Southern Comfort

The Coen Brothers were probably on a hiding to nothing in remaking The Ladykillers, and many a critic will point out how far it falls short of Alexander Mackendrick's classic Ealing comedy. In fact, their version bears only the vaguest relationship to it. It takes place in the presentd ay Deep South, where Tom Hanks' Colonel Saunders lookalike, a dapper fellow with a fondness for orotund speeches and a wheezing, sleazy laugh, leads a motley crew of safecrackers. Irma P Hall is the redoubtable black Baptist widow who thwarts their endeavours.

The Ladykillers might be a minor work in the Coens' canon, but comparisons are odious. The soundtrack ranges from gospel hymns and the late Renaissance music rehearsed by the gang in Hall's basement (they are, in fact, tunnelling through to the nearby casino), to more modern sounds, which the righteous widow refers to scornfully as "hippety-hop". The Coens' trademark jet-black cynicism is lightened by their obvious affection for Mississippi's spicy cultural, linguistic and musical melting pot.

The day's second dark heist comedy was Bad Santa, a new addition to the rapidly expanding "psycho-Santa" genre. Billy Bob Thornton's character is not exactly psychotic, just a misanthropic, foulmouthed drunk ideally suited to regaling kiddies in department stores come Christmastide.

This job turns out to be another ingenious cover: after hours, he and the midget who works as his pixie plunder the shops' holiday takings. There is a sentimental ending, with Thornton undergoing a Scrooge-like conversion, but the film forms a worthy third part to Terry Zwigoff 's dyspeptic American triptych, alongside Crumb and Ghost World.

9 Songs, by the prolific Michael Winterbottom, comes heralded as possibly the most pornographic British movie ever made. And it is, indeed, packed with vivid scenes of oral sex, light bondage and, assuming they make it past the censor, some (impressive) erections and an ejaculation. But that's only part of the story.

In between the nine songs (the performers include the Super Furry Animals, Primal Scream and Michael Nyman), the film chronicles a series of intimate moments in a passionate, fleeting love affair: it's a highly romantic piece by a director often accused of emotional coldness. Despite a tiny budget, the light-drenched images make this a poetic celebration of the intense, ephemeral pleasures of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.