New Films

COOKIE'S FORTUNE (12, 118 mins)

Director: Robert Altman

Starring: Liv Tyler, Charles S Dutton

Go figure: the most user-friendly Altman flick in years is also arguably his most lazy and complacent. Cookie's Fortune gives us Mississippi by way of Madison Avenue (all Southern Comfort ad visuals and Delta Blues guitar), plus a cutesy yarn of family feuds, comedy cops and framed innocents cooling their heels in the clink. Broad playing from the starry cast keeps it likeable, but it's frustratingly slight and unambitious.

West End: Barbican Screen, Chelsea Cinema, Clapham Picture House, Curzon Soho, Gate Notting Hill, Screen on Baker Street, The Tricycle Cinema, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Fulham Road, Virgin Haymarket Local: Feltham Cineworld The Movies Repertory: Phoenix Cinema, The Pullman Everyman

LATE AUGUST, EARLY SEPTEMBER (FIN AOUT, DEBUT SEPTEMBRE) (12, 107 mins)

Director: Olivier Assayas

Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Francois Cluzet

See The Independent Recommends, right.

West End: Renoir

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (NC, 75 mins)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: Leslie Banks, Edna Best

Not Hitchcock's shiny-surfaced Jimmy Stewart thriller, this, but the film's 1934 forerunner; shot by the master in pacey black-and-white. Banks and Best are the unflappable British couple who tangle with Peter Lorre's continental scoundrel. Repertory: National Film Theatre

MICKEY BLUE EYES (15, 102 mins)

Director: Kelly Makin

Starring: Hugh Grant, Jeanne Tripplehorn

The current stream of Mafia comedies peaks with TV's The Sopranos, treads water in the upcoming Analyse This and tunnels through the ocean floor with Mickey Blue Eyes. Cue Hugh Grant as a ruffled expat Brit who marries into the Mob and sets off a procession of underworld pastiches that view like a Godfather spoof on The Two Ronnies.

West End: Odeon Camden Town, Odeon Kensington, Odeon Marble Arch, Odeon Swiss Cottage, Odeon West End, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Chelsea And local cinemas

RUSHMORE (15, 94 mins)

Director: Wes Anderson

Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray

See The Independent Recommends, right.

West End: Clapham Picture House, Empire Leicester Square, Ritzy Cinema, Screen on Baker Street, Screen on the Green, UCI Whiteleys And local cinemas

THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (15, 111 mins)

Director: John McTiernan

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo

Brosnan is the suave billionaire art-thief torn between the Monet he's stolen and the shapely investigator (Russo) on his tail. A rejig of the old Steve McQueen favourite, this escapist dainty is a thriller from the old school: all swanky decor, plush locations and Club Class adventurism.

West End: ABC Tottenham Court Road, Empire Leicester Square, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Fulham Road, Virgin Trocadero And local cinemas