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In most films, artists seem to do lots but paint little: they shout, fall in love, carve off pieces of their anatomy, but the slapping of paint on to canvas gets very little camera time.

But Girl With A Pearl Earring is profoundly concerned with painting: its narrative, look and feel are as absorbed in acts of gazing, interpreting and translating into colour as was the artist Jan Vermeer (Colin Firth) himself.

Nothing is now known of the eponymous Girl in the painting, but in the novel on which the film is based, author Tracy Chevalier invented a maid, Griet (Scarlett Johansson), with laundry-scuffed hands but a painterly eye and pretty face that causes trouble in the overcrowded, underfunded Vermeer household in 17th-century Delft. Director Peter Webber's determination not to privilege feelings over artistic endeavour is admirable, but as a result the film is strangely static: it looks beautiful but very little happens, despite a committed performance from Johansson.

Twenty years after This Is Spinal Tap made laughing at heavy metal a general pastime, writer Christopher Guest brings us A Mighty Wind, which will do the same for folk music.

A motley collection of former folkies whose 15 seconds of fame went to their heads - and, in the case of addled burnout Mitch (Guest's co-writer Eugene Levy), stayed there - are reuniting for a concert in honour of their recently deceased manager.

Mitch has been lured out of retirement to join up with his onstage/offstage other half Mickey (Catherine O'Hara); the 'neuftet' The New Main Street Singers are assiduously tuning up; and The Folksmen (Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean - the trio from Spinal Tap) are preparing to give one last outing to the silliest one-hit wonder ever. There could have been more story, but Guest's peculiar sweet 'n' sour humour is better than narrative any day.

All rise for Runaway Jury, the latest courtroom conspiracy cut and pasted from a John Grisham thriller. Lawyer Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) takes on the gun barons when he files a civil suit for the widow of a random shooting victim. But his real enemy is ruthless jury 'consultant' Fitch (Gene Hackman in evil bastard mode) - the man the gun corporations rely on to buy them a jury.

All goes according to plan until rogue card Nick Easter (John Cusack) gets shuffled into the pack. But what's his game? And who is the mysterious Marley (Rachel Weisz), who claims she can swing the trial for $10million? Strong themes, a cast-iron cast and a sizeable dollop of Hollywood 'let them vote with their hearts' schmaltz manage to maintain the suspense despite textbook execution and a predictable open and shut verdict.

Matt Damon apparently turned down Paycheck on the basis that he couldn't do two amnesia films, and certainly the premise here is very similar to The Bourne Identity. Michael (Ben Affleck) is a top engineer who allows his memory to be wiped after each project to prevent him divulging corporate secrets.

When the big job comes through, he agrees to lose three years of his life - then finds himself on the run with only an envelope of random objects to teach him what he's done and how to undo it. Director John Woo throws in a couple of good chase and fight scenes and Uma Thurman gets to kick considerably more ass than the usual loyal beauty, but the story is preposterous, and it's impossible to care whether Ben Affleck lives, dies or gets minced up for burgers.

Nina Caplan, with Runaway Jury by Larushka Ivan-Zadeh