Girls Rock

Info: Opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; rated PG for thematic elements and language; 90 minutes.

Sometimes all you need for a good documentary is a great subject, and filmmakers Arne Johnson and Shane King find one in the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Ore. Here girls from 8 to 18 learn instruments, form bands, write a song and perform it before an audience of 750 people, all in five days. The film reels off scary statistics about health and self-identity issues for girls and talks to camp counselors (many of them rock musicians themselves) who aim to boost the girls' sense of self-worth. But the joy of "Girls Rock!" is in the vignettes of some of the participants: pampered 7-year-old Palace; mile-a-minute guitar hero Amelia, age 8; Misty, 17, restoring her life after years in group homes and gangs; and Laura, a 15-year-old facing identity issues involving her body, her Asian heritage and her love of death metal. The results are fun, instructive and inspirational - and should be required viewing for the "Hannah Montana" fan in your life.

Priceless

Info: Opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; rated PG-13 for sexual content including nudity; in French with subtitles; 101 minutes.

This tart and sweet French trifle starts with Irène ("Amelie's" Audrey Tautou), a golddigger with her sugar daddy (Vernon Dobtcheff) at a C te d'Azur hotel, mistaking a hotel barman, Jean (Gad Elmaleh, from "The Valet"), for a rich guy and drunkenly seducing him. When Irène gets caught and dumped, she takes revenge by bleeding the lovestruck Jean's bank account - and soon Jean becomes arm candy to a rich Italian widow (Marie-Christine Adam), while Irène gives Jean tips in how to squeeze gifts from the wealthy. Director Pierre Salvadori (who also made the Daniel Auteuil vehicle "After You") keeps the comedy as light and sunny as the lovely southern France locations. Even more lovely is Tautou, so charming that she makes her quasi-prostitute character lovable and redeemable.

Flight of the Red Balloon

Info: Opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; not rated, but probably PG-13 for language; in French with subtitles; 113 minutes.

Even though Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien ("Three Times") and one of his main characters here are thinking a lot about Albert Lamorisse's 1956 short classic "The Red Balloon," it's best if you don't - because Hou's meandering drama doesn't hold up to the original. Hou does explore an intriguing story about Simon (Simon Iteanu), a Parisian schoolboy, and the two women in his life: his mother (Juliette Binoche), the harried director of an avant-garde puppet-theater, and his new nanny (Fang Song), a film student from Beijing. The dramas in these characters' lives are small ones, accented by the mysterious balloon bouncing just out of reach, a too-apt metaphor for how this intriguing idea for a movie fails to grasp the childlike wonder of Lamorisse's film.