The recipe is simple: put a woman in a room with a. psycho, and let us watch. If the woman has an ailing daughter for the baddies to terrorize, good. If the man she loves has a dark past and maybe a homicidal kink, better. If she must confront two mad-genius kids, best. Just put our heroine in dire peril before she emerges victorious. It's a lesson in female resiliency. Also, these days, big box office. This month gave a beam of hope to those desperate for gender equality on screen. The two top films for the April 5-7 weekend were thrillers starring women: David Fincher's Panic Room, with Jodie Foster besieged by three burglars, and Carl Franklin's High Crimes, in which lawyer Ashley Judd defends her enigmatic husband in a high-stakes court-martial. This week in Murder by Numbers, Sandra Bullock plays a cop on a homicide investigation that points to two bril- liant teenagers. And on Memorial Day weekend, Jen-nifer Lopez provides a Star Wars alternative with the spousal revenge drama Enough.
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