Say It Isn't So (15); <br></br>Autumn In New York (15); <br></br>Dracula 2001 (15); <br></br>Like Father (15); <br></br>No Place To Go (NC); <br></br>Another Life (15)

One scraped from the bottom drawers of gross-out comedy

There's something about Say It Isn't So (15) which isn't entirely unique. The film was produced by the Farrelly brothers, and anyone who's seen There's Something About Mary will recognise their signature "gross-out" comedy: in the first reel, an ear is snipped off and a man very nearly has sex with a cat. On another level, what Say It Isn't So has picked up from Mary is its randomness. Giving screenwriting convention the finger, writers Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow throw in any old setpiece they've got lying around, whether or not it has any connection with the rest of the movie.

The main joke is that a dim guy (Chris Klein) falls for a dim gal (Heather Graham), only to discover that she's his sister. She leaves town and gets engaged to an evil millionaire, whereupon the dim guy discovers that she isn't his sister after all. That's about it for plot. And so, with dozens of blank pages left to fill, the writers rummage through their bottom drawers for any gag they can bung in. For the opening 10 or 15 minutes, this haphazard approach raises enough laughs to be forgivable. After that, it doesn't.

Autumn In New York (15) centres on the romance between a 48-year-old womaniser and a fatally ill 22-year-old. Yes, it's mawkish tosh, but the stars do the best they can. First there's the gauche, giggly Winona Ryder, who announces, "I can smell the rain. When did I learn how to do that?" Then there's the flirtatious Richard Gere, who got into the restaurant business because "food is the only beautiful thing that truly nourishes". Both actors occupy their characters unusually well. The only trouble is that their characters are unbearable.

Speaking of ancient Lotharios getting hold of young women, Dracula 2001 (15) relocates Bram Stoker's bloodsucker to contemporary New Orleans. The executive producer is Wes Craven, who kicked off the postmodern horror fad with Scream. And yet, despite Dracula 2001's MTV visuals, it's an old-fashioned B-movie at heart. The effects aren't quite up to scratch, there are no A-list stars, the characters helpfully explain the plot in soliloquies, and Drac himself has a weak chin and a Scottish accent. He wouldn't last a minute against Buffy.

Like Father (15) portrays a family coping with life after the pit closures in the north-east, and no, it's not as morose as it sounds. Produced by the remarkable Newcastle-based Amber Collective, it features local people rather than trained actors, and it integrates documentary footage into the action. This naturalism is what ensures the film isn't unremittingly grim-oop-north. As in real life, there is hope, humour and rugged beauty amid the bleakness.

No Place To Go (NC) is a stylish black-and-white film about a middle-aged intellectual who is suicidally depressed by the fall of the Berlin Wall. And yes, it is as morose as that sounds.

Another Life (15) is a British period drama that has too much period and not enough drama. Based on the story of Edie Thompson, who was hanged in 1923 after her lover stabbed her husband, it has lots of talk about going to the flickers and giving people the pip, but no characters we can sympathise with or motives we can understand.