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WHAT JUST HAPPENED From Sullivan's Travels and Sunset Boulevard to S.O.B. and The Player, I've always been a sucker for movies about the movie business, since the inside-Hollywood info at the filmmakers' disposal tends to reach the screen in a raw, uncut form that allows every blemish to be tantalizingly exposed and magnified. What Just Happened, however, is only partly successful in its attempts to wallow in the wickedness of the motion picture industry, as a scattershot screenplay by veteran producer Art Linson (adapting his own memoir) perpetually keeps losing sight of the important targets. Robert De Niro plays Ben, who's experiencing major difficulties with both films on which he's currently serving as producer. The violent drama Fiercely (starring Sean Penn) is set to debut at the Cannes Film Festival, but a disastrous test screening places Ben in the middle of a spat between the studio head (Catherine Keener) who wants to recut the picture and the director (Michael Wincott) who insists any changes will destroy the purity of his vision. Meanwhile, Ben is also having trouble getting Bruce Willis (as himself), the star of his next action movie, to shave an imposing beard that makes him look like Grizzly Adams. Linson's industry jabs are frequently amusing but rarely uncover anything new, and his sidebars involving Ben's family woes add nothing to the mix; meanwhile, Barry Levinson directs with little sense of passion or purpose. There's added (and perhaps unintentional) humor, though, when Willis, the star of Hudson Hawk and Armageddon (among many other stinkbombs), stands around yammering about his artistic integrity. **1/2
ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO The latest from writer-director Kevin Smith is always likable even if it isn't always inspired. As he proved with Chasing Amy (still the Citizen Kane of his output), Smith can deftly pull off the proper mix of sweet and funny and raunchy; in this case, though, only the "funny" clears all hurdles, as the "sweet" is of the standard variety while the "raunchy" often overwhelms the picture. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are aptly cast as Zack and Miri, lifelong best friends and present-day roommates who are so broke that they can't even afford to pay their utility bills. After a life-altering high school reunion, Zack hits upon the brilliant idea of making their own hardcore adult film in order to raise significant amounts of green. Initially, the eight-person cast and crew (played by, among others, Smith vets Jason "Jay" Mewes and Jeff Anderson and former porn star Traci Lords) plan to mount a Star Wars spoof titled Star Whores (featuring such characters as Hung Solo, Princess Layher and Darth Vibrator), but after that falls through, they opt to use a coffeehouse as their setting. Rogen and Banks are both utterly winning, and their charisma helps offset the fact that their characters' romance takes off down a disappointingly predictable path (remove the risqué trimmings, and we're left with a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan rom-com). The vulgar material is alternately hilarious and off-putting, although any movie with the imagination to cast perpetually boyish Justin Long as a gravel-voiced Hollywood gay porn star obviously has much to recommend it. **1/2
OPENS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26:
AUSTRALIA: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman.
FOUR CHRISTMASES: Reese Witherspoon, Vince Vaughn.
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson.
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton.
TRANSPORTER 3: Jason Statham, Jeroen Krabbe.
