Byline: ALEXANDER WALKER

How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days (12A)

Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Kathryn Hahn, Annie Parisse Dir: Donald Petrie US, 116min

Kate Hudson (below) plays a woman journalist who writes a 'How to... ' column. Then she makes a big mistake. She undertakes to give a guy hell so that he'll dump her in 10 days. But the guy (Matthew McConaughey) is trying to prove his prowess as a copywriter in an ad agency by showing how he can win a girl's heart in ten days.

It's filmmaking by numbers - or countdown - and you're wishing both stars would find out each other's stratagem and get down to some nice orthodox romance. It's the sort of film that must have had the stars crossing off the days until they were free of the witless plot - and each other.

Ararat (15)

David Alpay, Arsinee Khanjian, Christopher Plummer Dir: Atom Egoyan Can/Fra, 120min

One of those tremendously pretentious films that tries to tell a contemporary story, flash back to a historical massacre, and take in some arty observations on the Armenian painter Archille Gorky. Written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, it's a confused memoir of the director's own ethnic roots, racist massacres in the early 20th century, and family problems in the current decades. Running through all this is the story of a restless teenager (David Alpay, above with Marie-Josee Crozr) who runs into trouble at Toronto airport when he returns from Turkey,...