It is a substantial distance between Cape Town and Johannesburg. Elvis, the husband-to-be, engagingly played by Kenneth Nkosi, sets off from Johannesburg to Capetown, where he is to marry Ayanda (Zandile Msutwana), who has been planning the wedding of her dreams. First Elvis stops in Durban to meet his buddy Tumi (Rapulana Seiphemo), scheduled to be the best man, and things go wrong from there.

One mishap after another results in delay and raises the question of whether they will ever arrive for the big event, or whether the increasingly frustrated Ayanda will be left without the groom. There is a lot of cell phone calling to try to keep track of what’s going on, and Ayanda wonders whether Elvis is irresponsibly trying to escape from his commitment.

In the process we get a glimpse of family divisiveness between Ayanda’s mother who wants a more traditional wedding and Ayanda, who wants a more modern version. There are also run-ins between Elvis and Tumi, who are black, and whites still resentful of the upheaval that has taken place in South Africa. But with the attitude of good will bristling in the film, such confrontations are marked by whimsy and changes of heart. There is the added attraction of Jodie Whitaker as a white visiting Brit picked up during the travels.

Meeting the demands of the situation, Max joins with friends in the beginnings of resistance. Captured, he manages to escape. The well-made, involving film traces the path of Manus through the war, the ups and downs, the drinking and the feelings of guilt at his own survival after seeing comrades killed.

The musical is set against the tragedy of 9/11 as a landmark. Interwoven stories, presented in a succession of years, each an anniversary of 9/11, attempt to show how people grapple with life. Mostly, the stories don’t stem from 9/11. They are meant to reveal human beings in New York whose lives are given meaning by having to move on from what had devastated the city and what can be seen in context.

How you react to all of this may depend on how much you like the pop and rock music contributed by the various participants, and also how interesting you find the character assortment with their trials and tribulations.

The hosts are skilled divorce lawyer M L (Karin Viard) and her husband Piotr (the endearing comic actor Dany Boon). Piotr is unemployed, depressed and searching for something he would like to do. Meanwhile, he is displaying his love for cooking in a remade kitchen, whose designer Jean-Louis (Laurent Stocker) has secretly bedded his wife. The film has a funny gag in the end credits—Piotr’s vaunted stew recipe is attributed to Roman Polanski, whose stunning looking wife Emmanuelle Seigner plays the author Sarah.

Other characters include M L’s sister Juliette (Marina Hands), who is still angry with her estranged father Henri (PierreArditi) for having left her late mother. Juliette has an older companion Erwann (Patrick Chesnais). There are cancer doctor Alain (Patrick Bruel), fed up with overseeing deaths, and his unfaithful wife Mélanie (Marina Foïs), who is a gynecologist and planning to leave their marriage but unable to spring the news. Another couple consists of Sarah (Seigner) and her hot-shot lawyer husband Lucas (Christopher Thompson), who is bored with Sarah. Lucas is in a quandary when he discovers that Piotr has been cheating on M L with Sarah and doesn’t want to reveal it to M L. All understood? Did I mention there are also a surprise pregnancy and a serious injury in the mix?

While the film is satirical, exemplified by all the bitching done about hating to go to the dinner parties and dislike for one another among those invited to attend, the story also manages to be serious about the lives under inspection. That makes for warmth along with the comedy. One gets caught up in the emotions and problems faced, even while chuckling at the skewering of the people and the situations in which they find themselves.

Director Thompson has a good eye for casting and atmosphere. A case in point is the inclusion of Blanca Li as Manuela, a flamenco dancer and teacher with a fascinating face, whose desire to open a flamenco emporium adds a colorful note. So does the street music festival motif that ties up traffic and is interwoven with the story.

Vincent Cassel gives a huge, memorable performance as the violent, power-mad but charismatic Mesrine. It is a performance that heats up the screen, as do the super-charged atmosphere and explosive events. The film reminds me of the 1930s James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson black and white gangster pictures, only charged with all of today’s cinematic know-how and flashiness. Both parts, which can make sense separately, seize the attention and emotions of an audience and don’t let go.

The screenplay is by Abdel Raouf Dafri and based on Mesrine’s autobiographical novel, “L’ Instinct de mort.” (“Death Instinct”). The cast includes Gerard Depardieu as a crime boss. as well as Cecile de France, Ludivine Sagnier and Mathieu Amalric.

Tillman was a rugged American who didn’t seek heroism. He joined the service out of a sense of duty to his country even though it meant leaving his gridiron career. When he was declared a hero, it became a big press item and the government milked the tale to the fullest. When the truth began to surface, the result finally led to the admission that he was apparently killed by other American soldiers in accidental shootout, the circumstances of which the film explores.

If there is a real hero in the case, it is Tillman’s mother, Mary, who doggedly went after the facts and pressed for an investigation of the cover-up. How high up did knowledge of the deception go? The film indicates that discovered documents show it did not just happen at a lower level, as the military has tried to say. The implication is that it probably went up to the White House during the George W. Bush administration.

Protests on the part of the family, including by his wife, Tillman’s outraged father and his brothers led to a hearing in Congress but the film implies that there was too much deference to the military to have the full story pursued.

The first half hour or so into the film, directed by Ryan Murphy, who scripted it with Jennifer Salt, is a rather dull recounting of how Liz decides to divorce her uninteresting husband Stephen (Billy Crudup) and how she gets the hots for young actor David (James Franco). There is mulling-over dialogue with her friend Delia (Viola Davis). Finally, off Liz goes to Italy, and a flash of spark erupts, partly as a result of capturing some of that country’s spirit, but also because of Liz’s new zest for life. That is epitomized when she digs with gusto into a plate of pasta, never mind the calories. She also accumulates some friends, especially the Swedish Sofi (Tuva Novotny).

Next it is on to India and the experience of an ashram. This is the “pray” part of the film and how much you can take of it depends on your tolerance for this sort of religious experience. Admittedly, mine is low. There she meets Richard, a Texan (Richard Jenkins), who befriends her and ultimately details the sad past from which he is trying to recover, a past that makes her dissatisfactions look embarrassingly miniscule. Before departing, he provides abundant advice about life.

In Bali, where Liz on a previous writing assignment had made the acquaintance a kind, all-wise, partially toothless medicine man, she seeks him out again. Hadi Subiyanto as Ketut dispenses supposed wisdom as if his profession were writing fortune cookies.

Enter Bardem as Filipe and life for Liz will never be the same. But once again it is being defined by a relationship with a man. Throughout there are bursts of memoir voice-overs, as well as some annoyingly interrupting flashbacks of how new situations Liz faces recall past experiences.

As for the story itself, there is the pleasure of watching Patricia Clarkson, an actress with an extraordinary screen presence in every film in which she appears. Here she is Juliette, an editor of a fashion magazine and married to Mark (Tom McCamus), who works for the United Nations. When it turns out that he has to stay in Gaza longer than expected, he delegates his friend and security officer Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to look after Juliette.

Dangerous mistake. Tareq is a good looking guy, acted with simmering appeal by Siddig, who is smitten with Julliette. She in turn is increasingly lonely and bored, and when Tareq dutifully escorts her about the city, she is drawn closer and closer to his charm. Little things accent the growing problem. She is supposed to go to experience the pyramids with her husband, and going there with Tareq takes on the tone of a betrayal.

The beauty of the film, apart from its power as a travelogue, lies in the understatement of inwardly throbbing feelings. There is a point at which Juliette would like to become intimate with Tareq. Should she? Will she? Likewise, he feels the same way. But should he make a move that would betray his friend?

The French import (find via Search), given the English title “The Dinner Game” instead of its French title “Le Diner de Cons,” thrives on farce, with the assembled cast being expert farceurs. It stems from a stage production and was written and directed by the astute Francis Veber, who did “La Cage Aux Folles.” The hilarity is derived from events before the dinner, but the dinner never occurs. In the American version, directed by Jay Roach and written By David Guion and Michael Handelman, the dinner takes place with all hell breaking loose.

To get a fix on what this film is like, all you have to know is that Steve Carell plays the supposed schmuck, Barry Speck. He can be quite funny, but his comedy is ultra broad. In the French version the target was a man whose hobby was building monuments like the Eiffel Tower out of matchsticks. With Carell’s Barry, his hobby is making miniature historical scenes with dead mice. Barry can drive anyone crazy, and the life he intrudes upon and turns into a shambles is that of Tim Conrad, played with exasperation by Paul Rudd. Tim, looking to ingratiate himself with his boss and move up the ladder, chooses Barry for the dinner object of ridicule.

Barry invites a sexually aggressive gal who has been after Tim to Tim’s apartment, thereby causing a mix-up with Tim’s girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak), leading Julie to rebel under the misapprehension that Tim is cheating. I won’t bore you with trying to explain all of the entanglements. Carell has moments when he is indeed funny, but far too much in the film is labored and the assembly of character actors piled on is sheer overweight, although I will say I enjoyed the ticks and comic hilarity supplied by Octavia Spencer n her brief role as a wacky medium.

“Get Low” has been directed and edited by Aaron Schneider from a screenplay by Chris Provenzano and C. Caby Mitchell based on a story by Provenzano and Scott Seeke. Duvall gets important assists from Bill Murray as Frank Quinn, a shady funeral director with his own agenda, and Sissy Spacek as Mattie Darrow, a key woman in Bush’s past. Murray provides a humorous edge, while Spacek once again supplies the aura of truthfulness that she has brought steadily to the characters she has played. Bill Cobbs has an important role as Reverend Charlie Jackson, who frowns on the idea of performing the funeral that Bush has decided upon.