Teixeira lets us enter the daily life of Brazil, where a certain perfume will cause men to be trapped in a spell, the working class crowds together on the bus, women gossip over manicures, and everyone flirts and hurts each other in turn. This gives the film a sense of doom—that life is vanity and boredom, lacking deep love and commitment. We eat, we drink, we watch TV, our families turn on us and we die. Not a very pleasant picture. That is not to say that a film needs to be pleasant to be good or worthy of something to say. Alice’s House is well-crafted and well-acted for an art-house foreign film, but in the end it lacks a center or a sympathy that helps one to connect with the characters and the story.

It’s almost a relief when the third of the film’s segment begins, picking up Ben’s story as he searches for Mya. Here, the tone takes on Justin Welborn’s intensity. His Ben is the strongest male presence in the film, and he truly manages to embody what may be the film’s most pointed social commentary: “If we change the way we look at things, the things we look at will change.” And co-director Dan Bush, who drew the shortest straw, manages to restore the suspense of the opening segment while wrapping things up with a style that might remind you a bit of There Will Be Blood—which Paul Thomas Anderson has also described as a horror film.

Sayles pulls out some of the hoariest conventions in the genre, including the so-called Magical Negro who mystically pops in and out of scenes whenever guidance or sage advice is needed. When Bertha Mae hears a train whistle as she walks up the steps to her porch, morosely muttering, “That’s a terrible noise,” it’s almost enough to make you cringe. Still, I’d hate to convey that the impression that this is a horrible film; it’s not. A poor John Sayles film is still a good bit more entertaining than average work by other filmmakers. Just don’t expect too much of Honeydripper. There are sweeter concoctions on the shelf.

In essence, Spiderwick is a Haunted House movie crossed with a Monster Movie. Think Jumanji meets Poltergeist in a Lord of the Rings setting with Narnia-type stylings. Think Spielbergian narrative over-efficiency and The Gnome-Mobile sprightliness. Think, in fact, of something really rather new—because I’m having significant trouble coming up with a good precedent for what director Mark Waters delivers here. I honestly can’t think of another film that has captured both the “danger” of goblins (and Faerie in general) and their whimsicality. If there’s a downside to Spiderwick—which, thankfully, encompasses all of the volumes in the Chronicles—it’s that it moves way too fast to be truly enjoyable.

Ben Stein’s new project Expelled is a critical look not at the shortcomings of Darwinian theory per se, but at the ways in which the Darwinian scientific establishment is apparently seeking to suppress open dialogue about competing theories. The justification for this suppression is that competing theories are not really “scientific,” so free speech is not the issue, “academic respectability” is. But as Mr. Stein stated, “… I think we’re missing something extremely basic in our understanding of the world, and how it got created and I’d like us to return to that. And, I think, by returning to those bigger subjects of how the world got created and what our place in the world is, we will find a new moral fence which is very much lacking.”

I can appreciate all the physicality and athleticism that goes into these vigorous dance moves, but it just doesn’t wow me like, say, Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. Where’s Donald O’Conner when we need him? For the most part, the actors in the film were cast for their dancing skills rather than their acting ability, but they manage to hold up fairly well. There are a few laughs scattered throughout, but the drama is the overdone stuff of bad television shows. Still, the movie will succeed with its target audience.

Although people will find much to discuss after seeing these shorts, these discussions will tend more toward appreciating art for the sake of the art rather than matters of deep moral or spiritual content. There is something for every taste in the animated shorts, from jiggling line drawings to complex dimensions and details, to washes of eye-achingly beautiful color. Whether silent or speaking and subtitled, the characters are phenomenal and deft in relaying the plot. Indulge your mind and your senses and go enjoy them on the big screen.

Will went to Washington to change the world. He wanted to change society for what he thought was better. He was a morally good person, and he had all the right ideals. He believed that he could have a hand in change if he supported the right candidate. He believed he could change the morality of the people he was around. He believed the world would be a better place when he helped Bill Clinton get elected. We all know the large public humiliation. We see Will refocus his change-wreaking tactics to ever smaller and smaller targets, until finally he realizes the only corner of the universe he has any control over is himself.

Aside from this very clever basic premise, lifted from Steven Gould’s 1992 teen novel, director Doug Liman makes some very nice choices with the material. First, he keeps the tone light. He also stages the action in some truly eye-popping locales, including what must have been a fairly extensive CGI-recreation of the Colosseum’s ruins in Rome. But the best bit is a running gag about the local Ann Arbor, Michigan, library. When David first finds himself there, rather unexpectedly, a sign in the background declares, “Escape to Your Library.” As the gag develops throughout the film, it comes off as a rather insistent and clever encouragement to point people back to the book

The title invites us to be witnesses along with the characters in the film. But witness to what, exactly? is the question. The filmmaker refuses to pass moral judgment on any behavior of his characters; thus we are left to come to our own conclusions. With the possible exception of Manu’s struggling opera-singing sister, this is hardly a likeable crowd. Since the film for the most part ends as it begins, we are left to wonder whether we are witnesses to the sustaining power of narcissism or if we’re meant to be softened by witnessing the beginning of the AIDS crisis.