Co-written by Anita (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) Loos, Cukor's 1939 all-female classic is a goldmine of razor-sharp insults and catty put-downs. The fun's fleshed out by the knowledge that, off-screen, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer hated each other tooth and claw. Shearer forced Crawford to change her costume 16 times until it didn't outshine hers, and in interviews Crawford hissed, "I love to play bitches—Norma really helped me with this." A gaggle of women-who-gossip score points off each other with fearful style. Shearer's hubby's cheating on her with a shopgirl, Crystal (Crawford), and she initiates a Reno divorce. Crystal, greedy, chats up cowboys in a filthy voice via her bath-side phone. Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine and Paulette Goddard chip in with zingers, and eventually revenge is sweet. Also bitter. Not a man in sight, but the competition's heated and no one here would ask for directions. One enormous roaring miaow, from "your skin makes the Rocky mountains look like chiffon" to "chin up, dear—both of them, "The Women is unscrupulous, wicked and acid. Next to this, Deadwood is a group hug where the chaps all show their sensitive side.

It's not awful. That's not faint praise—it's shock. The signs were so bad for Taxi (a Luc Besson-produced thriller remade as a Queen Latifah comedy) that it's a pleasant surprise when it turns out to be a mildly diverting buddy caper on a par with, ooh, Beverley Hills Cop II. Latifah is an insanely aggressive taxi driver with a souped-up car who gets roped into helping a recently sacked idiot cop (Saturday Night Live C-lister Jimmy Fallon) to foil a series of bank robberies. Who are the robbers? Sharp-shooting Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and foxy friends, of course. They've got a souped-up car as well. Possibly you can guess what happens next. No point scrutinising this too closely—it's genetically engineered to appeal to teenage boys, right down to the unnecessary stripping scenes. If you like stunt driving, wall-to-wall eye candy, happy endings and Latifah's family-oriented brand of sass, give it a whirl. But see the original afterwards—it's got 10 times the horsepower.

Hard nut Hamro (Uktamoi Miyasarova) returns to Tajikistan to care for his sick mother after a decade of bad behaviour in Moscow ("I messed up three guys" is all we're told), only to walk into trouble and tough guys every bit as deadly as those he left behind in the big city. With studied calm, Djamshed Usmonov unfurls this quietly admirable tale of morality and maturity, shot in the director's home village of Asht with members of his family playing many of the key roles (Miyasarova, for instance, is his brother). This naturalistic approach gives the film a familiar, quasi-documentary feel, while the theme of big decisions made by little people and the repercussions thereof recalls the work of Ken Loach, albeit with a more spiritual bent. Miyasarova is excellent as the menacing, conflicted Hamro, but it's the wonderfully believable evocation of the bustle of daily life in this poor, forgotten but proud village that most resonates.

The makers of this are also responsible for four previous true-life serial-killer flicks. The justification seems to be that they are bloody chunks of pop culture, and The Hillside Strangler certainly loses itself in '70s LA kitsch as cousins Ken Bianchi (C Thomas Howell) and Angelo Buono (Nick Turturro) set about murdering 15 women. Ken is classic psycho material, played with pasted-on charm by Howell; Angelo is a macho sleaze-hound. When their dabblings in the "whore business" are squashed by heavy duty pimps, they take out their frustrations cruising Hollywood, raping and strangling. Shot like a period exploitation movie by writer/director Chuck Parello, there's a blunt nastiness to both killers and killings. But misogyny and titillation vacantly dominate. The wider themes addressed, say, in Spike Lee's Summer Of Sam are absent. And serial killers being vile is hardly news, especially to the relatives of the 15 women casually exploited here. Reprehensible, really.

A crooner in the Sinatra school, Bobby Darin had ego and ambition enough to overcome his pudgy, square looks, and even garnered an Oscar nomination in his brief acting career (for 1963's Captain Newman MD). He seems to have married Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth) to prove, simply, that he could. Can't imagine what star-director Kevin Spacey relates to here. There are some heavy-hitters among the screenwriters?Paul Homicide Attanasio; Lorenzo Sleepers Carcaterra; James Bugsy Toback?and Beyond The Sea isn't stupid, but it never makes a compelling case that Darin merits two hours of our rapt attention. The movie delivers the greatest hits alongside domestic trials and tribulations, with a few fantasy sequenes thrown in, but Spacey's direction is self-conscious, and no movie which shoves John Goodman, Bob Hoskins and Brenda Blethyn down our throats deserves much sympathy.