Slipping girls a bubble-gummy, cinematic adaptation of YM magazine is okay — and gets you a G rating as long as no one uses any naughty words — because the fact that a girl’s worth is based strictly on her appearance is undeniable fact, and it’s the kind of thing our daughters need to learn if they’ve any hope of snagging a date-raping football-player boyfriend in high school. Fine fare for the whole family.

The Internet is bad for us; no, wait, it’s good for us. The Net makes us antisocial; no, wait, it makes us more gregarious. Can there be any doubt that a medium — whether it’s the telegraph, the boob tube, or the Internet — that changes the way we interact with our fellow humans will … more…

A series of gruesome murders is plaguing Tokyo: the victims die from loss of blood through an X-shaped incision in the neck, which severs both carotid arteries; the unlikely perpetrators hover nearby, remembering nothing about the crime. The police detective in charge of the case, Ken-ichi Takabe (Koji Yakusho, weary and sorrowful), wonders how killers … more…

Actually, most of the cast of America’s Sweetheart are not bad actors — they’re just badly directed from a bad script here. And that’s bad enough. This is cutesy-pootsie cotton candy that pulls all its punches and could only survive on the chemistry of its stars, which is unfortunately completely nonexistent.

TOKYO (AP) — Downtown Tokyo was leveled last night for the 23rd time in the last 50 years in a daring twilight rampage by Godzilla. Anti-monster sirens blared minutes before the attack, allowing thousands of citizens to escape injury by fleeing the area, although one vegetable-stand owner was heard to scoff, ‘Bah! Godzilla…’ before being stomped to death by the beast. Police officials were quoted as saying ‘Aaahhhhh! Godzilla!!!!

Adapting a book to film is always a tricky proposition. Adapting a beloved book is asking for trouble. Stray too far from the source material, and you run the risk of incurring the scorn of the book’s fans — possessive, protective fans with their own very definite ideas about how their beloved book should look on the screen.

In case the title doesn’t clue you in, know this: Inbred Rednecks was Screaming Stoner Video’s Stoner Classic of the Year, 1999. A “rude movie” by Joshua P. Warren — who wrote, directed, and did practically everything else — this little slice of North Carolina redneck life is getting a theatrical run in NYC starting … more…

Is there anybody who doesn’t want to be famous? Sure: those who already are. A 2000 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, this Belgian-Dutch-French production — performed in the Flemish language — proves that a mania for celebrity isn’t a bizarre phenomenon exclusive to the Great Sodom of America. Eighteen-year-old Marva Vereecken (Eva van der … more…