NOW NOW PLAYING 24 Hour Party People Wonderfully unpious look back at ...

24 Hour Party People

Wonderfully unpious look back at British punk and the creation of indie label Factory Records by Manchester native and tv celeb Tony Wilson (charmingly impersonated by Steve Coogan). The music's great and the mocking, experimental tone of director Michael Winterbottom is just right. A blast. ? AW (BAM ROSE CINEMAS, CITY CINEMA 3RD AVENUE, SUNSHINE CINEMA, LOEWS 19TH ST. EAST, SONY LINCOLN SQUARE)

Amy's Orgasm

Julie Davis attempts Woody Allen nerd-jokes from the vulva's point of view. It's a Jewish Sex and the City, with Davis feeling enough hormone eruption for four women. Playing a horny author of a self-help books, Davis' humor is cliche, but, thankfully, her directing touch is light. ? AW (ANGELIKA FILM CENTER)

Austin Powers in Goldmember

Mike Myers returns as the snaggle-toothed British superspy. He also does supporting turns as Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard and the title baddie, a demented Dutchman who lost his tallywhacker in a smelting accident. A cross between Peter Sellers and Benny Hill, Myers is a brilliant visual gagster who can't resist diluting his formidable wit with pee-pee/poo-poo humor. There's not much plot and the pacing is rotten; this film, like its predecessors, is a collection of revue sketches. But some of them are hysterical. ? MZS (AMC EMPIRE 25, CLEARVIEW'S METRO TWIN, COLLEGE POINT MULTIPLEX CINEMAS, JAMAICA MULTIPLEX CINEMAS, LINDEN BOULEVARD MULTIPLEX CINEMAS, LOEWS 19TH ST. EAST, LOEWS 34TH STREET, CINEPLEX ODEON ALPINE, LOEWS BAY TERRACE THEATRE, CINEPLEX ODEON MEADOWS, CINEPLEX ODEON KINGS PLAZA, SONY LINCOLN SQUARE, LOEWS ORPHEUM, LOEWS VILLAGE THEATRE, LOEWS KIPS BAY, MAGIC JOHNSON HARLEM, PAVILION THEATRE, PLAZA I & II CORONA, UNITED ARTISTS BATTERY PARK CITY 16, UA COURT STREET 12, UNITED ARTISTS CROSS BAY I, UA KAUFMAN ASTORIA CINEMA 14, UA MIDWAY STADIUM 9, UNITED ARTISTS SHEEPSHEAD BAY)

The Believer

A new twist on Jewish guilt. Novelist-turned-screenwriter-turned-director Henry Bean proposes a young Jewish man (Ryan Gosling) who learns to love his people by first hating them-he joins a neo-Nazi group. Gosling's performance is modeled after Edward Norton's in American History X. Bean models his conceit after stupidity. ? AW(MAKOR)

Blood Work

Clint Eastwood's workmanlike genre picture is also a rumination on maturity. Before its routine wrap-up, this is the rare Hollywood movie with a credible sense of how middle-aged men and women interact (Eastwood warmly co-stars with Anjelica Huston, Wanda de Jesus and Tina Lifford). John Sayles, take note. ? AW (AMC EMPIRE 25, CITY CINEMA SUTTON, CLEARVIEW'S CHELSEA, COLLEGE POINT MULTIPLEX CINEMAS, JAMAICA MULTIPLEX CINEMAS, LINDEN BOULEVARD MULTIPLEX CINEMAS, LOEWS 84TH ST. SIX, LOEWS BAY TERRACE THEATRE, CINEPLEX ODEON CINEMA 5, CINEPLEX ODEON FORTWAY, LOEWS ORPHEUM, LOEWS KIPS BAY, PAVILION THEATRE, UNITED ARTISTS BATTERY PARK CITY 16, UA COURT STREET 12, UNITED ARTISTS CROSS BAY II, UA KAUFMAN ASTORIA CINEMA 14, UA MIDWAY STADIUM 9, UNITED ARTISTS SHEEPSHEAD BAY, UNITED ARTISTS UNION SQUARE STADIUM 14)

The Bourne Identity

Matt Damon's perennial movie question ("Who am I?") is posed, then neglected in favor of the silliest action-movie cliches. Director Doug Liman's spy movie repeats his Go esthetic in service of Hollywood genre but lacking all originality. Franke Potente plays "the girl" but without the zest she had in Run Lola Run. ? AW (AMC EMPIRE 25, CINEMART CINEMAS, LOEWS KIPS BAY)

Full Frontal

Even a bad Steven Soderbergh movie is worth seeing, and this one is worth seeing. Working with writer Coleman Hough, the director attempts a Hollywood satire with multiple layers of drama-shot partly on digital video to make things more "realistic" and "documentary-like." (Funny how, when big-name filmmakers turn to DV, their version of reality is always set in the entertainment industry.) Julia Roberts, Blair Underwood, Mary McCormack, David Duchovny, Nicky Katt, Catherine Keener and other talented actors flounder in semi-improvisational situations; the compositions are poor, the pacing sludgy, and the apparent message (Hollywood is a dream factory, and the dreamers are caught in the gears) is depressingly stale. ? MZS (AMC EMPIRE 25, CITY CINEMA VILLAGE EAST CINEMA, LOEWS 84TH ST. SIX)

The Good Girl

Jennifer Aniston plays a modern Madame Bovary in Miguel Arteta's condescending view of white working-class America. It's completely phony, yet Aniston, playing a hateful twat, is extremely likable. ? AW (AMC EMPIRE 25, ANGELIKA FILM CENTER, CITY CINEMAS EAST 86TH ST., CLEARVIEW'S 62ND & B'WAY, CLEARVIEW'S BEEKMAN, CLEARVIEW'S CHELSEA, COBBLE HILL CINEMAS, KEW GARDENS CINEMAS, LOEWS 34TH STREET, LOEWS KIPS BAY, PAVILION THEATRE)

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

Mediocre alt-rock band Wilco is photographed by Sam Jones during their battles with Warner Bros. And each other. Leader Jeff Tweedy pleads migraines when it is plainly egotism. The music is banal, but the b&w photography is lovely. ? AW (CINEMA VILLAGE)

The Kid Stays in the Picture

Former Paramount exec Robert Evans relives the glory days of the 70s and trusts that viewers will be entertained by his coke-crusted remembrances of The Godfather, Chinatown and Ali McGraw. Struggle to resist this entertaining prevarication. ? AW (AMC EMPIRE 25, ANGELIKA FILM CENTER, CITY CINEMA 3RD AVENUE, LINCOLN PLAZA CINEMAS)

Lan Yu

Stanley Kwan's very serious exploration of a gay May-December romance during the Tianneman Square uprising is bold, yet dull. Chinese authorities may be outraged by the full frontal nudity, but all others may yawn. ? AW (QUAD CINEMA)

Life & Debt

Director Stephanie Black (celebrated for the 1989 doc H-2 Worker) has the admirable impulse to uncover Jamaica's political life. She sees it as an absolute, representational tragedy of the New World Order, and doesn't hesitate to trace fault all the way to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, organizations that placed cruel restrictions on loans to the struggling third world country. Yet Black argues through stilted documentary devices.?AW (BAM ROSE CINEMAS)

Men in Black II

Barry Sonnenfeld's sequel to his 1997 Ghostbusters rip-off is mildly amusing but rather thin-so thin that it makes the first film seem substantial. Will Smith returns as Agent J, who's now an embittered loner; his ex-partner, K (Tommy Lee Jones), is retired, which gives the filmmakers a reason to keep the funniest, richest character off-screen throughout the first act. It's 80-plus minutes of air-conditioning. ? MZS (AMC EMPIRE 25)

Merci Pour le Chocolat

Not a sequel to the sappy Juliette Binoche film but Claude Chabrol's scrupulously familiar expose of bourgeois tensions. Isabelle Huppert plays the dangerously secretive wife who also commands a business and terrorizes her super-civilized family. When Huppert shows emotion, it's as surprising as seeing a potato weep. ? AW (CINEMA VILLAGE)

Metropolis (1927)

Directed and scripted by two masters of Japanese anime, Rintaro (Galaxy Express 999) and Katushiro Otomo (Akira), this sci-fi fable has little in common with the same-named 1927 film, save for the title, the basic plot and a few design touches. The plot, which revolves around a girl robot messiah intended to unite warring factions in a gigantic city-state, is typically fuzzy; the animation, compositions and direction are reliably splendid; the city itself is a marvel of mix-and-match design, well worth the price of admission. ? MZS (CLEARVIEW'S ZIEGFELD, SCREENING ROOM)

Minority Report

Tom Cruise, in his first great performance, plays Anderton, a D.C. cop in a future Pre-Crime unit that prevents murders. This poli-sci-fi movie is Spielberg's dynamic treatise on vision and violence. Layered with ideas and movie references, it's a work of spiritual art, correcting the cynicism of A Clockwork Orange. Samantha Morton plays Agatha, a woman involved in