Music and Lyrics (Marc Lawrence, 2007). Any movie that skewers 80's pop music so effectively--from the light-as-air cutesy hit singles to the preposterously overblown, high-gloss ballads--can't be all bad. As it turns out, though, it can come surprisingly close. You'd have to scour the annals of cinema history thoroughly to find another example of two notable actors so completely disengaged from the material they're working with as Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore are here. Despite its setting in the world of entertainment, the film is an utterly generic romantic comedy. The leads are just operating accordingly, so it's hard to level too much criticism at them for work that is so bland that calling it by-the-numbers would be overly generous.

Manufactured Landscapes (Jennifer Baichwal, 2007). Photographer Edward Burtynsky has generated acclaim in recent years for his brilliantly captured images of man-ravaged nature, deadening industrial workplaces, and the stunning detritus of developed society. Baichwal's documentary is about those efforts. More crucially, it's inspired by his work, appropriating stylistic elements and adopting the overarching point. The film begins in a cavernous factory space with an astonishing eight-minute tracking shot that is characteristic of the entire film for its patience, its strange, almost incongruous beauty, and its prying revelation. Baichwal trains her camera on places battered by globalized industrialization and soaks it in, sometimes with commentary by Burtynsky, sometimes with the quiet intricacies of the image speaking for itself. She's not making some plodding celebration of an artist, but instead honoring him by carrying the power of his art into her film. It is a bold approach that pays off with a movie that is often mesmerizing.

Who Gets To Call It Art? (Peter Rosen, 2006). This documentary, on the other hand, is far more standard and handles its more modest ambitions awkwardly enough to drain the energy out the exploration of a fascinating subject. The film focuses, somewhat haphazardly, on the career and passions of Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Henry Geldzahler and his efforts to draw recognition to modern art, primarily in the 1960's. A key problem is that Geldzaler is simply not that compelling of figure. The film makes a compelling case that he was a pivotal contributor to making the staid art world pay attention to the likes of Andy Warhol, but he's not vibrant or even especially interesting himself, a detail the movie tries to disguise with an overly busy approach to editing and construction. The film is best when it takes the time to dig into the basics of art theory, explaining how Abstract Expressionism gave way to Pop Art and other styles that reacted aggressively against what had come before. This does play a little bit like Art History 101 (well, maybe more like Art History 102, earlier eras are undoubtedly covered in 101) but is more interesting and enriching than the flat-footed efforts at capturing a time of explosively artistic daring.

The Golden Compass (Chris Weitz, 2007). I've been told by people I trust about such things that Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books are uncommonly good, shrewdly mixing fantastical adventures with actual, you know, ideas. The film version of the trilogy's first book is identifiably taken from complex source material, but it gives no incentive to puzzle out the intricacies of its world. The thing is as drab as Gandalf's cloak. Writer-director Chris Weitz is a self-proclaimed devotee of Pullman's words, making his cautious movie version drained of life, insight and nuance all the more damnable. Even the conceit that should play best in the transfer to film--the presence of constant animal companions as outward manifestations of the humans' inner selves--is squandered. Instead of an added level of characterization constantly flitting within the frame, it's a throwaway detail, some uninspired CGI doodling. Everything that should be instrumental is incidental, including major names Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig who flash neither star power nor acting chops. Like too many pieces of the film, they're just there.

The Wind That Shakes The Barley (Ken Loach, 2007). Attention Irish history fans! Loach's film finds the gestation of the Irish Republic Army at the dawning of the Irish troubles, and, at its best, the film catches the fervor of political debates about independence when idealism and pragmatism may not be able to comfortably coexist. When Loach devotes considerable time to backroom discussions and fierce arguments about the workings of a nascent government, the film reaches impressive peaks of gripping drama of intellectualism. When the film settles on its brothers torn asunder plot, it becomes a somewhat tired drag, overly familiar and oddly devoid of emotional impact. Luckily that feels secondary to the meticulously shot, carefully considered slice of Ireland's tumultuous past. It's like a history lesson with teeth.