Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man. (PG-13) If you can't think of a crisis in your life that's tied to a Leonard Cohen song, then Canadian director Lian Lunson's velvety, exuberantly hagiographic film of a 2005 Sydney tribute concert to the Prince of Pain may not be the movie for you. If you can, the experience will be weepy bliss. The concert shows off Cohen's unifying influence on an astonishingly diverse range of musicians. He sings "Tower of Song" at the end, flanked by U2, but his life flashes by us, intercut with the musical numbers, in grainy footage and wry commentary by the man himself. A total babe in his salad days (if that's the right expression for a man plagued all his life by depression), at 71 Cohen looks like any one of my heavy-lidded Jewish uncles, only with better suits. He may be as obsessive a reviser of his own history as he is of his songs and poems, but his way with words is so sublime, you'd be a churl to quibble. (Ella Taylor) TV
Little Man. (PG-13) The Wayans brothers' white-faced farce White Chicks was the most pleasurably guilty attraction of the 2004 summer movie season. On paper, this new Wayans caper, about a diminutive jewel thief (Marlon Wayans) masquerading as a newborn baby, sounds like a suitably irreverent follow-up. But the surprise of Little Man is that it turns out to be the last thing you'd expect (or want) from the brothers: a bid for respectability. Well, maybe respectability is too strong a term for a movie with this many dick jokes, hits to the groin, and a parade of the dumbest white people this side of a blaxploitation picture. But there's no question that the Wayanses have dialed down the outrageousness here to nearly sub-PG-13 levels. The sight of the pint-sized thief created by elaborate computer effects that graft Wayans' face onto the body of a child actor is indeed a hoot, but having accomplished that feat, the movie runs dry of ideas. (Scott Foundas) ARN, DP, EG, GL, J14, KEN, MR, OF, RON, SP, STCL
A Scanner Darkly. (R) Reviewed in this issue. TV
Strangers With Candy. (R) Reviewed in this issue. TV
You, Me and Dupree. (PG-13) Reviewed in this issue. ARN, CGX, DP, EG, J14, MR, OF, RON, SP, STCH, STCL
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