On the surface, this cancellation makes no sense...MTV even wrote a really nice note about the show, giving no reason for the decision not to renew.

“We’re proud to have aired I Just Want My Pants Back, with its impressive creative pedigree and talented group of actors. Many factors go in to determining renewals, however, and ultimately, we decided not to move forward with an additional season of Pants.”

But what are the factors? It might have been the ratings, which were admittedly slumpy: going from a premiere of five million viewers to an average of one million per episode. Still, those are pretty decent ratings for the network.

Another theory is that Pants is too similar to the spate of hipster-themed programming coming to MTV next season: Underemployed, Gonna be Famous, and new seasons of Awkward and Teen Wolf.

But query: has too many shows about drunk housewives ruined Bravo's reputation? Or too many sullen teenagers brought down CW's ratings? Have too many reality shows about pregnant teenagers just oversaturated MTV's market? Why not an all-hipster network?

But it's not all bad news: Hypnotic Studios, Mr. Liman's production company with David Bartis, is now free to pitch the show to other networks. (The series was originally created for NBC.) Might we suggest IFC? Its upfronts were very hipster friendly.

Rumor has it that Pants is already being reviewed for another home. We've reached out to Mr. Liman and Hypnotic, and will update if/when they respond.

Doug Liman has found his Pants

"I’m more inclined to see the villains’ point of view in my movies,” Doug Liman told The Observer on a brisk October afternoon over bottles of Poland Spring in the Tribeca studio of his production company, Hypnotic. “When you grow up in New York, you’re more inclined to see everybody’s point of view."

Mr. Liman, who was raised on the Upper East Side and graduated from Fieldston and later Brown, was answering our question about how a local sensibility has crept into his Hollywood work. He does seem to have a soft spot for certain bad guys—say, Chris Cooper’s Conklin from Bourne Identity, whom the director based on Oliver North. “You identify with all the bureaucratic hassles that he has to deal with,” Mr. Liman told us. “People who believe they are patriotic, bypassing all these rules of law to get done what they think is right.”

Replace the word “patriotic” with “artistic,” and Mr. Liman might be talking about himself. He’s certainly dealt with his share of hassles, after all, and though he’s no murderous intelligence agent—that we know of!—he has developed a certain reputation as “difficult” and brusque. Despite being dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, his hair a mess of brown curls, it was clear from the moment we sat down with him that the 46-year-old director—whose upcoming MTV show, I Just Want My Pants Back, had a sneak-preview after the MTV Movie Awards but is officially premiering on Feb. 2—is just as stand-offish and intense as advertised. The man who put Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn on the map with Swingers and who made Will Hunting into an action star treated the whole interview not unlike a deposition.

Still, Mr. Liman is a complicated guy. Take a look at his résumé, which swerves from indie breakouts like Swingers and Go to major blockbuster hits like Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and whose follow-up film after the mindless popcorn flick Jumper was a retelling of the Valerie Plame case, Fair Game. With his latest project, a TV adaptation of the coming-of-age novel I Just Want My Pants Back (a difficult name to roll off the tongue, so let’s just shorten it to IJWMPB, or, better, Pants), Mr. Liman is returning to one of his favorite subjects, youth culture—albeit 16 years after Swingers helped define an earlier generation. Which is not to say he ever really left the genre behind: he executive produced The O.C. and directed that show’s pilot.

The difference is that Swingers was personal. “There was a lot of autobiography in it,” Mr. Liman told us. “In that I and basically everyone I knew had left New York—our safety net—for this new and alien place.”

In Mr. Liman’s own words, his world as a teenager involved “10 square blocks” on the Upper East Side. (Mr. Liman, who is single, currently lives in Tribeca, “near Bubby’s,” with his dog, Jackson.)

“I used to think New York ended at Canal Street,” Mr. Liman told us. When we attempt a joke—“Well doesn’t it?”—he glared at us, inscrutably.

“I love New York,” he said. “This is the greatest city in the world. So if you grow up here, and this is what you know, you’re growing up very spoiled.”

Mr. Liman’s father was the prominent attorney Arthur Liman, best known for serving as Senate counsel during the Iran-Contra hearings. His mother, Ellen, is a painter and art dealer.

Mr. Liman’s pet project, Pants, has been in the works since 2008, only a year after the publication of David Rosen’s 2007 novel of the same name. The book, which tells the story of 20-somethings living in the West Village, seemed an unusual choice for a big-name director currently juggling two difficult Hollywood features. (One is an alien film starring Tom Cruise; another is about the 1971 Attica prison riot, for which Arthur Liman served as New York State’s investigation counsel.)

When we asked Mr. Liman why Pants was mostly set in the now-trendy neighborhood of Greenpoint instead of the more hipster-populated Bushwick, he seemed annoyed. “Maybe eventually they’ll all get too poor and end up in Bed-Stuy,” he said.

Left to right: Actress Kim Shaw, Doug Liman, Head of MTV programming David Janollari, and executive producer/creator David Rosen

As prickly as he can be with reporters, we probably got off lightly. Sarah Polly, who starred in Mr. Liman’s $3.5 million indie sleeper hit, Go, called him “this complete mess who can barely keep track of his possessions.” (They later reconciled.) Mr. Favreau didn’t talk to the director for years after Swingers, because Mr. Liman made a killing off the film when Harvey Weinstein bought it for $5.5 million, while Mr. Favreau and Mr. Vaughn ended up with more cred than cash. (The duo later reconciled.) Rumors during Fair Game’s promotional tour hinted that Sean Penn’s absence was due to a falling out with the director. And after being ordered to write 50 endings for the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie feature Mr. and Mrs. Smith, only to have Mr. Liman go with the original, screenwriter Simon Kinberg coined a term to describe the director’s style: He called it “Limania.”

During the making of The Bourne Identity, Mr. Liman’s daily fights with Universal were well documented: New York magazine chronicled the studio’s litany of complaints in a 2008 profile of the director: he was chaotic, went over budget and reshot scenes without permission. He made the lighting crew stay overtime during a forest shoot, so he and friends could play paintball. The rough cut didn’t include enough action scenes for the studio’s taste, and they made him shoot 20 extra minutes.

Late-night paintball is just the tip of the Mr. Liman’s activity iceberg. “He’s an adult, but he has a very mischievous, youthful sensibility,” said author Naomi Wolf, a friend of Mr. Liman’s, through her partner (and Mr. Liman’s long-time collaborator), Avram Ludwig. “He’s always instigating some sort of adventure with his circle of friends. They’re always doing physically risky things … rafting, flying planes, going out during a storm on their boat. They’re always getting into trouble.

“It’s a boyish kind of trouble though, not an evil kind,” Ms. Wolf was quick to note. “I think of him as one of those Shakespearean characters like Puck. They disrupt convention, and they perform this incredibly important function of shaking people’s perceived conceptions.”
She recalled a prank Mr. Liman played on her during one of his loft parties. “I was talking to Geoffrey Fletcher, the screenwriter of Precious. We were talking about very important things, like prison policy. And toward the end of the evening, I notice that Doug’s playing something behind me on the giant movie screen that he has.” The video was Ms. Wolf’s “extremely embarrassing” interview with Ali G. from 2010.

Mr. Ludwig, who has worked with Mr. Liman for over 20 years and co-owns a boat with the director, told The Observer that the director’s defining trait is his refusal to take no for answer. “He won’t argue with anyone; he’ll just listen to them and then go do his own thing.”

During the shooting of Fair Game in Jordan, Mr. Ludwig and Mr. Liman “borrowed” a camera and flew themselves into Baghdad to get a few key shots themselves. (Both friends have pilots licenses, and Mr. Liman owns a Mooney airplane.)
In 2009, Mr. Liman and four pals were out sailing on the Hudson when they spotted a 250-foot cargo ship bearing down on a speedboat. As the speedboat passengers jumped into the water to avoid being crushed, Mr. Liman and his friends raced to the scene and scooped them out of the water.

“Doug Liman, Bourne Identity Director, Saves Three Men in Hudson Boat Crash,” read the Huffington Post headline. “‘Bourne Identity’ director Doug Liman plays hero on the Hudson,” proclaimed the New York Daily News.

That said, at least one witness insisted that the story had been subject to a little Hollywood-style hyperbole. “I appreciate what Doug did for us, which was pull us out of the water,” Daniel Rechelbacher, owner of Salon 2b in the financial district and one the people on the speedboat that night, told The Observer. “But by the time Mr. Liman’s boat came, we had already radioed for help. We had saved ourselves.”

Mr. Rechelbacher offered free haircuts at his salon as a thank you to Mr. Liman and his friends, but he felt that Mr. Liman overplayed his role as the “hero.”

“Put it this way … he asked one of the women in our group how she felt about her ‘savior,’” Mr. Rechelbacher sighed. “And she was like, ‘What, you mean, like God?’”

It turned out Mr. Liman was talking about himself.

The director said he couldn’t remember that particular interaction but admitted, “It was a surreal situation: I might actually have said a lot worse. I was trying to be funny in a stressful moment.” He laughed. “I was single, and she was beautiful. Sadly the long-term relationship I got was with Daniel, who has been giving me free haircuts ever since.”
Mr. Liman also admitted that he has been known to whip out the letter of commendation the Coast Guard gave him after the incident whenever he is pulled over by authorities on the open water.

Of course, there are plenty of colleagues who just can’t get enough Limania. “Some directors just have a list of notes where they’re trying to get you to act a certain way, but Doug was a lot more natural,” said 25-year-old Peter Vack, who plays lead hipster Jason Strider in Pants. “One time I was doing a scene for the pilot where my character is trying to chat with a girl that he thinks is out of his league. I did the scene, and afterward Doug goes, ‘That was great. But you’re playing Jason like Jon Favreau in Swingers; you’re acting nervous around her. I want you to be so beaten-down that you’re not even nervous.”

When asked what he thought of a director referencing his own hit movies for set notes, Mr. Vack replied, “It took a lot of balls.”

As an afterthought, he added: “And who hasn’t seen Swingers?”

After buying the rights to Pants in 2008, Mr. Liman and Mr. Rosen realized the story would have to be relocated from the Village, which had become much too expensive to be a believable setting for it’s post-college New Yorkers.

“We thought to move it to Williamsburg,” Mr. Liman said. “But in the three years it took to get the show mounted, no one could afford Williamsburg anymore. So the show has actually tracked along the same path as 20-somethings trying to live in New York and Brooklyn.”

When NBC turned down the series, Mr. Liman turned to MTV. After reading the script, MTV’s head of programming David Janollari received a call from Mr. Liman. “He said, ‘You know, Swingers and Go were like my kind of love letters to the West Coast,” Mr. Janollari recalled. “And I’d love this to be my love letter to New York … my love letter to Brooklyn.’”

Of course, Pants is also another exploration of Mr. Liman’s favorite theme. “I am very interested in stories about people in their early 20s, when some of the most massive decisions about their lives are being made,” he told us. “The clay is still wet. What you’re going to do with your life, who you’re going to date … it’s all open. You’re at a crossroads that has an infinite number of pathways.”

So we zoomed in on film director Doug Liman, a friend of one of the producers. Best known for The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mr. Liman just wrapped filming on a distinctly different kind of husband-and-wife spy drama: Fair Game, based on ex-C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame's memoir, starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, whom he called his "favorite person I've ever worked with," he said. And Mr. Penn? "He's probably the greatest living actor right now," Mr. Liman said earnestly. "I was working with him right after he won the Academy Award, and he was so hardworking and committed to the character and to spending a serious amount of time with Joe Wilson to get all the little details down."

Mr. Liman stressed that his film isn't a history lesson. "If you want the political story, go watch CNN or Fox or read The New York Times," he said. (How evenhanded!) "There's an amazing personal story about a husband and wife choosing to stand up to an extremely powerful White House, and the personal toll that that took-and the toll that being in the C.I.A. takes on a marriage. That's not going to be in the history books, that's not going to be on CNN, that's not going to be on Fox, but that's why we go to the movies."

Mr. Liman, of course, is no stranger to spycraft: The Bourne Identity was based in part on work his father did on the Iran-Contra scandal. But could he live the life himself?

"No," he said, half-smiling, "because I'm a little too gossipy."

Of course Mr. Wilson famously penned a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa" where he concluded that the Bush administration had "exaggerate[d] the Iraq threat." Soon thereafter, it was disclosed that his wife worked for the C.I.A. If all that sounds familiar to you, then perhaps you're the only person on earth who saw last year's Nothing But the Truth, which was loosely based on the case. Or hey, maybe you just read the paper.

Now while we're tempted to say that Mr. Penn doesn't look anything like Mr. Wilson, we did just see the star turn himself into Harvey Milk, so perhaps he really can do anything. A bigger problem for this film is that by the time it comes out, it could feel seriously dated. Will anyone still be interested in rehashing the crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration a year from now? With the world economy in full-on meltdown and the strong potential that it won't rebound until sometime in 2010 (or beyond) staring us in the face, it seems like there are bigger fish to fry. Plus, it's not like these political movies do so well at the box office anyway--Frost/Nixon we're looking at you. However with all that being said, we do hope this film gets off the ground with Mr. Penn in a starring role simply because we could not be happier at the prospect of the normally cantankerous Mr. Penn working with the notoriously contentious Mr. Liman. If an agreement is actually reached, we expect these two to start physically brawling within three days of their first meeting. This is especially true because though we happen to love most of Mr. Liman's work (especially the still-fun Mr. and Mrs. Smith) he doesn't seem like the best person to helm this movie. Unless of course Fair Game is actually a remake of the Cindy Crawford-Billy Baldwin film from the 90s. Then he'd be perfect.

Of course Mr. Wilson famously penned a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa" where he concluded that the Bush administration had "exaggerate[d] the Iraq threat." Soon thereafter, it was disclosed that his wife worked for the C.I.A. If all that sounds familiar to you, then perhaps you're the only person on earth who saw last year's Nothing But the Truth, which was loosely based on the case. Or hey, maybe you just read the paper.

Now while we're tempted to say that Mr. Penn doesn't look anything like Mr. Wilson, we did just see the star turn himself into Harvey Milk, so perhaps he really can do anything. A bigger problem for this film is that by the time it comes out, it could feel seriously dated. Will anyone still be interested in rehashing the crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration a year from now? With the world economy in full-on meltdown and the strong potential that it won't rebound until sometime in 2010 (or beyond) staring us in the face, it seems like there are bigger fish to fry. Plus, it's not like these political movies do so well at the box office anyway--Frost/Nixon we're looking at you. However with all that being said, we do hope this film gets off the ground with Mr. Penn in a starring role simply because we could not be happier at the prospect of the normally cantankerous Mr. Penn working with the notoriously contentious Mr. Liman. If an agreement is actually reached, we expect these two to start physically brawling within three days of their first meeting. This is especially true because though we happen to love most of Mr. Liman's work (especially the still-fun Mr. and Mrs. Smith) he doesn't seem like the best person to helm this movie. Unless of course Fair Game is actually a remake of the Cindy Crawford-Billy Baldwin film from the 90s. Then he'd be perfect.

A piece of idiotic sci-fi piffle called Jumper looks like $90 billion wasted on 90 minutes of popcorn junk. Even the butter is phony.

Based on a book I never intend to read, this plotless confusion is about a 15-year-old Michigan high-school kid who falls through the ice and wakes up in a bank vault stealing millions by walking through the walls. Eight years later, ensconced in a New York penthouse decorated by the U.S. Mint, he has turned into Hayden Christensen—trying his best to outgrow his Star Wars image and failing miserably—now thoroughly assimilated in his role as a rare being who can miraculously teleport himself to any location in the world. These people are called “jumpers” because they jump from traffic jams in Tokyo to surfing in Hawaii before you can say “Huh?” One minute they’re hanging off a clock in London’s Parliament Square, the next they’re breakfasting at the foot of the Sphinx, and in between there’s time for a stop at the Eiffel Tower and sunsets in 20 different time zones. Nobody explains why. And for reasons only the scriptwriter knows but refuses to tell, nobody reveals why the jumpers are pursued by bloodthirsty maniacs called “palladins.” Samuel L. Jackson plays the king of the palladins. He tracks, stalks and kills all the jumpers. He’s the Buffy the Vampire Slayer of jumpers.

Between naps, I tried to think of positive things to say about jumpers. I mean, think how much money you could save on plane fares. You got enemies? Just teleport them with you to—oh, say, someplace like downtown Baghdad—and leave them there. But the movie did me in. Mr. Christensen has only two missions: to save his girlfriend back in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and to kill the palladins. Oops. It gets worse. For reasons even a major in logic couldn’t figure out, Diane Lane appears as the mother who deserted the boy when he was 5 years old. “So I’m a jumper. You’re a palladin. What now?” he asks. “I’m giving you a head start, son,” she answers. At my press screening, the critics were laughing so hard that I almost missed that line. Coherence has never been a strength for director Doug Liman, the hack responsible for the noxious Brangelina creep show Mr. and Mrs. Smith. He knuckle-heads himself to death here. It’s not easy to film Jumper in Egypt, New York, Prague, Ann Arbor, Baja, Toronto, Japan, the Sahara Desert and the Roman Colosseum, and make it all look like Burbank.

Road to Perdition seems to have everything it needs to win awards: a dignified, artfully photographed, lavishly backgrounded, delicately homicidal gangster story; two Oedipal father-son traumas for the price of one (like the summer's biggest hit, Spider-Man , albeit without Kirsten Dunst to supply the romantic sparks); nuanced Irish-American ethnic performances by previous Oscar-winners Tom Hanks and Paul Newman; not to mention an undeniably brilliant portrayal of a comic-book creation, a combination crime photographer and hit man, by the infinitely talented Jude Law.

So what's not to like? Well, for starters, I chuckled quietly over the writing credit for the "graphic novel." What the hell is a "graphic novel"-a comic book with chutzpah? Sadly, the whole movie is similarly pretentious, portentous and humorless. The muffled opening scenes establish Michael Sullivan (Mr. Hanks) as a devoutly religious hired assassin for his spiritual father, John Rooney (Mr. Newman), who works for Al Capone. Sullivan has two sons, 12-year-old Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin) and 9-year-old Peter (Liam Aiken), and a dutiful wife generically named Annie Sullivan (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who says grace before each meal but never says much at any other time. When Michael Jr. sees his father unpacking a gun from his suitcase, he wonders what his dad does on his frequent business trips. Junior's curiosity about Daddy's doings eventually precipitates a family disaster.

The stage is set for gangland intrigue at a luxurious Irish wake for a gang member who has run afoul of Boss Rooney's mad-dog son, Connor (Daniel Craig). Rooney is clearly more fond of his surrogate son, the admirably stoic and thoughtful Michael Sullivan, than he is of his actual son. This is a familiar situation in post-World War II westerns: Sooner or later, Papa will have to choose between the ties of blood and the imperatives of character. Inevitably and fatally, he will choose the bad son over the fatherless hero.

At the wake, Finn McGovern (Ciarán Hinds), the father of the slain mobster, begins railing against Rooney. He is led off the premises by Rooney's men and sent home. Rooney dispatches Michael and Connor to "talk" to him-"Just talk," he emphasizes to his hot-headed son. Connor wants to go alone, but his father insists that Michael accompany him as a steadying influence.

At this pivotal moment in the plot, Michael Jr. rashly hides in the back of his father's car to find out about his father's business. He follows Michael and Connor to a bootleg-liquor warehouse that McGovern supervises for Rooney. One verbal exchange leads to another, and an enraged Connor shoots and kills McGovern, forcing Michael to machine-gun the rest of McGovern's entourage. The slaughter is shown entirely at feet-level from the point of view of a prone Michael Jr. outside the warehouse, peering through the hole in the door. It is very reminiscent of Brandon de Wilde's point-of-view vantage for the climactic barroom gunfight between Alan Ladd and Jack Palance in George Steven's Shane (1953).

The trouble is that in this golden age of child actors, Master Hoechlin is not up to the task of generating filial pathos, even the modest amount required for what the film historian Raymond Durgnat has designated as the "male weepie." It's not entirely the child actor's fault: Mr. Mendes has prescribed so much less-is-more understatement in the father-son scenes that the kid has very little time and room in which to react. When Michael Jr. is discovered by his father and Connor, Michael assures the crazily duplicitous gangster that Junior will not tell anyone what he has seen.

When Rooney learns of his son's misbehavior he lashes out at him, but ends up cold-bloodedly deciding to eliminate Michael and his entire family to avoid even the possibility of exposure. Connor kills Annie Sullivan and little Peter, but Michael and Junior escape and drive to Chicago, where Michael hopes to enlist the help of Capone lieutenant Frank Nitti (Stanley Tucci), thereby enabling him to kill Connor and avenge his murdered wife and son. But Nitti has already been contacted by John Rooney and refuses Michael's request. Michael then begins robbing Capone-funded banks, with Junior driving the getaway car. There is only one policeman in the movie, and he is immediately shot by Nitti's contract killer-crime photographer Maguire (the aforementioned Mr. Law)-while he's pursuing Michael and Junior. There are certainly no traffic cops to stop a child from driving a car all over Chicago and some of Illinois as well. In fact, there don't seem to be any law officers anywhere, and very few bystanders, innocent or otherwise. There are some circa-1931 worker murals, proletarian extras masquerading as victims of the Great Depression, and some human gridlock meant to evoke "The City" in arty terms. In the end, nine out of the 11 top-billed characters are dead, and a town named Perdition becomes the locus of a kind of redemption and salvation.

Strangely, there is nothing glaringly wrong with Road to Perdition . Mr. Mendes has not miscalculated particularly; he has simply calculated with an excess of exactitude. There is no room in his carefully colored and shaded compositions for characters to breathe with any spontaneity. The millions and millions of dollars that have gone into the production are fully visible on the screen, digital effects and all. Perhaps I'm simply not partial to Englishmen who presume to understand America and Americans better than natives. Perhaps I've never been very impressed with "important" films that virtually exclude the female of the species and are thereby honored for their courageous "seriousness." But then I never particularly liked David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). I must say I was never bored by Road to Perdition , but then I was never moved either, and ultimately that's all that matters for me.

Underrated Bourne Identity

Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity , from a screenplay by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron, based on the novel by Robert Ludlum, has been as much underrated as Minority Report and Road to Perdition have been overrated. This is to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I finally caught up with it, because I had not been led to expect too much on the basis of its generally lukewarm notices. Moviegoing and even film criticism are largely a game of anticipation: No one goes to a movie with a completely open mind. A swirl of opinions keeps buzzing in your head as the movie unfolds. With an auteurist like me, the past performances of directors count for more than subjects, genres, and literary or subliterary sources. Consequently, I was predisposed to take Mr. Liman's first big-budget project more seriously, despite its dubious literary provenance. Why? Simply because his first three low-budget projects- Getting In (1994), Swingers (1996) and Go (1999)-were strikingly original enough in their fluid line-readings, visual coups through camera placements, and seemingly practiced ease in projecting multiple points of view.

Hence, when an amnesiac (Matt Damon) gradually deduces that his name is Jason Bourne, and that he has worked as a lone-wolf hired assassin for the C.I.A., I stifled my initial impulse to yell out, " Deja vu! Deja vu! " And I'm glad I did, because Mr. Liman and his colleagues eventually came through with an elegant entertainment visually based in the real world (represented by locations in Italy, Paris and Prague) rather than in the invented futurist world of Minority Report or the manufactured and digitized dead past of Road to Perdition .

That The Bourne Identity did not turn out to be as much of a megahit as its artistically inferior genre competitors may be due to the less-than-superstar status of Matt Damon. Frankly, I can take Mr. Damon or leave him, but in this instance I find him particularly well-cast as an amnesiac, since he generally gives the impression of being-well, not exactly dumb, but somewhat laboriously faux-naïve. He's the kind of guy you don't want to play poker with, because he's got the anguished, slightly constipated deadpan look down pat.

But what a wonderful idea to cast the authentically internationalized Franka Potente as Marie Kreutz, Bourne's German-American pick-up outside the American Embassy, from which he's fleeing the American guards. Ms. Potente retains some of the delectable sassiness she displayed so winningly in Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run (1998). Then there are the bad guys, so well cast, written and directed, with Chris Cooper as C.I.A. director Ted Conklin, so much more restrained and laconic than he was in his overheated role as a closet gay and homophobe in the aforementioned American Beauty ; Brian Cox as his bureaucratically menacing superior, Ward Abbott; and best of all, the stolidly spectacular Clive Owen as the Professor, a lone assassin, like Bourne, out to terminate him for the C.I.A.'s peace of mind.

Even though we know that, in a rollicking adventure yarn like The Bourne Identity , the hero cannot die, we are entertained by wondering how he will escape all the forces arrayed against him with all the latest technology at their disposal without making us snicker. Somehow Mr. Liman manages to preserve the tension without sacrificing the credibility of any of the characters. There is a weary professionalism at work in Mr. Cooper's exasperated silence with each new batch of bad news, in the perpetually furrowed brow of Mr. Cox as he prepares to terminate his troubles with as much ruthlessness as necessary, and in the matter-of-fact casualness with which Mr. Owen confronts his own extinction by a fraternal gesture of co-existence with his adversary, a fellow assassin.

As an added dividend, Julia Stiles plays a minor-league role, as a C.I.A. electronic Girl Friday, with a major-league charisma. The Bourne Identity , like Enigma before it, demonstrates that "big and expensive" does not have to be synonymous with "vulgar and stupid," and that the mainstream can sometimes-though admittedly not very often-launch an intelligent movie worthy of comparison with the best products from the small, muddy creek of independent cinema. One final thought: Could it be that attacks on the C.I.A. might strike many moviegoers as disloyal after 9/11? I certainly hope not. We need all the cinematic muckraking we can get, now more than ever.

Duchamping at the bit? O.K., all you arty people: Manhattan is absolutely overrun with "shows" this week. Not the thea-tuh kind, not Comedy Central's The Man Show (which currently has our Precious clenched firmly in its hairy grip), but shows full of pricey junk with which to cram your apartment. The snow of shows begins tonight with the Art Show, at which 70 dealers will hawk pictures by the likes of Piet Mondrian, Diane Arbus, John Singer Sargent, etc. Whom you might elbow at tonight's gala preview: co-chairs Karenna Schiff (appears to be going by her husband's name now that Daddy failed to bat it in), John McEnroe (must have plenty of time on his hands now that brother Patrick has taken over his Davis Cup coaching gig) and a whole lotta Lauders. We're sticking to eBay, thanks....

[Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, 5:30 p.m., 766-9200, ext. 248.]

Thursday 22nd

Twist my Armory: Don't say we didn't warn you, 'cause today two more "shows" stand off. At the 69th Regiment Armory, don your green gardening gloves for the Horticultural Society of New York Gramercy Garden Antiques Show's preview cocktail party. The "garden chairs" are an earthbound lot whose most notable name is Chris Meigher, and the board of directors includes David Granger. Who knew that the editor of Esquire fancied pansies? Oh, wait-wrong guy. This David Granger has been a distinguished member of the stock exchange for 75 years, the H.S. librarian tells us. Sor-ry! Meanwhile, downtown, it's an opening preview party for the "contemporary art"–filled Armory Show (think urinals and the like), which, just to confuse people, is one of the few shows this week to not take place in an actual armory. Your honorary co-chair: two-timin' Jo Carole Lauder (see yesterday). What it'll drum up: mo' money for MoMA.

[Horticultural Society, 69th Regiment Armory, Lexington Avenue at 26th Street, 6 p.m., 757-0915, ext. 201; Armory Show, Piers 88 and 90 on the Hudson River, 12th Avenue between 48th and 50th streets, enter at the 55th Street ramp, 6:30 p.m., 708-9680.]

Polish the coke spoon-purely for academic reasons, of course. The New School drops some windowpane and opens a three-day conference on "Altered States of Consciousness," with tolerant-sounding panels like "Alternatives to the War on Drugs: Rational Routes to Harm Reduction" and "Drugs and Inspiration"-gee, sounds like a great cover story for the Times magazine! "I got pressed," said organizer and psychology professor Arien Mack, "whether rightly or wrongly I still don't know, to make sure we had somebody talking about psychedelics, because the people in that world feel that there's sort of been a cordon sanitaire." (Professors love to throw around phrases like "cordon sanitaire.") Is this just a big excuse for some wild parties? "Not if I can help it. It's very serious, heh heh. I'm curious to see what the audience will be like-because obviously one can't control the audience-and how much this is gonna be a hippie-leftover-from-the-60's-and-70's kind of thing. We will have a reception after the last session, and there will be wine. There will be wine, but that's all there will be. No cigarettes of any kind, because they don't allow them in the building." Fine with us: Has anyone else noticed how the phrase "Mind if I smoke?" has been completely eliminated from Manhattanites' vocabularies?

[Tishman Auditorium, New School University, 66 West 12th Street, 10 a.m., 229-2488.]

Friday 23rd

Hardy boys, indeed: Meet a tweedy, bespectacled fellow who's compensating for his hair loss with a scrabbly beard! The Greenwich Village Antiquarian Book Fair (and gigantic middle-age pickup scene; think the New York Review of Books personals come to life) comes to town with rare editions of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, some cookbooks, Dickensia.... We think this counts as part of this week's "Show" trend.

[P.S. 3, 490 Hudson Street, 6 p.m., 533-2429.]

Saturday 24th

Before J. Lo, there was Charo, who called us from Fort Lauderdale, where she was "Working! I am a working cucaracha, ha ha ha, always on the r-r-r-road, but so happy that everybody's telling me that it's a little bit cold in New York, and I am glad to see cold weather because I live in Hawaii and I am tired of 80 degrees every day. I am sick of it. Same papayas …." Of the music journalists proclaiming a Latin renaissance, said Charo, "They don't know sh*t! Everybody thinks that Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony invented la salsa! This new group that come out with a high-tech sound, they just base it in the thing that it was already invented and applauded and digested …." Anything else? "I turn down a TV series and now I have another offer for a pilot, but the high that I obtain from personal appearances is far away much better than television-however, if the script is very different, I may go back and do that pilot, but I'm not sure. It's up to if they make a little more better." Any fond Love Boat memories? "The original casting …. The new one, forget it, the new one sucks-but the old one, the original, it was a combination of song, friendliness, almost like a family, and I did enjoy very much and I was pregnant in the last one that I did, and I don't remember if you remember me looking like a watermelon with high heels. My sister made my dress and we were going crazy. It was the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy and I was supposed to look like teeny, but I really look like a sausage. But it was good memories." Then she collapsed into a coughing fit. Tonight and through March 4, Charo performs her special "high-tech merengue" at The Pete 'n' Keely Show. Look, it beats the Official Xena: Warrior Princess Convention, O.K.?

[John Houseman Theatre, 450 West 42nd Street, 2 and 8 p.m., 239-6200.]

Sunday 25th

Bite my Binoche: The city suffers from a surfeit of tango lessons today. If you must get out of bed, work that early-90's revival, girlfriends, and go get empowered all over again by Thelma and Louise at the Screening Room, where, in a transparent move to drum up Oscar momentum for the execrable Gladiator, they're staging a premature Ridley Scott retrospective. If you like foreign chicks in capes and corsets, check out the ubiquitous, apple-cheeked Juliette Binoche in The Widow of Saint-Pierre. The press release promises "sweeping romantic epic," "love triangle," etc.-gives one a terrible English Patient flashback! Surely part of the desperate Miramax plot to build Oscar momentum for Mlle. Binoche's performance in the sickly Chocolat.

[777-FILM.]

Monday 26th

Food and whine? A new level of wine snobbery: people who profess to hate wine snobs, yet can't help talking about how they drink wine the "real" (i.e., European) way, like it's tap water. Example: An organization self-explanatorily called Wine Brats wants you to spend $50 to get corked at an event called "Sonoma Uncorked" benefiting Share Our Strength. "We're a nonprofit education group that is trying to make wine fun for the next generation," said Wine Brat Jeff Quigley, from Sonoma County. "Our demo is 21-to-36-year-olds" (39 and married, Mr. Quigley is the "granddaddy" of this swingin' group), "young adults who are trying to get interested in wine and food but don't want the snooty cultural baggage that has come with it in the past. Like in Europe-yes, there's the châteaux, but it's also an everyday thing, there's a balance and a moderation. We do it on our terms; we took that kind of Sonoma lifestyle that we live … you know, obviously in wine country there's the five-star restaurants, but there's also hanging out in backyards, grilling burgers, drinking zin and listening to rock 'n' roll, you know what I mean?" We sure do, and it's enough to make anyone miss the "snooty cultural baggage" of yore! Snapping tongs behind the grill tonight: Blue Hill's Dan Barber, Dylan Prime's Mina Newman, Pico's John Villa, Quilty's Katy Sparks and Annisa's Anita Lo (just call her "A. Lo").

[W Hotel, 541 Lexington Avenue, 6 p.m., www.winebrats.org.]

This one's for our "enlightened" editor, currently draped in a pareo somewhere off the coast of Mexico with a margarita in his paw …. It's the Year of the Iron Snake (naughty-sounding), and Tibet House U.S. is having a benefit concert. Who's performing: ubiquitous quasi-socialite Moby, former Maniac Natalie Merchant, Emmylou Harris (she lives!), Patti Smith (not the one married to John McEnroe, right? Right?) and David Bowie (hope he at least combs his hair out of his eyes for the occasion). Who to compare prayer beads with: Buddhist lites like Uma 'n' Ethan (hope he at least shaves for the occasion) and Goldie ("Kate Hudson's mom") Hawn.

[Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Avenue, 7:30 p.m., 247-7800.]

Tuesday 27th

Literary geezers in Queens! Suit up in seasonally appropriate lightweight herringbone and plunk your fanny on the No. 7 train for this high-wattage night: Susan ("What Plagiarism?") Sontag, Norman ("What Wife?") Mailer and John ("Where's My Nobel?") Updike all read (but will they share a mike?) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of … a readings program in Queens! Watch for forthcoming Vanity Fair think-piece on how Flushing is the "hot" new neighborhood; in the current issue, they uncover some activity in Williamsburg, Brooklyn ….

[Music Building, Queens College, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard., 7 p.m., call 718-997-5000 for complicated directions.]

Wednesday 28th

Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Avenue, 8 p.m., 247-7800.]