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Weekend painter

Amy Adams won a Golden Globe as Margaret Keane, known for sticky-sweet paintings of doe-eyed waifs that became the middlebrow rage in the late 1950s and 1960s, then kitschy collectibles of high-ironic style decades later. In a restrained, mouselike performance, Adams' Keane seems sympathetic but not terribly deep. "Big Eyes" (PG-13, Weinstein) follows her journey of self-discovery and empowerment, from put-upon housewife and weekend painter to victim of a controlling husband and patriarchal art world. Director Tim Burton delivers "Big Eyes" with few of his signature imaginative touches. The film raises provocative questions about connoisseurship vs. populism, personal expression vs. the market.

washington post