Nanette Burstein

The last two films Nanette Burstein directed focused on similar themes — heartbreak, passion, ambition, peer pressure and yearning. Yet as comparable as the subject matter might have been, Burstein was working in considerably different forms: Her 2008 film "American Teen" was a documentary about Midwestern high school seniors, while Sept. 3's "Going the Distance" is a fictional feature about bicoastal thirtysomethings. Hollywood is constantly looking in unusual directions for fresh filmmaking talent.

Warning: This is not a reliable review of "Going the Distance. " When it comes to contemporary American romantic comedy, my brain, heart and standards have been seriously compromised by "The Ugly Truth," "Did You Hear About the Morgans?", "The Bounty Hunter" and "The Back-up Plan" and many others. Too many others. The calculated sexual raunch (mostly verbal) in "Going the Distance" impedes on its hard-edged, soft-center charm, and it may be enough to throw various audience segments straight out of the thing.

Warning: This is not a reliable review of "Going the Distance. " When it comes to contemporary American romantic comedy, my brain, heart and standards have been seriously compromised by "The Ugly Truth," "Did You Hear About the Morgans?", "The Bounty Hunter" and "The Back-up Plan" and many others. Too many others. The calculated sexual raunch (mostly verbal) in "Going the Distance" impedes on its hard-edged, soft-center charm, and it may be enough to throw various audience segments straight out of the thing.

The last two films Nanette Burstein directed focused on similar themes — heartbreak, passion, ambition, peer pressure and yearning. Yet as comparable as the subject matter might have been, Burstein was working in considerably different forms: Her 2008 film "American Teen" was a documentary about Midwestern high school seniors, while Sept. 3's "Going the Distance" is a fictional feature about bicoastal thirtysomethings. Hollywood is constantly looking in unusual directions for fresh filmmaking talent.

IN THE OSCAR RING Things for documentarians Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen look rosy indeed. Their critically lauded feature-length documentary "On the Ropes," which has already racked up several awards including the Special Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, also is up for an Independent Spirit Award and an Oscar.

The documentary "American Teen" illustrates that no matter how drastically the world changes, high school remains steadfastly the same. Filmmaker Nanette Burstein ("The Kid Stays in the Picture") spent 10 months following five teenagers at Warsaw High School in Warsaw, Ind.

There's no avoiding the talk about: Miley Cyrus' new album, "Breakout." Because as good as "See You Again" was -- and it was good -- her angry new tune "7 Things" is better. And ever since that Vanity Fair debacle and those bra-baring photos surfaced, we've decided she's pretty darn cool. You might as well give in. (Tuesday) "Shaun of the Dead" fans, please talk about: "Spaced: The Complete Series" DVD.

"American Teen" follows five Indiana high schoolers through their senior year, shining hopes, pimples and all. Documentarian Nanette Burstein ("The Kid Stays in the Picture") diligently selects representative types -- "jock," "princess," "geek," "heartthrob," "rebel" -- in a small town that, if not exactly reflective of American demographics, does resemble some classic vision of Americana, albeit updated with text messaging and camera phones. Such ordinariness is both strength and weakness here.

"On the Ropes" is another in a stream of documentaries that explore the potential of the form so effectively that they become as involving and suspenseful as the best fictional films. Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen are the very models of contemporary documentarians: They win the trust of their subjects to the extent that they are the proverbial flies on the wall, eavesdropping on life.

Burn After Reading Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98 Joel and Ethan Coen disappointed some fans with the follow-up to their Oscar-winning "No Country for Old Men." Arch to the extreme and populated by cartoonish character turns, "Burn After Reading" offers a darkly comic riff on the D.C. thriller genre, in which everyone's an arrogant idiot. But the movie's also hilarious and brilliantly constructed with a script that adds and subtracts elements exactly when necessary.

IN THE OSCAR RING Things for documentarians Nanette Burstein and Brett Morgen look rosy indeed. Their critically lauded feature-length documentary "On the Ropes," which has already racked up several awards including the Special Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, also is up for an Independent Spirit Award and an Oscar.

SUNDANCE Film Festival programmers have finished sorting through all 3,624 feature films submitted for January's festival, and while the resulting lineup won't be as depressing as recent years, it won't be all mirth and merriment.

Chicago Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere Miramax, $30 The first musical since 1968's "Oliver!" to win the best picture Oscar, "Chicago" is a rollicking, superbly crafted adaptation of the 1975 Broadway hit penned by John Kander and Fred Ebb and originally directed by the late great Bob Fosse.