AUGUSTEN Burroughs' best-selling memoir of his eccentric 1970s childhood gets the big screen treatment by debut director Ryan Murphy. It can be viewed as a satire of an era obsessed with psychotherapy, but it's also smugly sentimental and ineffective - a coming-ofage drama in which everybody but the author is painted as a cracked loon.

Newcomer Joe Cross plays Burroughs, the precocious son of a wannabe poet and bipolar mother (Annette Bening) and alcoholic father Alec Baldwin. They divorce and send him to live with his mother's elderly shrink (Brian Cox), a disturbing oddball who keeps a 'masturbatorium' room beside his office. His family life would raise the hackles on your neck. But all the young and gay Burroughs wants is some moral guidance: "I want to be grounded for sleeping with a 35-year-old schizo, " he laments. At the nutty centre is Annette Bening, with a superb performance of unhinged irresponsibility.

Arthur And The Invisibles (Luc Besson) Freedy Highmore, Mia Farrow, David Bowie, Madonna.

Running time: 102 minutes . .

SEVEN years in the making and French director Luc Besson's "last film", this children's adventure is a whirlwind of live action and animation about a 10-year old's quest to find treasure hidden by his grandfather in an elfin universe beneath his back garden. It's a visual feast - the animation and gothic flourishes are stunning and it has an unrelenting energy that children will enjoy. But the story's welltrod path is lethargic - a jumble of Arthurian myth and Lord of the Rings-lite wrapped in a copy of Boy's Own.

Gridiron Gang (Phil Joanou) Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Leon Rippy, Xzibit.

Running time: 126 minutes . . .

ANOTHER addition to the 'underdogs come good under the uplifting guidance of teacher' genre. Gridiron Gang is the true story of Sean Porter, a prison officer at Camp Kilpatrick, a tough LA detention centre for gangland kids.

After release, most of them are killed, so Porter forms a prison football team and moulds the reluctant gangsters into courageous players. Most of them go on to lead better lives.

The story was filmed as a documentary in 1993, but this version is equally wellintentioned. Director Phil Joanou breathes a little fresh air into the tired format, while The Rock sheds his cartoon persona with an earnest turn as the dedicated coach trying to break the cycle of violence.