NEW YORK (Reuters) - Art experts are hoping strong interest from Asian buyers and a buoyant market, sparked by a record-breaking sale of contemporary art earlier this month, will boost two Latin American auctions in New York this week.

A bronze sculpture of a dancing couple by Colombian Fernando Botero and paintings by Mexican Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Chilean Roberto Matta and Brazilian Candido Portinari are expected to be the highlights of the sales at Christie's and Sotheby's.

Earlier this month the auction houses had blockbuster sales of Impressionist and contemporary art. Christie's contemporary art sale on May 15 hauled in $495 million - the highest of any art auction ever.

"Obviously the contemporary art sale was on a historical scale," said Virgilio Garza, Christie's Latin American art chief. "So we hope we continue with the level of energy that the market has."

Christie's estimates $24 million to $34 million in total Latin American sales on Wednesday and Thursday. If the upper limit is reached, it will top the peak of the auction house's sale of the region's art, set at $33.7 million in May 2008, months before the Wall Street crash.

Sotheby's expects about $20.7 million to $28.7 million in Latin American art sales on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We saw $1.5 billion in Impressionist and contemporary art sold in barely two weeks in New York (this month)," said Axel Stein, Latin American art chief at Sotheby's. "That doesn't mean necessarily that manna will a rain on us directly, but it almost assures we won't have just normal or negative sales."

Top-priced works at each auction house include paintings by the late Ramos Martinez, whose art was collected by Hollywood luminaries after he moved to Los Angeles to find expert medical care for his daughter. Christie's see his circa 1930 work "Mujeres con Frutas" (Women with Fruit) fetching $1 million to $1.5 million.

Sotheby's has a pre-sale estimate of up to $1 million for his "La India de Floripondios," (Indian Woman with Daturas). In the painting with its trumpet-shaped flowers, Ramos Martinez evokes French painter Paul Cezanne's use of circles, cylinders and cones to create a composition, according to Stein.

The artist reserves flowing lines in the work for the woman's smooth brown face, framed by braided black hair.

Overall, both auction houses expect Asian demand to be a driver of the sales, following the May 23-26 Art Basel Hong Kong art fair where the Swiss Galerie Gmurzynska said it sold $3.5 million worth of Boteros, including $1.3 million for the 2012 painting "Quarteto," which went to a collector form Malaysia.

Christie's is offering Botero's 2000 bronze "Dancers," which could fetch up to $1 million. It portrays a heavily muscled nude man and woman, her left hand on his right shoulder.

Sotheby's single highest-priced lot is Matta's circa 1939 oil on canvas "Morphologie Psycologique," (Psychological Morphology). Among its innovative techniques is drip painting, prefiguring a technique used by American Jackson Pollock, who was a student of Matta's in New York in the 1940s.

Portinari's 1941 oil on canvas "Meninos Soltando Pipas" (Children Releasing Kites)," is expected to be the top-priced Brazilian art work. Christie's estimates it will sell for up to $1.2 million.

The painting was done during a stage of Portinari's career, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, that showed children playing leap frog or chasing kites and balloons, according to Christie's.

(Reporting by Walker Simon; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Bill Trott)

"The complexity of the law didn't require the IRS to target people for their political beliefs," said Rep. David Camp, the Michigan Republican who chairs the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. But, he added, "I think giving the IRS less discretion is going to be important, and that's what a simplified code would do."

Most taxpayers now pay someone to do their taxes or buy commercial software to help them file. In a report earlier this year, national taxpayer advocate Nina E. Olson ranked complexity as the most serious problem facing both taxpayers and the IRS. People simply trying to comply with the rules often make inadvertent errors and overpay or underpay, she said. Others, she added, "often find loopholes that enable them to reduce or eliminate their tax liabilities."

Camp and his Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana, have been working for months on what would be the first major tax overhaul since 1986. At nearly 4 million words, Camp likes to say the current code is "10 times the size of the Bible with none of the good news."

Lawmakers in both parties say the current storm buffeting the IRS underscores how overly complex tax provisions have given the agency too much discretion in interpreting and enforcing the law.

"This is the perfect example of why we need tax reform," said Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., a member of the Ways and Means Committee. "If you want to diminish and limit the power of the IRS, you have got to reduce the complexity of the tax code and take them out of it."

There are formidable obstacles to completing a major tax overhaul this year or next. Both parties say they want to cut overall tax rates by getting rid of tax breaks but they disagree on whether more revenues should be part of the equation. And for all the work Camp and Baucus have done, they have yet to answer hard questions about which tax breaks to scrap.

Americans like their credits, deductions and exemptions the provisions that make the tax law so complicated in the first place. In exchange for lower tax rates, would workers be willing to pay taxes on employer-provided health benefits or on contributions to their retirement plans? How would homeowners feel about losing the mortgage interest deduction?

Those are among the three biggest tax breaks in the tax code, according to congressional estimates, together saving taxpayers nearly $300 billion this year.

The IRS scandal erupted a little over two weeks ago when the agency revealed that agents assigned to a special team in Cincinnati had targeted tea party and other conservative groups for additional, often burdensome scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. The targeting lasted more than 18 months during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns, hindering the groups' ability to raise money, according to a report by the agency's inspector general.

Since then, two top IRS have officials lost their jobs, and a third has been placed on paid administrative leave. Investigations by Congress and the Justice Department are under way.

The IRS was screening the groups' applications because agents were trying to determine their level of political activity. IRS regulations say tax-exempt social welfare organizations may engage in some political activity but the activity may not be their primary mission. It is a vague standard that agents struggled to apply, according to the inspector general's report. Lawmakers in both parties have complained for years that overtly political groups on the left and right have taken advantage of the rules to claim tax-exempt status and hide the identities of their donors.

"There are countless political organizations at both ends of the spectrum masquerading as social welfare groups in order to skirt the tax code," Baucus said. "Once the smoke of the current controversy clears, we need to examine the root of this issue and reform the nation's vague tax laws pertaining to these groups."

Some Republicans hope to use an upcoming debate over increasing the federal government's borrowing authority to trigger action on tax change. The government is expected to reach the borrowing limit by early fall, raising the possibility of another debt standoff like the one in 2011 that brought it to the brink of default.

Details are fluid, but congressional aides have been working on mechanisms to streamline the process of passing a tax package, in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, perhaps guaranteeing floor votes on bills approved by the tax-writing committees in the House and Senate.

President Barack Obama, however, has said he won't negotiate over raising the debt ceiling.

Obama has called for an overhaul of corporate taxes, and he laid some groundwork to accomplish that in his latest budget proposal. He also has said he wants to do comprehensive tax reform as part of a broad budget deal that cuts spending and reformulates entitlement programs. Such a grand bargain has proven elusive.

Camp and Baucus say they are open to a process that links tax reform to the debt ceiling. But Baucus warns: "I don't want to be part of something that's political or partisan. But I do want to be part of something that's practical and pragmatic that looks like it's going to advance the ball."

Baucus, who has been in the Senate since 1978, announced in April he won't run for re-election in 2014. He said he will focus much of his remaining time in the Senate on trying to steer a tax package through Congress.

Camp says he is committed to passing a tax bill out of his committee by the end of the year. There is no guarantee the full House would take up the bill, but Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has signaled his support for the effort by reserving the prestigious bill number HR 1 for a tax overhaul measure.

Lawmakers in both parties are convinced that simpler, easier-to-understand tax laws would spur economic activity. But there are significant partisan differences.

The Republican recipe calls for reducing or eliminating tax breaks that benefit targeted taxpayers, and using all the additional revenue to reduce overall rates for everyone. The tax system would raise about the same amount of money, but businesses could focus on being more efficient instead of trying to take advantage of targeted tax breaks, supporters say.

Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress also want to reduce or eliminate various tax breaks. Overall income tax rates would be lower, but the wealthy would pay more each year because they would lose certain exemptions, deductions and credits.

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Frank Daniel Benjamin, 25, was shot in an alley of the poorest section of the Rocinha slum on Rio de Janeiro's south side, a police statement said. A local resident picked him off the ground and carried him to a police unit from where he was rushed to hospital with a serious wound to the liver.

The shooting added to a recent wave of violence that has hit visitors to Rio, including the brutal kidnapping and rape of an American tourist that shocked the tourist trade.

The violence just weeks before Rio hosts soccer games in a warm-up for the 2014 World Cup has raised alarm over the city's ability to control crime and ensure the safety of visitors in a city that will also hold the Olympic games in 2016.

In July, hundreds of thousands of Catholics are expected to descend on Rio to see Pope Francis on his first trip abroad as pontiff.

The recent violence has raised questions about the effectiveness of efforts to "pacify" Rio's large slums by sending in troops and police to dismantle drug-trafficking rings.

The Rocinha slum, part of a shanty town perched on steep hillsides, was "pacified" in November 2011 and now attracts visits by foreign tourists on guided tours.

The German tourist, however, was shot in the poorest part of the slum known as "Dirty Clothes," where drug traffickers still rule a maze of back alleys that are hard to patrol and tourists normally do not visit, a police source told Reuters.

A friend who was with the wounded man told police they were surprised in an alley by an armed man who shot at them when they ran off.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co raised its 2013 earnings outlook after quarterly results beat low expectations, as CEO Meg Whitman's turnaround plan helped offset shrinking personal computer sales with enterprise computing services.

While fiscal second-quarter profit plummeted 32 percent, Wall Street had braced for worse. HP shares gained 14 percent after the company projected full-year earnings per share of $3.50 to $3.60, raising the lower end by 10 cents, and fiscal third-quarter profit that topped analyst estimates.

Whitman, who took the helm at the world's largest PC maker more than a year ago, is orchestrating a turnaround, trying to recapture some of the Silicon Valley icon's former strong growth. She has said the process could take years.

HP received a warmer welcome from investors for its results than smaller rival Dell Inc, which last week reported a 79 percent slide in profit and is now mired in a takeover battle between founder Michael Dell and activist investor Carl Icahn.

"This is another good deposit on the road to our turnaround here," HP Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak said in an interview. "We are roughly where we want to be in total on the company."

Enterprise services and printing units are "probably a little bit ahead," she said, adding the two businesses helped drive the company's gross margin improvement during the quarter.

HP's net income fell to $1.08 billion, or 55 cents a share, from $1.59 billion, or 80 cents a share, a year earlier.

The company earned 87 cents per share on an operating basis during the second quarter on revenue of $27.6 billion.

HP had been expected to post earnings of 81 cents a share on revenue of just over $28 billion, according to the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For its fiscal third quarter, it estimated non-GAAP earnings per share of 84 to 87 cents, higher than 83 cents expected by Wall Street analysts.

Its shares, which have climbed 51 percent in 2013 as investors gradually gained confidence in its prospects, rose 13 percent to $24.08 in extended trading after closing at $21.23 on the New York Stock Exchange.

STEEP DECLINE IN PC SALES

HP, whose name is synonymous with the birth of Silicon Valley, has suffered years of turbulence. Whitman became HP's third CEO in as many years after Leo Apotheker's abrupt dismissal.

She is now pushing layoffs, cost cutting, and expansion into markets and areas with longer-term potential such as enterprise computing services. The move, intended to bolster margins, pits HP against the likes of IBM.

HP is laying off 29,000 employees over the next two years and has written off $10.8 billion mostly related to the writedown of its EDS services business.

Lesjak said so far the company had reduced 18,800 jobs and intends to cut a total of 26,000 by the end of the year.

On Wednesday, the company reported that revenue fell across HP's main business divisions, with the steepest decline in the personal systems group. Sales from HP's largest, PC-focused unit dived 20 percent to $7.58 billion.

But that same division recorded a 3.2 percent operating margin, up from about 2.7 percent in the previous quarter, as the company focused on improving profitability.

The printing division had the smallest revenue decline, of 1 percent, year over year, but the company said it had a "strong operating margin" of 15.8 percent.

HP generated $3.6 billion in cash flow during the quarter and used some of the funds to reduce net debt by $1.8 billion to $2.9 billion. The company had $13.6 billion in gross cash at the end of the quarter.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Richard Chang and David Gregorio)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Washington is truly feeling the earth move this week as singer-songwriter Carole King is honored with the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for popular song and then saluted in two concerts, one in the White House.

King is becoming the first female songwriter to win the prize, which was won by Stevie Wonder in 2009, Paul McCartney in 2010, and the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 2012.

On Tuesday, the singer, whose album "Tapestry" was on the biggest sellers in the 1970s, was honored at a luncheon, attended by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. That was to be followed by a concert with performances by Patti Austin, Colbie Caillat, Michael Feinstein, Siedah Garrett, her daughter Louise Goffin, Shelby Lynne, Gian Marco, Arturo Sandoval and King herself.

On Wednesday, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama formally present the award to King and host their own concert in the East Room. The White House concert featuring Gloria Estefan, Billy Joel, Jesse McCartney, Emeli Sand, James Taylor and Trisha Yearwood as well as King is due to be televised by PBS.

The Gershwin Prize commemorates George and Ira Gershwin, the legendary American songwriting team whose extensive manuscript collections are in the Library of Congress. The prize is awarded to musicians whose lifetime contributions in the field of popular song exemplify the standard of excellence associated with the Gershwins.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Chinese hackers have stolen the blueprints of a new multi-million-dollar Australian spy headquarters as part of a growing wave of cyber attacks against business and military targets in the close U.S. ally, a Australian news report said.

The hackers also stole confidential information from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which houses the overseas spy agency the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, Australia's ABC Television said late on Monday.

The ABC report, which did not name sources, said Chinese hackers had targeted Australia-based companies more aggressively than previously thought, including steel-manufacturer Bluescope Steel, and military and civilian communications manufacturer Codan Ltd.

The influential Greens party on Tuesday said the reported hacking was a "security blunder of epic proportions" and called for an inquiry, but the government refused to confirm the security breach.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr said the report would not damage Canberra's ties with its biggest trade partner China.

"We have enormous areas of cooperation with China. I won't comment on whether the Chinese have done what is being alleged or not," Carr told reporters on Tuesday.

Hackers using a computer server traced to China had stolen floorplans of a new A$630 million headquarters for the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation, the country's domestic spy agency, said the ABC report.

The attack through the computers of a construction contractor exposed not only building layouts, but also the location of communication and computer networks, said the ABC.

Australia security analyst Des Ball told the ABC in the report that such information made the yet to be completed spy headquarters vulnerable to future cyber attacks.

"You can start constructing your own wiring diagrams, where the linkages are through telephone connections, through wi-fi connections, which rooms are likely to be the ones that are used for sensitive conversations, how to surreptitiously put devices into the walls of those rooms," said Ball.

The ASIO building, being built near the location of Australia's top secret Defence Signals Directorate, is supposed to have some of the most sophisticated hacking defenses in the country, which is part of a global electronic intelligence gathering network including the United States and the UK.

But its construction had been plagued by delays and cost blowouts, with some builders blaming late changes made to the internal design in response to cyber attacks.

Australian officials, like those in the United States and other Western nations, have made cyber attacks a security priority following a growing number of attacks of the resource rich country, mostly blamed on China.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei was last year barred from bidding for construction contracts on a new Australian high-speed broadband network amid fears of cyber espionage.

The Reserve Bank of Australia said in March that it had been targeted by cyber attacks, but no data had been lost or systems compromised amid reports the hackers had tried to access intelligence on Group of 20 wealthy nations negotiations.

In the United States, the Pentagon's latest annual report on Chinese military developments accused Beijing for the first time of trying to break into U.S. defense networks, calling it "a serious concern".

China has dismissed as groundless both the Pentagon report and a February report by the U.S. computer security company Mandiant, which said a secretive Chinese military unit was probably behind a series of hacking attacks targeting the United States that had stolen data from 100 companies.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Michael Perry)

The National Weather Service on Monday discontinued a flood watch for the region. A flood warning did remain for the San Antonio River near Falls City, which is about 45 miles southeast of San Antonio.

The Texas Department of Transportation and other agencies reported Monday that only a few roads remained closed in San Antonio due to flooding.

The San Antonio Water System reported that two sewer lines were overwhelmed by the flooding, causing spills of more than 100,000 gallons. The utility said no adverse impacts had been reported from the spills.

(Reuters) - GameStop Corp raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast on Thursday after beating fourth-quarter estimates, counting on a boost from new gaming consoles due later this year and further growth in digital and mobile sales.

The videogame industry, which has struggled with declining sales as gamers migrate to mobile and social media platforms, is hoping for a strong finish to 2013 with the release of new titles like Take-Two Interactive Software's "Grand Theft Auto V" and Electronic Arts Inc's "Battlefield 4."

New gaming consoles like Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony Corp's Playstation4 are expected to launch in coming months. Investors hope the advent of new gaming hardware will give the video game industry a shot in the arm.

GameStop raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast to $2.90 to $3.15 per share, from $2.75 to $3.15 per share previously.

"The expectations are that we're going to have a tough first half until we see titles like Grand Theft Auto and new consoles," Chief Financial Officer Robert Lloyd told Reuters.

Sony Corp said in February it would release its next-generation PlayStation this year, its first videogame console in seven years. And on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, its first new gaming console in eight years, making its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media and video game content.

GameStop shares, which have risen about 46 percent in the last three months, were trading flat at $36.20 in the afternoon.

Analysts say there remained confusion over whether Microsoft planned to take a cut on revenue for used games played on the Xbox One, following news reports that suggested the software company may charge used-game users a fee.

"It appears that Microsoft will assign a unique ID to each game disk loaded onto the Xbox, which could require a second user to pay Microsoft a fee to access Xbox services," R. w. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note on Tuesday.

GameStop executives said they would wait for the software company to communicate that.

"The majority of how the stock is going to trade is going to be the market interpretation of how "Xbox One" is going to handle used-game sales," National Alliance Securities analyst Mike Hickey told Reuters.

Total U.S. sales of videogame hardware and software in April saw a 25 percent drop, following a downward trend that has continued month over month since last year, according to a report by market research firm NPD.

Quarterly profit of the world's largest video games retailer fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

The company, which said its year-to-date market share of PS3 and Xbox 360 software in the United States was 47.7 percent, reported first-quarter revenue of $1.87 billion. Mobile sales rose 290 percent to $46.8 million.

Analysts on average were expecting sales of $1.82 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Quarterly profit fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

For the second quarter, GameStop expects earnings of 1 cent per share to 7 cents per share. Analysts are expecting a profit of 8 cents per share.

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore and Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Roshni Menon and Alden Bentley)

The official state Xinhua News Agency said a top Chinese army general, Fan Changlong, made the call for denuclearization in his meeting Friday with North Korean Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae.

His comments were a reiteration of China's established position, but could be seen as a rebuke of its neighboring ally following a half-year gap in high-level contacts during which Pyongyang angered Beijing by conducting rocket launches, a nuclear test and other saber-rattling.

Tensions surrounding the nuclear issue have "intensified strategic conflicts among involved parties and jeopardized the peace and stability of the peninsula," continued Fan, a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission overseeing China's armed forces.

Choe, a personal envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was widely expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and deliver a message from Kim before returning.

"Conditions on the Korean Peninsula and in the east Asian region are complex and exceptional, and there is no guarantee of peace. North Korea's people require a peaceful and stable environment to build their nation," Choe was quoted as saying.

"North Korea is willing to work with all sides to search for a method of solving the problems through dialogue," Choe said.

The envoy's comments reflect both the threatening tone of North Korea's recent statements, and its desire to show deference to Beijing's hopes for a return to nuclear disarmament talks.

Choe met Thursday with the ruling Communist Party's fifth-ranked official, and Chinese state media later quoted the envoy as saying that North Korea "is willing to accept the suggestion of the Chinese side and launch dialogue with all relevant parties."

Beijing considered Pyongyang's recent moves an affront to its interests in regional stability and showed its displeasure by joining with the U.S. to back U.N. sanctions and cut off dealings with North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank.

China is North Korea's last significant diplomatic ally and main source of trade and economic assistance.

China's North Korea watchers said it is unlikely that Chinese leaders would have accepted Choe's visit without a promise from Pyongyang that it was prepared to return to diplomacy as Beijing has sought.

"The relationship is rocky, so they will try to mend the relationship," Cui Yingjiu, a retired professor of Korean at Peking University, said of North Korea. "Second, they also want to improve relations with the U.S. and need China to be their intermediary."

He: "I know."

Does that exchange immediately fill you with a sense of wistfulness? Then you're probably a fan of Jesse and Celine, aka Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, whose insanely romantic final scene in "Before Sunset" nine years ago left moviegoers hanging deliciously, infuriatingly, agonizingly! and wondering if they'd ever know what came next for this hugely appealing duo.

Well, we're finally getting the answer and it was sure worth the wait. "Before Midnight," the third movie in the Richard Linklater series that began with the 1995 "Before Sunrise," is not only as good as the first two, it's arguably better, tackling weightier, trickier issues as in, mature everyday love with wit, humor and breathtaking directness.

One of the unique things about this series is that the characters have aged in real time, meaning we've all aged with them. Not that most of us look as good in our 40s as Jesse and Celine. But still, hair is graying now just a bit, skin is wrinkling, middles softening.

More importantly, though, it's life that looks different for Jesse and Celine. If you recall, these two had one of the more romantic cinematic hookups in recent memory in "Before Sunrise," meeting on a train rolling through picturesque European countryside and getting off together in Vienna for a night of walking, talking, and falling in love.

They parted in the morning, with plans to meet six months later. That didn't work out, and so after nine years of longing and for him, an unhappy marriage and a son they rediscovered each other in "Before Sunset." More walking and more talking this time in Paris led finally to that swoon-worthy last scene in Celine's apartment.

In "Before Midnight," the setting is still gorgeous it's a summer vacation in Greece (will these two ever venture to an ugly locale?) But the rest is different. Jesse and Celine are a mature couple with twin daughters. They've been together nearly a decade.

A feeling of absolute authenticity comes through at the very beginning, in a simple airport farewell between Jesse and his son, Henry (a wonderfully natural Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), who's been visiting for the summer.

In the long drive back to their vacation villa, Jesse and Celine converse in the relaxed, rambling way couples do, and yet we know trouble is ahead. A guilt-ridden Jesse worries about Henry he can't even pitch a baseball right, because he doesn't live with Dad and Celine worries that Jesse will force her to give up her job in Paris, where they live, and move to the States.

It seems that as life gets harder for this couple, the acting gets better. Delpy gives Celine a new hardness here, an edge that we saw only a bit in the previous film. Just watch Celine's face freeze when a fan asks her to sign a copy of Jesse's novel, a barely fictionalized account of their intimate life together. And Hawke is extremely effective as a man who adores his partner but is increasingly frustrated with her.

It all comes to a head in a humdinger of a fight just Jesse and Celine in a hotel room, plus a bottle of wine that doesn't get drunk. It gets poured, though, and you'll be so frazzled, you'll want to reach through the screen and chug it down yourself.

The script, co-written by director Linklater, Hawke and Delpy, is at its best here, funny and biting. What begins as a startlingly intimate love scene turns abruptly raw and bitter. The argument ebbs, then escalates again as real fights do.

No ending spoilers here. But let's just say there's certainly fodder for a fourth movie. Will it be called "Before Breakfast"? "After School Pickup"? "During the Dentist Appointment"? We don't care. We just want one.

"Before Midnight," a Sony Pictures Classics release, is rated R for sexual content/nudity and language.

Running time: 109 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

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Motion Picture Association of America definition for R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.