Forty-something wannabe rock star worms his way into his teenage nephew's band. How many times do you think Will Ferrell and Jack Black have turned down that pitch? I'm guessing approximately eleventy billion.

To see or not to see "Hamlet 2"? There really is no question. Don't.

Rainn Wilson joins the growing list of actors spawned from the Jerry Lewis school of acting. Like Jack Black, Adam Sandler and so many other young movie stars, Wilson will more often turn to a goofy face, a pratfall or a never ending string of ad libs in an effort to pull a laugh out of unfunny material.

There's plenty of skin and acrobatic positioning in Catherine Breillat's "The Last Mistress," but they're not nearly as interesting as the ferocious passions they signify.

If, like the title character in this odd little film, you cringe at the mention of the word "miracle," "Henry Poole Is Here" is not for you. This is a movie with a pointed message about the importance of having faith, in other people as well as in a higher power, and audiences open to that concept will enjoy the film a lot more than those who are as cynical as its hero.

What would possess a man to string a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center and then spend 45 minutes walking and dancing on it, suspended 1,350 feet above the ground?

Every time you're ready to count Woody Allen out for good, he comes back and surprises you.

The people who made "Bottle Shock" obviously love their wine. They're not that crazy about the French. And they are firm believers in the screenwriting rule of leaving no underdog-formula cliche unused, even when your movie is already dangerously overloaded with them.

"Fly Me to the Moon" is the first feature-length computer-animated 'toon made specifically for 3-D. This is a good thing, because the movie would be unwatchable without it.

Henry Poole is sad. We know he's sad because he's played by Luke Wilson with a hangdog expression, a scruffy, mournful beard and a world-weary mumble. It won't take most moviegoers long to figure out that Henry is sad because he's gotten some bad news from a doctor, but "Henry Poole Is Here" withholds this information as if its revelation will come as a shock.

Jokes within jokes. Movies within movies. A reel suicide mission that turns into a real one.

"Brick Lane" is not a Beatles song, but it could be. Its title echoes "Penny Lane," but its story is "Eleanor Rigby."

With gas still not far from four bucks a gallon, perhaps it's fitting that Quentin Tarantino is trying to revive the biker films of the 1960s and '70s.

"Tropic Thunder," Ben Stiller's extravaganza of a Hollywood satire, couldn't be any more "inside-baseball" if it contained references to the infield fly rule and Rule 5 draft picks.

You'll know you're in a different galaxy within the first seconds of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," which substitutes the Warner Bros. logo and theme music for the familiar 20th Century Fox searchlight and fanfare.

The American teenager has been the subject of so much dissection and analysis in popular culture that a documentary titled "American Teen" initially sounds redundant. What could a film that followed a group of Indiana high school students for a year possibly offer that a dozen reality-TV shows or a surf through MySpace don't already provide?

In an age of video, film strips are probably a thing of the past. Those who attended elementary school before 1980 may remember a bored teacher quickly flipping through image after dull image in a dark classroom, delivering narration in a fast monotone in order to finish quickly and take a needed cigarette break outside.

It's no coincidence that the poster for the new documentary "American Teen" parodies that of "The Breakfast Club."