The Yes Men are a small group of culture jammers who diligently and artfully mess around with groups like the World Trade Organization. Their primary method is to make phony websites (GWBush.com, GATT.com), then misinform the people who visit them. Sometimes the hoax is so effective that the pranksters are invited to speak at conferences, or on TV shows on behalf of the organizations. When they do, they argue, in character, for things like human-waste recycling for more profitable food service (Re-Burger), or model the Management Leisure Suit, which sports a massive prosthetic phallus/TV screen that would allow executives to monitor employee performance in sweatshops from the comfort of their country clubs. This documentary follows the two main Yes Men as they plot out a series of increasingly absurd theatrical stunts along these lines. Seeing the way their absurdities play with the credulous corporate audiences is fairly amusing, and the lengths they go toward pulling the wool over people's eyes is admirable. The only problem is that the film, directed by the team responsible for the brilliant American Movie, is equally credulous, which makes the activism feel cloying and self-satisfied.

Though corporate antagonism is inherently valuable, it also runs the risk of preaching--not to the choir, but to the mirror. The performance element of the Yes Men's act, though funny at times, is also kind of grating. They talk about the "theory" that motivates them, but seem to have no better idea about the reality of global economics than the suits they despise. The only real anti-globalization evidence the film presents comes from Michael Moore, who tells us that a Mexican ghetto he once visited before NAFTA is still poor. That's unfortunate, but it hardly proves a point. The same can be said of Yes Men. SEAN NELSON

Ladder 49
dir. Jay Russell
Opens Fri Oct 1.

Watching people run into a burning building, whether it's a Hollywood production or not, is really unsettling. Fire is hot, it burns, and you don't want to fuck with that. But that's what the movie Ladder 49 is about. It's about the men and women who make it their job to battle fire despite that fact it could kill them.

Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix) is a Baltimore fireman. After a rescue mission gone wrong, Morrison finds himself trapped inside a large 20-story building that's quickly becoming completely engulfed in flames. A lot of things can run through your head as you sit in a burning building not knowing if today's the day you will die. He's injured, he's not sure what floor he's on so he can't tell rescuers where to go... basically he's fucked. But while drifting in and out of consciousness, Morrison's life replays before his eyes. Through vivid memories we get to know Morrison--we see the start of his career, his friendships, his family. And this device of piecing his life story together while juxtaposing it against the fight for life is really well done.

I can't say Ladder 49 is a powerful movie that does real justice to the life of a firefighter, because I'm not a firefighter. I don't even personally know any firefighters. But if it is, if this movie is even 75-percent legit... well then, shit--firefighters are amazing, courageous, and insane human beings. MEGAN SELING

Head in the Clouds
dir. John Duigan
Opens Fri Oct 1.

Let's begin with two truths: One, Charlize Theron is a beautiful woman; two, Head in the Clouds, her latest movie, is not good. As it would take me several hundred pages to explain why Theron is beautiful--I would have to recount the modern history of South Africa, with a focus on two major battles between the Boers and the British in 1899--I will explain why Head in the Clouds misses its mark, as this task requires only 200 words.

Directed by John Duigan, Head in the Clouds opens with a glamorous woman named Gilda (Theron) walking into a stranger's room. The year is 1933, the setting is Cambridge, and the room is occupied by a young Irish student (Stuart Townsend). Gilda shuts the door and explains that she is hiding from her boyfriend. The Irish student instantly falls in love with Gilda because he knows that she is rich and famous--the daughter of a rich Frenchman and an even richer American woman. This is how their romance begins, and the rest of the movie unsuccessfully describes how it all comes to an end.

Inevitably, World War II looms over their love affair, which moves into a Paris apartment. The lovers live with another beautiful woman (Penélope Cruz), who is Spanish, has a limp, and is in love with Theron. A spacious apartment, a big city, friends in very high places--it's all there. But the movie fails to convert these delicious elements into a decadent work of cinema. This is supposed to be the story of a great romance, and yet nothing on the screen burns with the stuff of passion. Much more sensuality is needed at almost every level--the script, the acting, the direction, the cinematography. Several scenes in Iain Softley's The Wings of the Dove (1997) came close to achieving what is entirely absent from all of the scenes in Head in the Clouds--the visual equivalent of a love affair that spares no expense. CHARLES MUDEDE