Thanks to two remarkable films, I've learned more about penguins in the past few weeks than I ever thought I needed to know. The first, March of the Penguins was a surprising hit when it played theatrically in 2005, winning an Oscar that year as the best documentary feature. The second, Happy Feet (review following), won an Oscar as the best animated feature of 2006.

I'm not sure how you write a screenplay designed to show the origins if the CIA and its operations up to and including the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. But I'm reasonably certain that no one in Hollywood has an inside track to the straight story, despite research into volumes full of speculation and unverifiable leaks. The true history of the CIA and the details of its operation are not exactly found in the public library or on the Internet, and for good reasons.

The Interpreter is a "diplomatic thriller," if such a thing is possible. And, having been a diplomatic correspondent for several years, I can tell you, the thrills, on the rare occasions they can be found, are wholly intellectual. And so it is with this movie. It offers a long, long windup to a fairly tame denouement.

All the clichs are in place. New coach with a checkered past and something to prove. Down-on-its-luck team. Hostile, meddling townsfolk. The big game. You've seen it all before.

Another box-office disappointment here, but its failure was undeserved. This is a delightful romantic comedy. While the title appears to reveal all you need to know about the subject, the R-rating here is very soft. Apart from a few minutes near the beginning, this more of a costume farce than a sex-romp. Perhaps that's why it failed in theaters; it wasn't what the audience expected.

The critical and box office verdicts on Flyboys weren't exactly glowing. Full of clichs with the usual assortment of standard characters…the dull subplot about the lonely American pilot falling for a beautiful young French girl…wooden dialog...a decidedly old-fashioned tone. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The Matador is an off kilter comedy that works by expertly playing on the audience's expectations without being overly manipulative. Erstwhile 007 Pierce Brosnan plays the the low down and dirty version of JB, a hit man for hire with very bad people skills. He's coming to the end of his run at the top, and has enough money to retire, but nothing or no one to retire to, not a single friend or any other human connection. While on a job in Mexico he runs into Danny, played by Greg Kinnear, who's also in town on a business trip, albeit ina different line of work! The two strike up as mcuh of a friendship as Brosnan's Julian allows, and inevitably when Julian's bosses decide he's more of a lliability than an asset Kinnear's Danny is the only friend he can turn to for help.