* * *1/2

“Journalism is hard work,” Stephen Glass tells a class of fawning kids at his former high school. “It’s the art of capturing human behavior.” The cleverly titled Shattered Glass, based on Buzz Bissinger’s Vanity Fair article of the same name, captures Glass’ behavior exceedingly well. What drove the sharp and personable Glass — at 24, the youngest associate editor in the history of the New Republic and, by all appearances, a crackerjack journalist — to sabotage his red-hot career? As the film reveals, 27 of the 41 pieces he wrote while employed by The New Republic were riddled with fabrications. His was a very public, Nixonian fall from grace, a warm-up act of sorts for New York Times writer Jayson Blair, who years later also would be exposed as a monumental fraud.

As portrayed by Hayden Christensen (making good on the promise he showed in Life Is a House), Glass is a Golden Boy who inspires both contempt and admiration. He mesmerizes his colleagues at the Republic with stories supposedly culled from his own research, making his bosses look “very, very smart” while strategically advancing his career. As writer and first-time director Billy Ray (scribe of Hart’s War and Volcano) points out, he was also a champion ass-kisser, a bright young man who came across as meek (“Are you mad at me?”) and unworthy, even as he was crafting his next ingenious pack of lies. Interestingly, it is fellow New Republic employee Chuck Lane (a superbly understated Peter Sarsgaard, one of the thugs in Boys Don’t Cry), a mild-mannered writer who finds Glass a consistently hard act to follow in editorial meetings, who helps brings him down. Even when cornered by Lane about his questionable reporting, Glass continues to weave a web of deceit, to the point of creating phony Internet sites and providing dead-end phone numbers.

The film could have been a bit more cinematic, and I wish Ray had given us more insight into the reasons behind Glass’ escalating fakery (a peer’s characterization of him as a “confused, distraught kid” doesn’t cut it). These quibbles aside, Shattered Glass is a smart, consistently fascinating white-collar thriller. (Hillcrest Cinemas)

** 1/2

On paper it must have looked like a sure thing: a skewering of “women’s pictures” (now called “chick flicks”) by devilish playwright/male actress Charles Busch, helmed by theater director-turned-filmmaker Mark Rucker. But Die Mommy Die! (a riff on Die! Die! My Darling!?) isn’t the gut-busting satire it could have been, given the wealth of material Busch had to draw upon.

Busch’s script, adapted from his stage play, finds faded musical star Angela Arden (Busch), forever gowned and coiffed to the teeth, struggling to keep her splintered family together while trying to live down the suicide of her twin sister, Angela (Busch again). Husband Sol (Phillip Baker Hall) is a nasty movie producer in debt to the Mafia; daughter Edie (Natasha Lyonne, from But I’m a Cheerleader) is a spoiled brat with a father fixation; Lance (adorable Stark Sands) is a self-described “mental cripple” who’s coming out of the closet in a major way. Lurking in the background is “notorious lothario” Tony (Jason Priestly), Angela’s shifty-eyed, not-so-secret lover; and Bootsie (Six Feet Under ‘s Frances Conroy), her scripture-spouting maid.

Busch playfully combines elements of numerous ’50s and ’60s genre films (most notably Imitation of Life, Dead Ringer and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, with a little Sunset Boulevard thrown in), crafting a loving — if overly racy — homage that gives him numerous choice opportunities to mimic the theatrical acting styles of some of his favorite actresses. But his spoof (littered with outrageous lines like “that 11-inch dong has my luggage tags on it!”) takes an awfully long time to catch fire. When it does — the LSD sequence and black-and-white flashbacks, for instance — it’s a hoot. Die Mommy Die! may be a bit short on laughs, but it’s still a lot better than Busch’s last effort, the lame Psycho Beach Party. (Hillcrest Cinemas)

A brilliant psychologist (a de-glamorized Halle Berry, acting up a storm) wakes up in a mental institution in Gothika (**1/2), high-gloss hokum with plenty of creepy atmosphere (and a few good scares).

The lives of three troubled individuals (played by the powerhouse trio of Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts and Sean Penn) intersect in unexpected ways in 21 Grams (***1/2), a grim, challenging but ultimately rewarding drama from writer-director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros).

A teacher in an isolated framing town in northern France is put through his paces by his young students in Nicolas Philibert’s lovely slice-of-life documentary, To Be and To Have (***).

Santa Claus gets a radical makeover in the form of Billy Bob Thornton (at his edgiest) in director Terry Zwigoff’s (Ghost World) often hilarious, incredibly foul-mouthed Bad Santa (**), probably the blackest black comedy ever made.

A French family’s secrets finally catch up with them in The Flower of Evil (**), French filmmaker Claude Chabrol’s 50th feature, a dull and talky soap opera disguised as a murder mystery.

The Missing (***), an impressive effort by the underrated Ron Howard, has daughter and father Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones (both excellent) hunting down kidnappers in the American Southwest.

A team of kick-ass archeologists (led by pretty, bland Paul Walker) is transported into medieval times to rescue one of their own in Richard Donner’s thoroughly undistinguished time-travel adventure, Timeline (*).

In Christian Carion’s gentle comedy-drama The Girl From Paris (***), Mathilde Seigner (Alias Betty, With a Friend Like Harry) portrays an enterprising young woman who forms an unlikely friendship with a crusty old curmudgeon (Michel Serrault, the drag queen in 1978’s La Cage aux Folles) who sells her his farm.

First-rate special effects are the best thing in The Haunted Mansion, a thin, rather flat Eddie Murphy vehicle “based on” the Disneyland theme park attraction.

Other recommended current releases: Elf, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Mystic River, Pieces of April, Runaway Jury.

Kyle Counts is the film critic for the Gay and Lesbian Times

**** Highly recommended

*** Worth seeing

** Has its moments

* Not worth your time