Mike Davies reviews the new film releases...

FUN WITH DICK AND JANE * *
Cert 12A 90 mins

A little of Jim Carrey's camera hogging rubber-faced mugging goes a long way and the limit's reached exceedingly quickly in this remake of 1977's George Segal/Jane Fonda satire on the American Dream.

He plays corporate executive Dick Harper who can't believe his good luck when he arrives at the office, is summoned to the rarefied top floor and promoted to vice president, communications. Or indeed his bad luck when, a few hours later, in the middle of a live TV interview about shares-off loading, Globodyne goes into freefall meltdown and he's unemployed.

With wife Jane (Tea Leoni) having already jacked in her travel agency job in the anticipation of increased affluence, the pair soon find themselves so incredibly broke they even have their front lawn repossessed.

Humiliation's increased by the fact Dick's not only become such a laughing stock among the business world he can't get hired but there's no jobs out there anywhere anyway.

With Dick proving spectacularly ill-suited to life as a discount store greeter and Jane reduced to teaching keep fit and suffering the side-effects of being a cosmetics guinea pig, the pair decide there's only one way to survive. Crime.

And it's here, in a montage of 'funny' robberies wearing 'amusing' disguises (Sonny & Cher, Blues Brothers, gimp suits with voice boxes) that the film goes completely off the rails and any Enron swiping satire out of the window.

Suffice to say that the couple's spree enables them to get their luxury gadgets back again before, faced with indictment for corporate fraud, Dick decides to go after former CEO Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin, in enjoyable smug mode) who walked away from the crash squeaky clean with millions in his pocket. A pay-back scam is duly put into motion to return the monies to the stiffed employees.

Seemingly arguing that white collar crime is morally worse than robbing banks and stores, while McAllister gets his ironic comeuppance, Dick and Jane paradoxically walk away free, the film's heroes for having saved everyone's pension funds.

Is it just me, or isn't the message a touch hypocritical?

As with Spanglish, Leoni proves an adept comedienne but is pretty much steamrollered in the path of Carrey's unrestrained slapstick as, never particularly funny in the first place, the film becomes increasingly desperate in its attempts to elicit laughs. Not much fun at all, really.

A COCK AND BULL STORY * * * *
Cert 15 91 mins

Rather like Carrey, this is going to very much depend on your Steve Coogan tolerance level.

Especially given the fact that it has him playing himself, or at least a version of himself slightly more self-involved than Alan Partridge.

But, even if you are Coogan-phobic it's worth putting prejudices aside for Michael Winterbottom's inspired and frequently hilarious foray into the realms of meta-fiction with a film about the attempt to make a film of Laurence Sterne's unfilmable 18th century pre-post modernist meanderingly digressive novel about trying to write a novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent.

Coogan playing "Coogan" is playing both Tristram and his father Walter while, also playing "himself" (and doing a spot on Al Pacino impression), Rob Brydon is Tristram's Uncle Toby.

Others appearing under their own recognisance as cast members in the film within the film are Keeley Hawes (Tristram's mother), Shirley Henderson (Susannah, the maid), Dylan Moran (Dr Slop) and Gillian Anderson who's brought in to play a hitherto cut character in order to provide leverage for extra budget to stage a battle sequence.

Those playing characters, as opposed to themselves, include Kelly Macdonald as Coogan's girlfriend who turns up with their infant son, Jeremy Northam (a Winterbottom-ish director), Ian Hart (writer), Mark Williams (military advisor), Greg Wise (financier), Stephen Fry and Naomie Harris as the film buff PA with whom Coogan's tempted to have fling. Got all that?

Blurring tweaked elements of the stars' off-screen real lives into those of their characters (Coogan bemoans being forever identified with Partridge and is at one point interviewed about a lap dancer scandal), the parody heavy screenplay (co-written by regular Winterbottom collaborator Frank Cottrell Boyce under a shared pseudonym) manages to be sophisticated, clever and witty without ever feeling self-indulgent or pretentious.

It takes swipes at the neuroses and narcissism of creative types but also retains affection and sympathy. Cockeyed perhaps but a definite bull's eye.

GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN' * *
Cert 15 118 mins

Maybe Jim Sheridan had been hit by a large tax bill, maybe he was having the house done up. How else to explain why he agreed to direct this gangsta turns hip hop star yawn starring and ploddingly based on the life of Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, complete with his surviving being shot eight times.

Unfolding like a limp retread of 8 Mile, it follows a familiar arc with Marcus (Jackson) orphaned when his drug dealer mom's murdered in a turf war, setting up his own crew, hooking up with an ambitious but treacherous dealer Majestic (Ade-wale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and rising through the ranks before doing time where he meets a fellow inmate (Terrence Howard) who encourages him to pursue his talent for rap.

During a robbery to get cash to pay for recording gear, Marcus is gunned down, a scene that opens the movie and affords the subsequent flashback narrative before returning to pick things up for the celebrity making aftermath as experiences are parlayed into hit records and the film's own controversial advertising poster.

Sheridan's too good a director for the film not be technically proficient or without powerful images and scenes. But while he's rewarded by reliable performances from Howard (whose similarly themed and vastly superior Hustle & Flow showed how things should be done), AkinnuoyeAgbaje and, as the neighbourhood kingpin, Bill Duke, he can do little to disguise Jackson's inexpressive screen presence and limited acting abilities.

What next, Anthony Minghella's Lil' Kim biopic?

SHOPGIRL * * *
Cert 15 103 mins

Sandwiched between the execrably unfunny Cheaper By The Dozen 2 and, if the trailer's any indication, the sure to be even worse Pink Panther, Anand Tucker's bittersweet romantic comedy offers an increasingly fleeting reminder that Steve Martin can still make decent films.

Adapted from Martin's own novella, we're introduced to Mirabelle Buttersfield (the ever luminous Claire Danes), a rural girl who's found herself in LA, sharing a lonely apartment with her cat, dreaming of being an artist while working on the little frequented glove counter at Saks.

But then things change. First she meets Jeremy (Jason Schwarztman in familiar scruffy loser mode), a nervy, immature font designer whose lack of ambition is rivalled only by his lack of means.

They date (of sorts) but, just as things might be going somewhere he's invited on the road with rock band.

Then along comes Ray Porter (a restrained Martin), a fiftysomething millionaire charmer who makes her a present of the gloves he bought and includes a note inviting her to dinner.

She's swept away by his old fashioned gentlemanly courtship, the gifts, the trips, the help with her career, but even though he's told her that he's not looking for commitment (he demurs at even visiting her place) she increasingly comes to believe he'll change his mind, fall in love and marry her. Heartbreak clearly lies ahead.

But then re-enter Jeremy, now something of a changed, wiser man. Should she give up Ray and return to Jeremy, even though she suspects it won't work out. Or stay with Ray knowing they really have no future.

"I guess I have to choose whether to be miserable now, or miserable later," she says, deftly summing up the film's poignant tone.

There's no love rats here, just real flawed, vulnerable people looking for connections and making wrong decisions they'll come to regret but probably not admit. Thanks to gags about self-help tapes and a delicious scenery chewing turn from Bridgette Wilson-Sampras as Mirabelle's man-eating, sex mad jealous colleague, it's often very funny indeed but it's the touching, wryly observed and melancholic love story you'll want wrapped to take home.

DRINK DRANK DRUNK * *
Cert 12A 101 mins subtitled

Honk Kong director Tung-Shing Yee seems to be positively churning them out, but he's not getting any better.

After last year's lacklustre thriller One Night In Monkok and uneven teen romance 2 Young, now comes this clunky tale of beer promotion girl Siu Man (Mirian Cheung) who, approaching 30 and with no love life, is facing competition from younger rivals.

But she can still drink anyone under the table without showing the least effect. Enter Michael who owns a failing French restaurant and the blossoming of both a business partnership (she uses the premises to run a coffee shop by day, he serves nouvelle cuisine by night) and a romance.

However, Siu Man's cynical about any protestations of love men make after they've had a few while restless traveller Michael's starting to get itchy feet about moving on again.

Cheung is rather good and there are some amusing moments, but unfortunately the film tends to put its emphasis on broad slapstick rather than emotional connections while an undisciplined narrative that rolls offs at unnecessary tangents and its dubious attitude to getting plastered are hardly recommendations.

FLATPACK FESTIVAL

An outcrop of the regular nights of shorts and music held at the Rainbow pub in Digbeth by enterprising cineastes 7 Inch Cinema, this debut mini-fest offers an eclectic weekend of shorts, animation, documentaries, features, talks and live events designed to entertain, stimulate, amuse and most likely baffle.

Opening today with a discussion based think-in about experimental creative media at Vivid in Digbeth, the programme continues until Sunday, based primarily at the Electric and mac with a daily collection of shorts just part of the pot pourri.

To underline the festival's diversity, tomorrow features Wonderland No 3, a mix of live music from local klezmer outfit the Destroyers to accompany 1900's shorts from Mitchell & Kenyon, one man band Chris Cole, the UK debut of the 3D Viewmaster and a reprise for the Telly Savalas promo film about Birmingham.

Highlights will doubtless depend on your avant garde or (for trainspotters) anorak quotient, but those likely to appeal to more of a (comparatively) mainstream audience include the UK premiere of Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (Sat, IMAX), a documentary about the history of heavy metal featuring an interview with Tony Iommi, a tribute to Chicago sound sound artist Henry Jacobs (Sun, Electric) and Haru, a beguiling documentary about a Finnish island with super 8 images by Tuuliki Fietila and narration by her partner Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins.

There's also some high profile regional premieres. Tomorrow sees Tstosi, South Africa's tough but tender Oscar nomination directed by Gavin Hood in which a young thug finds his humanity after accidentally kidnapping a baby, and Pulse, an ultra scary Japanese horror film where teens investigate an internet webcam that promises the chance to interact with the dead.

On Saturday at the Electric, there's a sneak preview of MirrorMask, a family fantasy mix of cgi and live action from acclaimed graphic artist collaborators Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean and featuring Gina McKee and Rob Brydon. Sunday has Screaming Masterpiece,a documentary about the Icelandic music scene with footage of and interviews by Bjork, Mum, and the quite awesome Sigur Ros.