One of the unpredictable things about the post 9-11 "war on terror" is the way it has inspired so much poor work - heavy handed, smug, ill-informed or even dishonest - by so many well-regarded writers, directors and actors.

From Robert Redford it prompted 2007's confused Lions for Lambs where he played a politics professor to ensure that the audience got the full benefit of his incoherent, 1960

The Round Up has been a huge sensation in France. It is the first feature film to tell the story of the terrible episode in 1942 when the French authorities carried out a mass round-up of Jews in Paris.

On July 16, some 13,000 Jews were dragged out of their beds in dawn raids by the police. Most of the families were taken to the Vélodrome d'hiver, an indoor stadium near the Eiffel Tower.

On the morning of July 16 1942, some 13,000 Jews were arrested in Paris and sent to internment camps around France. After months of near starvation, the adults and children were separated and deported to Auschwitz.

Filmmakers are more herd-like creatures than most people realise. You can get a sense of this every time there is a spate of studio movies about, say, vampires or volcanic eruptions. But it is not only true of those who work in Hollywood. European, British and US independent filmmakers tend to be equally or even more fashion-bound in their world view.

Joe Wright may well be the most overrated as well as the most feted young British directors working today. His films are visually slick and fast moving, but trite and pretentious as if made by a precocious teenager desperate for people to know he is "cool".

To her friends, Hilde Back was a quiet, elderly Jewish woman who used to teach pre-school children and had lived alone for 35 years. But to Chris MBuru she was "an angel who had walked into my life and fixed it".

Back, now 88, is the star of Jennifer Arnold's new documentary, A Small Act, after she unwittingly inspired the largest educational fund in Kenya.

The preview for Your Highness is a masterpiece of the trailer-maker's art. It does much more than highlight the movie's best gags; it weaves them together, sometimes transposing dialogue between scenes, to create a brilliant, wholly false impression of the film.

Something about England seems to bring out the worst in Woody Allen. He appeared to be coming back to form in Whatever Works and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But his latest film is of a piece with the wretched Match Point and Scoop, although less pleasing than either.

It is easy to see why many American critics disliked The Company Men, the quietly powerful movie debut of ER creator John Wells. Yes, it boasts a spectacular cast, including Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper.