hicks's romantic drama No Reservations serves up a tantalising New York twist on the award-winning German film Mostly Martha. Hicks garnishes his version with a stellar cast including Catherine Zeta-Jones, making her welcome return to the big screen after embracing the role of domestic goddess to her two children.

Carol Fuchs and Sandra Nettelbeck's script lacks the delicate flavours of the original, and the tone has been sweetened excessively to suit American palates. But No Reservations is seasoned with enough comedy to make the heroine's metamorphosis from self-obsessed ice maiden to kind-hearted mother easy to swallow, if not to comfortably digest.

Kate Armstrong (Zeta-Jones) is a perfectionist, who has devoted the best years of her life to establishing 22 Bleecker as one of the most fashionable and well-regarded restaurants in Manhattan. There is no room for frivolities with Kate in charge, as pregnant sous chef Leah (Jenny Wade) and the rest of the team know only too well.

Kate's carefully ordered world turns sour when her sister Christine (Arija Bareikis) is killed in a car accident, leaving behind nine-year-old daughter Zoe (Abigail Breslin). The traumatised youngster is left in the care of her aunt. Kate struggles to contend with surrogate parenthood, whilst working unsociable hours in the kitchen under the watchful eye of manager Paula (Patricia Clarkson).

Temperatures rise with the arrival of Leah's replacement, fun-loving sous chef Nick (Aaron Eckhart), whose laissez faire attitude to cooking slowly but surely thaws Kate's heart, and helps to build bridges with Zoe.

No Reservations would struggle to earn a single Michelin star for originality or sophistication but the various plot strands simmer pleasantly, guaranteeing a gooey, heart-warming denouement.

Zeta-Jones looks comfortable in her pristine chef's whites, less so when called upon to convey the maelstrom of emotions churning inside her repressed, commitment-phobic heroine.

Eckhart makes the most of his undernourished charmer, flashing a butter-wouldn't-melt smile whenever possible, and Breslin once again steals the film from her older co-stars as the orphan fearful of losing more people she loves.

Balaban is piquant comic relief with his own culinary suggestion to win over Zoe: fishsticks.

"I can't believe I'm actually paying for these suggestions," despairs Kate.

Director Hicks turns up the heat in the kitchen, conveying the energy and passion of Kate's team as they create their culinary masterpieces, but the film cools noticeably in scenes between Zeta-Jones and Eckhart.

On-screen chemistry never comes to the boil.

Scenes of food preparation, such as Kate's signature dish - quail with truffle sauce - leave us ravenous for subtly flavoured haute cuisine.

No Reservations delivers no-frills home cooking.

The conventions of the horror genre have shifted immeasurably in the past five years, moving increasingly into the realms of sadism and torture. When some poor victim screams, it's not from the shock of a boogeyman leaping out of the shadows or the chill of a malevolent supernatural presence.

Now, those blood-curdling cries are from the lips of some gym-toned hunk or babe with a blowtorch, hacksaw or other sharp implement scything through their nether portions, gouging out flesh in queasy close-up. So it's heartening that an intelligent psychological chiller like 1408 is still being made, and that Mikhael Hafstrom's film gets underneath our skin so effectively without recourse to dismemberment or decapitation. Unlike so many of its ilk, 1408 understands that the key to keeping an audience on the edge of its seats is to pray on universal fears and insecurities. Hafstrom's hellish journey into the paranormal is adapted from a short story by Stephen King, from his 2002 horror anthology Everything's Eventual.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is the reluctant hero; a celebrated horror novelist who has made his name by debunking paranormal myths and legends in a series of books. The writer has discredited countless haunted houses and graveyards, documenting the lack of otherworldly activity in his sardonic prose. Nothing shocks or surprises Mike any more.

When an anonymous note leads him to the notorious room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel in New York, Mike is prepared for yet another dull, uneventful night., but as the seconds tick by, Mike realises that the evil manifested in the room is very, very real.

1408 is a genuinely creepy and unsettling story about a man who has lost his way, and his battle with his inner demons.

Cusack portrays his world-weary protagonist with just the right amount of droll humour, which is replaced by fear and trepidation as the hallucinations in the room become increasingly 'real'.