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This funny mess feels like a bunch of actor-centric comedy sketches strung together. Some of those sketches work much better than others. The weaker sketches often feel like stale leftovers from a 2001 episode of SNL. And like it happens on SNL from time to time, the guest hosts steal all the scenes from the regulars.

Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan, TRISTRAM SHANDY) is making the big-budget war picture “Tropic Thunder” in Vietnam. The troubled production stars action superstar and questionable actor Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller, ZOOLANDER). The rest of the cast includes: the award-winning method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr., IRON MAN), who has undergone a controversial skin operation to play a black soldier; drug-addicted comedian Jeff Portnoy; rapper-turned-actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson, ROLL BOUNCE); and skinny, smart newcomer Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel, KNOCKED UP). The production is a mess and the producers are not happy. So along with Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte, AFFLICTION), the veteran who wrote the novel the film is based on, and pyrotechnics expert Cody (Danny McBride, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS), Cockburn takes his actors into the jungle to film gorilla-style, until they stumble upon the hideout of drug dealers.

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Fred Schepisi’s A CRY IN THE DARK was an unexpected entry on AFI’s recent top-10 courtroom dramas list. Based on a true story, the drama deals with the price a couple pays when they are convicted in the court of public opinion following the death of their daughter. Driven by a powerful Oscar-nominated performance from Meryl Streep, the film watches as religious prejudice and a media hungry for sensation lead to the conviction of an innocent woman.

Lindy (Streep) and Michael Chamberlain (Sam Neill, JURASSIC PARK) took their three children on a camping trip in the Australian outback. One night cooking dinner, Lindy noticed that a dingo had wandered into their tent and took off with their baby. After an extensive search, the baby was never found. Due to their Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, they quickly found peace with what happened as God’s will. Their lack of the “proper” reaction in the public eye made many doubt their story. After they are not charged during an first inquest hearing, the case was reopened after new forensic evidence was found. As the public opinion turned against them shaky forensic evidence and biased experts lead to their conviction.

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Based on the American crime novel by Harlan Coben, TELL NO ONE is a French thriller from actor/director Guillaume Canet (starred in the Oscar-nominated JOYEUX NOEL), which harkens back to before crime stories became relegated to the CSI and LAW & ORDER TV franchises. This innocent man yarn would make Hitchcock proud as it weaves intrigue and murder and a mysterious missing woman into a touching love story. While it provides its fair share of twists and turns, the true driving force is a simple tale of a husband who truly loves his wife.

Dr. Alex Beck (Francois Cluzet, STORY OF WOMEN) and his wife Margot (Marie-Josee Croze, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) have been together since they were children. One summer day, they go to their private lake where they skinny dip. Alex’s father has recently died in a hunting accident and he is in disagreement with his sister, an equestrian star named Anne (Marina Hands, THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS), about selling the farm. This spurs an argument with Margot and she leaves Alex on a floating dock as she heads back to the car. She screams and he swims back to the dock, where he is struck unconscious.

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This Weekend’s Film Festival concludes the four-part series on the new editions to the AFI Top 100 List upon its 10th anniversary. By viewing this lineup, along with Part I, Part II, and Part III, you will have seen 20 of the 23 new films to make the list. Some are far more deserving than others, but for the most part the all newbies deserve to be included. The reason three films didn’t make TWFF lineups were for various reasons. SOPHIE’S CHOICE was featured in another lineup on regret, while INTOLERANCE and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA represent the weakest of the newcomers. For the fourth, and final, lineup, the films mainly represent newer movies. One of the films is a classic black & white courtroom drama from the 1950s. One is a 1970s crime procedural that doesn’t feature cops. One of the films is a modern classic that found its audience from repeated airings on cable. One of the films changed the way America looked at race. The fifth film made us see dead people.

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Alan Pakula’s ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is essentially a crime procedural that replaces cops with reporters. Winning four Oscars and nominated for four more, the Watergate investigation film was added to the 10th anniversary edition of the AFI Top 100 American films list. Bolstered by subtly in every aspect, the production is a marvel in that it works at all. At 138 minutes, it’s dialogue driven, dozens and dozens names are thrown around constantly. But William Goldman’s Oscar-winning screenplay keeps us on track and Pakula and editor Robert Wolfe (both nominated for Oscars) keep the pacing crisp and exciting. Additionally, it’s what Hitchcock always said — an audience will always sympathize with a character that does their job well. Woodward and Bernstein did their jobs very well.

The Watergate break-in story began as a local Washington D.C. report. Newbie reporter Bob Woodward (Robert Redford, THE STING) thought it was strange that burglars would have high-paid lawyers. He writes up the item, but it’s taken off the copy editor’s desk and rewritten by Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman, THE GRADUATE), who has more experience. Metro editor Harry Rosenfeld (Jack Warden, 12 ANGRY MEN) fights to keep the two young reporters on the job when bigger implications grow. Exec publisher Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards, MAGNOLIA) sticks his neck out for the boys, excited by a major story that could take down a president.

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I was a teenager when I first saw Spike Lee’s groundbreaking feature DO THE RIGHT THING, and it disturbed me. I was naïve about racism and sexism, thinking that they only existed in some backwoods Southern town. It’s kind of nice to think a kid can grow up thinking that, but it was easy for me because I was living a comfortable upper-middle-class white lifestyle in the Northern suburbs. If I remember back correctly, I didn’t like it when I first saw it, but I never forgot it. I’ve been drawn back to it time and time again, rewatching the ending looking for clues to the “real” meaning. It took me awhile to discover that the conflict that I felt was the meaning.

Lee stars as Mookie, a pizza delivery boy for Sal’s Famous Pizzeria in the Bedford-Stuyevesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. The joint’s namesake Sal (Danny Aiello, MOONSTRUCK) has run the business for more than 20 years, before the neighborhood became mainly black. He works with his two sons Pino (John Turturro, THE BIG LEBOWSKI) and Vito (Richard Edson, STRANGER THAN FICTION). Pino despises working at the restaurant because he has a burning distain for its black customers. Vito, on the other hand, has none of those issues, often looking to Mookie for friendship when his older brother beats on him. On the wall, Sal has pictures of famous Italian Americans, which provokes the easily provoke-able Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito, MALCOLM X) to demand famous black people to be put up on the wall because black people are the only ones spending any money in the place. Sal tells him to open his own place then kicks him out. His begins the bubbling of the racial tensions on this hot summer day, which will explode by closing time.

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It’s about pot. So grab some chips cuz you’re going to get the munchies watching this comedy from the Judd Apatow stable, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who penned the surprising comedy SUPERBAD. Like that film, this one is essentially a buddy movie, but this one spirals into some humorous action. Indie director David Gordon Green has left his thoughtful Southern gothic style from films like GEORGE WASHINGTON and SNOW ANGELS on the shelf for his transition into mainstream movies; so don’t expect anything deep. But what you should expect is a consistently funny and crazy comedy.

Dale Denton (Seth Rogen, KNOCKED UP) serves people court subpoenas for a living and in between jobs he smoke a lot of dope. He buys from Saul Silver (James Franco, SPIDER-MAN), a longhaired dealer who has a constant smile on his face and lives in his PJs. He’s taken a shine to Dale and tries to convince him to stay and hang out every time he comes over for more weed. But Dale has other things on his mind, especially his 18-year-old high school student girlfriend Angie (Amber Heard, ALPHA DOG). Then one night on a job, Dale witnesses drug kingpin Ted Jones (Gary Cole, BREACH) and female cop Carol (Rosie Perez, DO THE RIGHT THING) murder a rival drug dealer. Completely paranoid and scared out of his wits, Dale rushes to Saul, who is sure that his supplier Red (Danny McBride, THE FIST FOOT WAY) won’t rat them out. But when killers Budlofsky (Kevin Corrigan, THE DEPARTED) and Matheson (Craig Robinson, WALK HARD) come gunning for them, they begin to doubt Red’s loyalty as a friend.

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