'Burn After Reading'

3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

The tagline could very well be "When Bad Things Happen to Bad People."

Not that everybody (or anybody) in the Coen brothers' current entertaining entry is bad in the sense of "evil." They're just bad like "Seinfeld" characters -- self-absorbed schemers preoccupied with appearance, money and sex -- who can be counted on to make deliciously dumb decisions.

After snarly CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is fired for his chronic drinking problem and estranged from his wife (Tilda Swinton), a disk containing highly classified bits of Osborne's story is found on the floor of Hardbodies Fitness Center. Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), who desperately needs money for a cosmetic-surgical makeover, and her airhead colleague Chad (Brad Pitt) use the disk for a monumentally inept blackmail attempt.

Linda also gets involved with Harry (George Clooney), a lactose-and-shellfish-intolerant Casanova, who happens to be sleeping with Osborne's wife, among many other women for whom he trolls online.

If the wacko script here is not so stunning as "Fargo's" or "No Country for Old Men's," the all-star ensemble cast is in equally rare collective form, especially McDormand, who steals the show.

"Burn After Reading" is a savvy screwball sendup in melancholy mode, full of the Coens' trademark misfits, mistaken identities and misunderstandings: an existential "feel-good black comedy" if ever there was (or is) one.

Along with a making-of featurette, the DVD comes with a comedy piece about Clooney returning for his third film with the Coens.

-- Barry Paris, Post-Gazette film critic

'Death Race'

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

What's the opposite of a chick flick? Look it up, and there's bound to be a still from the mucho macho "Death Race."

Buckle up as bad things happen to a rehabilitated ex-con ("Transporter's" Jason Statham) who's good with cars -- his wife is killed, he's blamed, and then transported to prison, where nasty warden Joan Allen (yes, three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen!) enlists him in the prison's deadly car races. He's coached in the ways of the prison races by "Deadwood's" Ian McShane, with the stunts and action clearly in the driver's seat.

The DVD contains an "unrated" version with commentary and some extra footage. From two making-of features, we find that Allen enjoyed playing the bad girl and Tyrese Gibson was thrilled to be in a movie with Allen because he loved her in "The Notebook." Also, Brit director Paul W.S. Anderson and his crew aspired to use minimal visual effects, keeping the crashing and burning as physically real as possible. Anderson chose to channel 1975's "Death Race 2000" because he was attracted to "the kind of movies your parents didn't want you to see," the ones with gratuitous nudity and violence. As Statham says, "Boys will be boys."

-- Sharon Eberson, Post-Gazette entertainment editor

'The Women'

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

Remakes are dicey; reinventing is a classic a no-win situation. There are rare exceptions, but "The Women" -- written and directed by Diane English ("Murphy Brown") -- isn't one of them.

The new version is a long way from the 1939 movie "The Women," which was directed by George Cukor and based on the Clare Boothe Luce play that starred Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford. But if you're not looking for a classic and will settle for something vaguely amusing and sitcomish, this latest incarnation will pass the time. You can take the title fairly literally. Unlike "Sex and the City," there is no yin to the yang (or is it the other way around?). No Mr. Big. The cast is all female.

The story circles around Mary (Meg Ryan), the wife of a rich financial type who finds out that her husband is having an affair with the younger and less-well-off Crystal (Eva Mendes), who works at a perfume counter at Saks Fifth Avenue. There is gossip and scheming among Mary's friends (Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Annette Bening), relatives (Candice Bergen) and help (Tilly Scott Pedersen, Cloris Leachman), but there's nothing approaching the firepower of the original.

-- Rob Lowman, Los Angeles Daily News

"The House Bunny"

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

Anna Faris is a Playboy bunny who gets tossed out of the mansion and lands at a sorority house filled with socially clueless women who need some advice about men. She, meanwhile, could use some lessons in individuality.

"Hamlet 2"

2 stars = Mediocre
Ratings explained

Irreverent comedy with a failed actor turned terrible high school drama teacher who rallies his Tucson students as he stages a politically incorrect musical sequel to Shakespeare's "Hamlet." "Hamlet 2" has some spikes of laughter, but it relies too often on vulgar language, nudity and cheap gags. Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler, David Arquette and Elisabeth Shue

"Beethoven's Big Break"

The lovable St. Bernard is cast in a Hollywood movie in this new comedy-adventure starring Jonathan Silverman and Rhea Perlman.

"The Duchess"

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

Keira Knightley plays the original "It Girl," The Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana Spencer, who was beautiful, glamorous and adored by an entire country, except for her husband, the Duke (Ralph Fiennes). The cinematography is sumptuous, but director Saul Dibb is constrained by a soap-operatic screenplay, based on Amanda Foreman's best-selling biography. The bottom line is a kind of a forced-feminist bodice-ripper with romantic intrigue galore, enjoyable but not significant.

"Baghead"

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

Mark and Jay Duplass, who made "The Puffy Chair," direct this tongue-in-cheek horror story, a gentle send-up of indie movies and actors at the bottom of the food chain.

"Eagle Eye"

2 stars = Mediocre
Ratings explained

Race-against-time thriller, with Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan, about how pervasive technology such as GPS devices, ATMs, cell phones and surveillance cameras can be used against people. It builds to the sort of operatic, tension-filled scene that Alfred Hitchcock did so well, but here feels ludicrous, and then tacks on an ending designed to please the audience.

"Ghost Town"

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

Ricky Gervais is a misanthropic dentist who dies, briefly, during a hospital stay and comes back to life with the ability to see ghosts who pester him for favors. It's not the best ghost movie ever told, nor the worst. It's not a weepie like "Truly, Madly, Deeply" or a wacky fantasy such as "Beetlejuice" or a quiet thriller such as "The Sixth Sense," but a thoughtful, enjoyable movie about putting ghosts to rest and learning to join or rejoin the living. Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni co-star.