Quick now: Name last year's Oscar winners! George C. Scott, in Patton (1970), put it best: "Fame is fleeting." So to this year's winners: Enjoy your fame and get back to work! Lots more will come, no doubt, and your services will be more expensive.

Few of the current films are likely to be Oscar contenders, but several are intriguing and worth seeing.

Thank You for Smoking Writer/director Jason Reitman's satirical political comedy is about Nick Naylor, a slick tobacco lobbyist smarter than the demands of his job, who can spin any argument to his advantage. Aaron Eckhart, perfectly cast, evokes the sexist pig he played in 1997's In the Company of Men, and has an air of aloofness which defines the character.

Nick handles constant vilification, dines with counterparts from the gun and alcohol lobbies, and strives to repair his relationships with his estranged wife and son. The boy, 12, is perfectly portrayed by Cameron Bright (now in the violent crime thriller Running Scared).

Father and son head to Los Angeles, where Nick lobbies a film mogul (Rob Lowe) and both pay a moving visit to a dying "Marlboro Man" (Sam Elliott). Robert Duvall is the tobacco industry's most respected executive, while William H. Macy portrays a U.S. Senator determined to put a "poison" symbol on cigarette packs. Katie Holmes is a journalist willing to collect research anywhere-even the bedroom. The film is a wry, sardonic look at this sometimes absurd national debate.

Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School
This strange, emotional journey-about life, love, and fate-begins when the car of Steve Mills (John Goodman) crashes into a divider on a California highway. Frank Keane (Robert Carlyle), a baker mourning his late wife, stops to help and becomes absorbed in the life of the dying man. When Frank discovers that the victim was on his way to his 40th reunion at a dance and charm school in Pasadena, he decides to attend and search for the driver's childhood dancing partner and first love.

The moving film, written and directed by Randall Miller, includes flashbacks, and real and imagined events. Marisa Tomei gives a tender performance as Meredith, a lonely dance partner who brings the widower baker out of his grief. Fellow Oscar winner Mary Steenburgen is enchanting as the title player. And there are cameos galore (by Danny DeVito, Camryn Manheim, Sonia Braga, Donnie Wahlberg, and Sean Astin). The haunting Field of Dreams-style music creates an eerie, engrossing mood.

When Do We Eat?
The motivation of this contrived family drama, set at a Passover Seder, is difficult to understand. Veteran character actor Michael Lerner, as the patriarch, hopes that this year's gathering will be free of the squabbles that wrecked last year's meal. Lesley Ann Warren, always a treat to watch, is asked to portray the mother like an oblivious nitwit: ranting, nagging, and trying to control her dysfunctional brood.

None of the characters has any depth. I also disliked the parents' casual attitude toward their son's drug taking. One guest is an Israeli contractor with an eye patch-presumably a clumsy allusion to Moshe Dayan. The film, which tries to be a Jewish version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, turns into "My Noisy Seder," and becomes a chore. Salvador Litvak needed someone else behind the cameras; directing your own screenplay is never an easy task, and it shows. There's no one to tell you it's awful.

Friends with Money
This is a depressing look at three married couples and a single woman-desperate for love in Los Angeles. Writer/director Nicole Holofcener's tableau of shifting relationships is just two hours of tedious talk-much of it in cars and between spouses.

The casting of the women is impressive. Oscar winner Frances McDormand (Jane) refuses to wash her hair, Catherine Keener (Christine) continually squabbles with her husband, and Joan Cusack (Franny) is the wealthiest. Jennifer Aniston plays the lonely single friend (Olivia), a former teacher, now house cleaner, who dallies with a personal trainer (Scott Caan) in the homes in which they work. Except for her performance in The Good Woman, and the more recent Rumor Has It, Aniston's screen charisma is invisible. There's not a likable person in the group.

Shakespeare Behind Bars
You may have to search hard for a theatre showing this fascinating documentary, directed by Hank Rogerson. It follows a group of inmates at a Kentucky prison who annually perform one of the Bard's plays-part of a unique program of rehabilitation. Their interpretation of The Tempest, with its themes of redemption and forgiveness, helps humanize some of the dregs of society. The men's casual retelling of the crimes they have committed is as shocking as anything Shakespeare ever concocted.