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In theaters Friday: Shrek The Third New on DVD: The Fountain, Pan’s Labyrinth, Stomp The Yard

Celebrity Birthday: Pierce Brosnan turns 54 today. Happy birthday, Pierce. I for one am glad you’re not James Bond anymore, not so much because Daniel Craig was the bomb in Casino Royale, but because now you’ve got the time to stretch and play a wide variety of characters. Characters like the international hitman in The Matador, the wealthy daredevil art thief in The Topkapi Affair, and a secret spy in The November Man. Err, well, okay so maybe those are all Bond-esque, but will you be sipping Vodka martinis in Mamma Mia!? Lets hope not.

I watched Nick Cassavetes’ Alpha Dog last weekend. This movie is Laguna Beach gone horribly wrong. Based on the true story of Jesse James Hollywood, a So-Cal rich kid drug dealer who kidnapped the younger brother of a former friend to coax a debt of $1,200 out of him. Emile Hirsch stars as the fictionalized Hollywood, Johnny Truelove. Truelove and his gang take the kidnapped kid to a bunch of parties in Palm Springs for a weekend while his parents and psychotic brother, Jake, go ballistic looking for him back in L.A. And the kid loves it. He does drugs and hooks up with girls like he’s part of the gang. Meanwhile Truelove’s father, played by Bruce Willis, is a major dealer with mafia ties who realizes just how much trouble his son is in for kidnapping. He does everything he can to convince his son to return the boy and face a minimum sentence, but Truelove has other plans.

Two things surprised me about this movie. First was how easily it danced around clichés like sex, drugs and teen gangsters, without producing any truly cringe-worthy scenes. Maybe that’s because all of the details of the crime were provided to Cassavetes by an assistant D.A. who up until being deemed biased because of his association with the filmmakers and dismissed from the case was helping to prosecute Hollywood after his arrest in 2005. Or maybe it was because of the superb cast of young talent.

The cast included the other surprise of the film: Justin Timberlake, who makes a believable Frankie Ballenbacher, Truelove’s right hand stooge and the guy responsible for the kid’s whereabouts and wellbeing in Palm Springs. Timberlake was really good as a guy who would otherwise be skateboarding and smoking in peace if he hadn’t fallen in with such a tough crowd. Timberlake shows a conflicted, remorseful conscience throughout the film, and his decision at the end is a tension-filled heartbreaker.

I’ll wrap up by saying that Ben Foster was incredible as the older brother Jake, a maniacal, twitchy addict who flies off the handle like nobody I’ve seen in recent cinema. His character is like a really fast car that doesn’t handle well. You just have to see his performance to believe it…

I’ve talked on The Filter about Alfonso Cuaron’s amazing long, unedited shots in Children of Men. If done well these orchestrated scenes suck audiences in completely, removing the filmmaker’s hand and letting the story supersede any editing or effects. Daily Film Dose lists it’s favorite long shots in film history right here.

I love lists like this. Here are Esquire’s Five Things You Can’t Say in Hollywood. I’d add to this list: The 1970s best actors Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino are now sad caricatures of themselves who haven’t created a memorable character in a decade or more, and Ron Howard is the Matchbox Twenty of directors, watering down every movie in his path. Ooops.