Harold & Kumar are back! Oh glorious day—how on earth could we not lead with the return of this generation's most important stoners? Their original quest for White Castle burgers (which we've never tried, and still wonder about) was maybe a little patchy but (for some reason) completely rewatchable in the way the best quick-fire comedies are, and the results for Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay seem to promise a similar experience, but one with a more satirical bent. So we're excited despite ourselves. Reviews? We're particularly taken with one from The Star's Peter Howell, where he invites us to "Party on, dudes." Bless.

Of course, choosing to satirize America's current foreign policy isn't necessarily the best idea, and David Topping has the score on John Cusack's unfortunate attempt, War Inc.:

"If a satire about the Iraq War was directed by the guys who made Meet the Spartans, this'd be it. It's a shame: on paper, War Inc. sounds like an interesting, relevant, and gutsy movie (a satire about a privatized war in a middle-eastern country), with a good cast (both John and Joan Cusack, Ben Kingsley, Marisa Tomei, Dan Aykroyd, and...Hilary Duff). Problem is, the movie decides to ditch subtlety in favour of a torrent of over-the-top and unbelievably obvious references—if you know enough about the Iraq War to dislike it, nothing will go over your head; everything will hit you over it. Even ignoring the satire, the movie's a total dud: the two plot twists are obvious about an hour before either one arrives, Hilary Duff's awful fake accent outstays its welcome by about an hour, and John Cusack—John Cusack!—even manages to make himself dislikable. In the end, the thing that War Inc. shares most with the war it satirizes is that it's an absolute mess. Thank God this one's over and done with in a few hours."

Tina Fey's latest film, Baby Mama, is getting similar sentiments, with The Sun's Kevin Williamson giving the film a pummelling, unfavourably comparing it with getting a vasectomy. It's possible you might argue that it's not going to interest a man anyway (particularly if you've seen the skin-crawling adverts for the film on NBC, where Tina Fey desperately and wrong-headedly tries to convince us to go and see it by saying "there are a lot of funny men in it"), but one thing that's important for everyone to know (male or female) is that Tina Fey didn't write the film. Considering she definitely knows what is funny and isn't (see: 30 Rock) we can only surmise that she needed the money. She wouldn't be doing those adverts otherwise, surely.

Also on release this week: Ken Loach's latest attempt to depress us all, It's a Free World; Then She Found Me (directed, written by, and starring Helen Hunt, so if you're a fan?); The Singing Revolution, a doc on the revolution of Estonia; Deception; and The Visitor.

Rep cinemas are doing interesting stuff this week, with the Fox Theatre showing Peter Jackson's Meet The Feebles tomorrow night at 11:30 p.m., and The Revue showing The Manchurian Candidate on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. (Adam Nayman covers the Revue's latest season in Eye). And we can't forget that the Over The Top film festival opens on Wednesday, with I Think We're Alone Now.