Ok, the movie is a trick, a setup. A Manhattan publicist, Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell), is trapped in a phone booth by a sniper. What's next? Says screenwriter Larry Cohen: You bring his wife (Radha Mitchell) and girlfriend (Katie Holmes) to the scene, have a murder and add the police (Forest Whitaker). The trick comes in pinning us to our seats for eighty-two minutes so that we don't consider the holes in the plot until later.

Director Joel Schumacher, with the help of the gifted cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Pi, Requiem for a Dream), makes a tight, tense job of it. And casting Farrell, his Tigerland star, was inspired. Farrell is a dynamo. And Kiefer Sutherland, whose sniper role is essentially a voice on the phone, matches Farrell subtle shift for subtle shift. Phone Booth, a New York story shot mostly in L.A., doesn't hold up to scrutiny, but no way will it put you to sleep.

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”