Weekend Movie Forecast: Inglourious Basterds or Passing Strange

Jon Cryer, William H. Macy, and James Spader are all collecting paychecks from Shorts, a fantasy-adventure from Robert Rodriguez about a magical "Rainbow Rock" that makes all the town's wishes come true, "from tiny aliens to giant boogers." Amy Biancolli at the San Francisco Chronicle says that "for a movie about an all-powerful rock, it's actually a pretty good time... it's more of a burst pinata than a story, a wild, kinetic jumble of images, ideas and flying-candy-bar product placement that would offend if it weren't so forthright. Its nonlinear format and absurdist humor are more common in art-house programming than the usual PG ingesta, so don't expect to understand all, or indeed any, of the screenplay. It is designed to promote confusion rather than defray it. It is also designed to promote a related Nintendo DS video game."