The opening credits of “Lord of War” are lovely and disturbing. The camera follows a bullet, one among thousands, as it's manufactured, packed, shipped, loaded into a gun and delivered into the forehead of an adolescent boy in an African country. So begins an ambitious new film by Andrew Niccol that delves into the world of illegal arms dealing. Nicholas Cage is the unlikely anti-hero, Yuri Orlov, a Ukrainian American from Brighton Beach, who narrates the film with an ironic detachment that borders on the absurd. >>

To steal a line from Pauline Kael’s 1982 review of “Shoot the Moon,” there isn’t a single scene in “The Squid and the Whale” that rings false. Noah Baumbach’s diary of a family rearranged by divorce in 1986 Park Slope is serious, funny, heartfelt and heartbreaking. >>

It’s not immediately clear how allowing oneself to be submerged in a clear coffin full of worms in order to win a million dollars is real, even in reference to the loose moniker, “reality television.” And it’s not immediately clear how real sending a red-state Christian to live with a Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan is either, until you watch the show, “30 Days.” >>

After her last two albums, “Glitter” and “Charmbracelet,” bombed miserably, it was easy to forget about Mariah Carey. Her pop princess persona and shallow-end-of-the-pool lyrics make it hard to cut her any slack, either for experimenting or having an emotional crisis or two. >>

In a promo for HBO’s new hour-long drama, “Unscripted,” (HBO Sunday, 10 p.m.) the show’s director, George Clooney, invites us into the unseen world of aspiring actors: the demeaning auditions, dashed hopes and perpetual poverty.

The funny thing is that, especially in New York, the ups and downs of not-yet-successful actors is the part of being an actor that most of us do have experience with. Having a television-watching party for a friend’s bit part on “Law and Order” is a lot more common than congratulating them on their Oscar nomination. >>

How can people be so cruel? It’s a question asked just once in those words during “Hotel Rwanda,” but is in essence the puzzlement of the entire film. Director and co-writer Terry George brings the horrific 1994 genocide of Rwandan Tutsis at the hands of Hutus into brutal view by focusing on the efforts of the accidental hero, Paul Rusesabagina. Rusesabagina, played nearly to perfection by Don Cheadle, manages a classy Belgian-owned hotel in the midst of post-colonial Africa. >>