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The woman in the audience with me who giggled repeatedly through Monsoon Wedding, along with the five or six Aussie/Indian little kids who chatted away delightedly during the film, added to the charm of a very good time at the cinema.

Monsoon Wedding, directed by Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala) along with writer Sabrina Dhawan have concocted a delicious wedding punch of colour, vivacity, romance and drama. Monsoon Wedding is an uplifting celebration of the best and worst of humanity set in modern day Delhi.

Very well to do Aditi Verma is to be married to Hermant. It's an arranged marriage. Hermant lives in the U.S.. Still they're not children, they're in their thirties and they're modern young adults. Aditi has been having an affair with a TV talk show host. Needless to say Hermant has his doubts too.

Aditi's Dad Lalit is also juggling problems of enormous proportions. The wedding is to be a huge and very expensive show. His wedding is being organised by what looks to be a shifty con man named P.K. Dube who, as played by Vijay Raaz, appears both shifty and comical. Getting the money together increasingly becomes more of a task.

Monsoon Wedding follows the time honoured traditions of Bollywood, the thousands of films that have been produced inexpensively for the huge mass market Indian domestic film industry.

Monsoon Wedding also has a sophisticated multi-layered complexity that lends itself to the best of Hollywood films, particularly to perhaps the movies of Robert Altman.

A lack of production gloss doesn't detract in the slightest from just how clever Monsoon Wedding is though. A thousand times in this film the camera whizzes about, tantalizing us with just glimpses of the richness of humanity. The editing of this film is superb.

Of course we're treated to some exuberant singing and dancing numbers, coloured by those peaking Indian melodies and with flashes of eyes and midriffs.

There's a ridiculously romantic scene concocted with marigolds and candles and a wonderful dance routine in what looks like some sort of empty swimming pool.

There must be twenty major characters, a moment of extreme pathos, and at least twenty moments that will encourage you to smile. At one point you might feel like cheering.

The young children having a chat just livened things up even more.

4 And A Half Flys In Pokora Out Of Five

In spite of its rather predictable set up Hardball is remarkably effective. It's a terrific example of a mainstream film that squeezes itself sufficiently out of the comfort zone to be both thought provoking and moving without too often lapsing into the triteness we see so often.

Hardball is yet another genre movie about a desperate white guy (Keanu Reeves) forced into coaching a children's sporting team from a rough black neighbourhood. Does he coach a mob of losers to victory? Does he mature while he does the job? Do the children gain valuable insights from their new friend? Does a love interest hover for our desperado coach?

The first third of Hardball shows us Conor O'Neill (Keanu Reeves) in the throws of digging an even deeper hole for himself with bad bets. He's literally on the run from his creditors and is frantic to get one big win to get the ghouls off his back.

We've seen that thousands of times before on T.V. and film but Hardball worked the trick beautifully. A baseball bat smashing a hole in a wall, where a head was a few moments before, can be extraordinarily effective cinema if done right. I was sold. O'Neill's gambling mate Ticky, played by character actor John Hawkes, has a bit of Steve Buscemi look about him and that has to be a recommendation.

Then we meet the children. The film is set in the notorious Cabrini-Green area of Chicago, a high rise low income housing area which is being progressively torn down. Cabrini-Green is now under redevolopment in what's a bold mixed income experiment, incorporating low/no-income citizens into what an area that was always surrounded by prime real estate.

The children are tough talking 13 year olds, but we're soon shown that they're very frightened. Hardball shows their world as being one where they are rightfully scared to be out after dark. One where people sit on the floor in their high rise for fear of bullets coming in through the windows. Again it was very effective film making.

The baseball is little league stuff in every sense of the word. The coach doesn't seem to know much about baseball and his charges, strangely, instantly improve their game on his arrival. There's the designated tear jerking triumphs and I'm sufficiently chump enough to have been sold on that too!

The token woman is provided by Diane Lane and she's O.K. but that whole plot line could and probably should have been left out. But Hardball was strong cinematic fare and well worth a look.

4 Sporting Flys Out Of Five

If you're after a bit of weep then I Am Sam might do the job, judging by some of the other patrons in the cinema. It didn't have that effect on me, but then I'm not a fan of middle of the day TV soaps either.

I Am Sam is about a mentally slow father called Sam played by Sean Penn. His daughter at 7 years of age is starting to help him with his reading. Family services set their sights on the problem and decide that Sam can't be expected to raise his daughter on his own.

Sam loves his daughter Lucy. Lucy (Dakota Fanning) loves him. Sam persuades Rita, a high octane lawyer to plead his case. Rita is played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Rita is selfish, greedy and a poor mother to her own son. Rita only takes on the job because she's shamed into it by her co-workers.

So you can see the set up.

Will Rita become softened by her experience with Sam and his case? Will she even have a close relationship with her client. And what of the opposition?

Will Family Services, represented most forcefully by the opposing lawyer Turner played by Richard Schiff, be out and out baddies?

And what of the little girl Lucy. Will she find love elsewhere, perhaps with foster parents? Or will they be the rapacious, money grubbing, nasty child beaters usually coughed up in films like these.

I Am Sam does have the virtue of not playing the characters straight down the line, except unfortunately for Sam. Sean Penn is a masterful actor and director. The Crossing Guard, The Indian Runner, Dead Man Walking, She's So Lovely and U Turn have revealed an actor of distinction.

So why should he play a necessarily one dimensional character like Sam? Didn't Edward Norton turn that one on recently in The Score?

There was however a scene in I Am Sam that for me was very effective. Sam is trying to add up money and it's very difficult for him. His struggle was obvious, especially because he knew that other adults did that task much better. He knew that others were much smarter. That was revealing.

However I Am Sam overall was too glossy, perhaps not bleak enough, especially when the glamourous Michelle Pfeiffer character blasted onto the screen.

I Am Sam could have been mistaken for The Old And The Desperate or some such.

2 Glum Flys Out Of Five