REPTILE **

 This slow-burner of a murder yarn may just turn out to be the best thriller of the year. A realtor is found dead by her colleague and partner who naturally becomes a suspect but then there are a few other men in her life who are also suspects; so far, so common-place but Grant Singer's "Reptile" is as much about the police investigating the killing as it is about the investigation. These are a close-knit bunch of cops who both work and play together and who may not be as clean as they should be.

A sterling cast, (Benicio Del Torro, Alicia Silverstone, Justin Timberlake, Eric Bogosian, Michael Pitt, Frances Fisher), add a further touch of class to an already classy thriller and one that is as far from conventional multiplex fare as you are likely to get. It may not always be that easy to follow and midway through the killing seems to fade into the background but it's always highly intelligent and while it may not appeal to a mass audience I think it has cult status written all over it.

PLEASE BABY PLEASE no stars

 Beyond bad! The credit sequence is just dandy so long as you love pinks, blues, highly stylised camp and a little violence. Amanda Kramer's "Please Baby Please" is more of a homage to Kathryn Bigelow's "The Loveless" than it is to "Absolute Beginners" but with a very Queer agenda and while visually this is often easy on the eye its socio-political posturings are very hard to swallow and given the dreadful dialogue they have to speak leads Andrea Riseborough and Harry Mellings simply can't create characters who either seem real or with whom we can empathize.

You might call "Please Baby Please" a queer, feminist, art-house semi-musical shot, again in homage to films of the past, in Panavision and giving Demi Moore the 'guest starring' role. It is, in other words, pretentious in a very bad way, a one-of-a-kind movie that makes you glad it is; at least another one won't be coming along any time soon. What attracted Riseborough to rubbish like this is a mystery.