THIS melodrama from esteemed Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier was nominated for a Best Foreign Oscar but it left me cold with its fidgety, television-drama jerkiness and eyeball-popping closeups.

Bier, whose engaging 2002 film Open Hearts subscribed to the spartan Dogme film style (digital cameras, natural light and sound, no studio effects), has evolved a style of heightened realism with nervy jump cuts that is at odds with the contrived, portentous plot from writer Anders Thomas Jensen. Danish actor Mads Mikkelson, he of the enormous cheekbones and Bond villain in Casino Royale, plays a former womanising alcoholic making amends for his past mistakes by working with orphans in India. But his project runs out of money and he must return to Denmark on the insistence of billionaire donor J�rgan (Rolf Lassg�rd), who expects a handshake in person.

He's loathe to do it: he despises wealth and charity vanity. But this is the least of his concerns. At the wedding of J�rgan's young daughter, he discovers a shocking fact from his past that changes his life and the lives of those around him. Like Open Hearts, and the Danish classic Festen, this addresses potent familial hard truths. It's finely acted but the emotional authenticity rings a little hollow to me.

Sleeping Dogs (Bob Goldthwait):

Melinda Page Hamilton, Bryce Johnson, Colby French Running time: 89 minutes . .

HOW'S this for an opening line to a film: "My name is Amy. And yes, at college, I blew my dog." If you are going to make a low-budget indie film, it's helpful to shout a little louder. But this droll comedy, by US comic turned director Bob Goldthwait, takes the dog's biscuit.

Imagine it as a cross-eyed mongrel from the genes of the Farrelly Brothers and Kevin Smith.

Amy (Melinda Page Hamilton), a teacher in her 20s, decides in the spirit of honesty to come clean about her sexual history with her fianc�. But the revelation does more damage than good (as you would expect) and she eventually realises how the moral of the title works. Goldthwait directs like a giddy puppy, zooming in on the pooping and fornicating of various dogs. But the film eventually works its way out of the doghouse to make an honest statement about true love and the value of the white lie.

Stomp The Yard (Sylvain White):

Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Darrin Henson, Harry J Lenno, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown Running time: 113 minutes . .

NEVER mind the clich� plot about a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who gets a second chance at a fictional black university after a gang fight in which his brother was shot. Stomp the Yard is an explosion of energy as rival fraternity groups face off not with guns but in "stepping" competitions, a noisy form of dance that seems like a cross of rap and Riverdance and employs fiercely aggressive facial expressions as well as rapid hand and foot movements. Actordancer Columbus Short transcends the material with a brooding virtuoso performance, while Meagan Good is plausible as the daughter of a snobbish provost whose love drives him on.

Ciaran Carty The Reef (Howard E Baker, John Fox, Kyungo Lee):

Voiced by Freddie Prinze Jnr, Evan Rachel Wood, Rob Schneider.

Running time: 77 mins . .

THINK Finding Nemo crossed with Shark Tale and you'll be disappointed. Just take The Reef as it is, a competent but derivative lowbudget animation yarn, and it will enjoyably pass the time as stopgap family entertainment. Freddie Prinze Jnr voices an orphaned fish who escapes from polluted Boston Harbour for the warm waters of a coral reef, where he falls for Evan Rachel Wood's local beauty queen.

Implausibly she's also admired by a shark, surely a ludicrous mismatch - although he doesn't think so. With the help of a kung fu turtle, true love eventually triumphs, a case of having your chips and eating them. CC