He hasn't stood behind a camera since `The Cable Guy', but his career as a shrewd, funny actor is taking off. Dennis Lim met him

Neil LaBute's latest film is another portrait of bad behaviour with laughs. At whose expense?

LONDON BOX OFFICE

UK BOX OFFICE

There's Something About Mary 15

A NEW film has just opened in British cinemas, a romantic comedy about a man who decides to track down his high- school sweetheart. The woman is played by Cameron Diaz, who beat Julia Roberts to the altar in My Best Friend's Wedding, but did it so sweetly that even Ms Roberts gave the happy couple her blessing.

Good taste is not something for which the Farrelly brothers, the sewer-minded siblings behind Dumb & Dumber and Kingpin, are renowned. And nor will they be after There's Something about Mary (above). Going where few films dare, it eschews political correctness in favour of cheap - and occasionally shocking - jokes about masturbation, mental illness, homosexuality, serial killers, black foster parents, voyeurism.... Few taboos are left intact, in fact, as Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon and Lee Evans compete for Cameron Diaz's impossibly sweet Mary. But the acting is so game, the tone so good-natured and affectionate, and the humour so all-embracing that the film never actually becomes offensive. If anything, it's a hilarious reminder of just how absurd we humans are.

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (18) DIRECTORS: PETER AND BOBBY FARRELLY 119 MINS STARRING CAMERON DIAZ, MATT DILLON AND BEN STILLER

Toilet humour has an ancient and honourable lineage. No, really

LONDON TOP 10

Exposed to brutal reality at home and abroad, director Lee Tamahori's real inspiration was found at his local cinema, writes Nick Hasted

CINEMA

Nicole Holofcener could bear being hailed as the next Woody Allen if her hero were dead. As it is, she's worried it might just make him want to vomit. Liese Spencer meets the self-deprecating director of 'Walking and Talking'

FILM