Here is a sampling of movies showing during the second week of the Three Rivers Film Festival, which runs through Nov. 15:

'DELIRIOUS'

Les is a seedy paparazzo desperate to hit it big, but he can't talk or even buy his way into the right parties and clubs. His best shots to date? Goldie Hawn eating lunch and some actor skulking out of a hospital after penile surgery. If only he could catch that hot new starlet, K'Harma.

K'Harma? That's her catchy name. Les can't quite catch her, but his homeless "assistant" Toby does in the hilarious, delicious "Delirious," writer-director Tom DiCillo's satire on the nasty nature of fame.

"I'm on the list! I'm All-Access!" cries Les (brilliantly played by Steve Buscemi), as they kick him out of one celebrity venue after another. "Grab the gift bag!" he tells Toby (Michael Pitt), who often sleeps in dumpsters yet has a vague desire to be an actor.

Les wears a look of perma-press perplexity, angry about everything, suspicious of everybody. But he lets the kid crash in the closet of his shabby apartment. ("Don't touch anything!") Toby, as sweetly upbeat as Les is sour, meets K'Harma (Alison Lohman) at a "Soap Stars Against STD" convention, she thinks he's cute, and he's soon sleeping his way to reality show stardom -- much to Les' mounting rage.

"Delirious" is a pure New York movie with lovably deranged characters. Buscemi is in high Ratso Rizzo mode, insisting on his space in a world that can't stand him. This is a fine seriocomic vehicle for him, reminiscent of his equally self-absorbed role in "Interview," even if it careens over the top toward the end.

-- Barry Paris, PG film critic

'THE ROCKET'

The National Hockey League's growing pains come to life through the prism of its first superstar in "The Rocket," a 2005 biopic of Maurice Richard that won nine Canadian Academy Awards. The prolific goal-scorer and fiery competitor quickly earned the nickname The Rocket, along with loads of attention, much to the dismay of the intensely private Richard.

Montreal coach Dick Irvin (Stephen McHattie) calls him "the Babe Ruth of hockey," but the well-cast Roy Dupuis portrays a man more in the mold of Jackie Robinson: Targeted by English-speaking players and officials who had little use for "Frenchies," he kept quiet for years despite indignities heaped on deliberate injuries. Director Charles Biname doesn't flinch from bloody fight scenes at a time when padding was appallingly light.

When Richard finally spoke out in a newspaper column, he was forced to recant or face expulsion. He was later suspended for punching a referee who held him while a Boston player pummeled him. That 1955 suspension sparked riots in Montreal that were quelled only by The Rocket's radio plea for peace, events that bookend the film.

A postscript notes that Richard retired five years later at age 40, having led Montreal to five straight Stanley Cups. Although he was the first player to score 50 goals in a season, "The Rocket" focuses as much on the quiet man and devoted husband as the player, while offering glimpses of Montreal and NHL arenas circa World War II.

Some scenes in French with English subtitles. Rated PG for rough sports action, including fighting, some bloody images, some language and historical smoking throughout.

-- Sharon Eberson, PG entertainment editor

'THE WAY I SPENT THE END OF THE WORLD'

As the R.E.M. song says, "It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine." In this case, it's the end of the reign of Nicolae Ceausescu and it cannot come soon enough for spirited 17-year-old Eva, her 7-year-old younger brother, Lalalilu, their parents and neighbors.

This accomplished first feature from Bucharest native Catalin Mitulescu shows what it means to live under a dictator and how humor, hope and ingenuity are difficult to extinguish. Jokes are made behind closed doors (yet another TV program about ... Ceausescu!) and children hatch schemes of escape or, even, assassination.

We see the consequences of an accident and what happens when blame is wrongfully assigned, the constant threat of the authorities, how a beneficial friendship can bring medicine otherwise unavailable and what it means when the overthrow finally comes.

Through tradition, song, dance, humor, drama and a dose of fantasy -- and the affecting performances of Dorotheea Petre and Timotei Duma as the siblings -- Mitulescu shows us how the end of the world can be a very good thing.

-- Barbara Vancheri,

PG movie editor

'MANUAL OF LOVE'

The quartet of vignettes in director Giovanni Veronesi's "Manual of Love" corresponds to the four chapters of a (faux) audio book by the same name: Falling in Love, The Crisis, The Betrayal and The Abandonment -- each with a character connecting to the next.

In this romantic comedy, as in life itself, the first part is the most fun: Wildly infatuated Tomasso (Silvio Muccino) pursues diffident Giulia (Jasmine Trinca) through first date, first kiss, fab sex, cohabitation and marriage -- but not quite happily ever after.

Subsequent segments have enjoyable moments but lack the charm and realism of the first: In part two, Sergio Rubini plays a frustrated driving-school teacher whose stale relationship is not freshened either by yoga or by fire dancing at Club Med. In part three, feisty traffic cop Luciana Littizzetto, shattered by her husband's cheating, uses her authority to vent her rage and gain revenge against men in general -- hilariously.

In the not-so-hilarious final section, broken-hearted Carlo Verdone -- unprepared for the first big tragedy of his life -- tries to come to terms with his wife's rejection by relying on the "Manual of Love's" dubious advice.

The performances are lovely and Veronesi's screenplay has wonderful moments, if not quite enough glue to hold this ultimately pessimistic enterprise together.

-- Barry Paris,

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

'AMERICAN ZOMBIE'

"We're here. We're dead. Get used to it."

That's the slogan at ZAG or the Zombie Advocacy Group in this mockumentary exploring the zombie community in and around Los Angeles. A couple of indie filmmakers turn their cameras on zombies who toil in convenience stores, florists and sweatshops, where the owners love their work ethic. After all, they don't sleep or ever get tired.

Except for the whole dead thing -- and pale skin and rotting flesh -- they're just like us, they insist. One woman does string art and another says, "I want a nice life. I want to be happy. Isn't that what everyone wants?"

Grace Lee is an award-winning director who teams up with fellow filmmaker John Solomon, who risks alienating their subjects with pushy questions about flesh feeding. They finagle their way into the annual Live Dead, a three-day festival of revenants, that could be the beginning of the end.

Although the tone of the zombie zealots and the indie filmmakers seems on the money, the new-to-DVD zombie spoof "Fido" was a much funnier, sharper take on the undead, as was "Shaun of the Dead." This probably cost a fraction of those films and, of course, is a different genre, but its bite proves predictable.

-- Barbara Vancheri