In this maddeningly uneven film version of Jonathan Ames' acclaimed 1998 novel, Kevin Kline gives a master class in acting. Kline plays Henry Harrison, a hard-pressed Manhattan aristocrat (his income can't finance his tastes) who gets by being an extra man, a walker who escorts rich elderly ladies on the town.

Henry also rents a room in his shabby apartment to Louis Ives (Paul Dano), a young teacher who lost his job after being caught trying on a brassiere. So Louis moves in with Henry and begins his unsentimental education under the tutelage of a man whose views on sex are "to the right of the Pope." This doesn't quite jibe with Louis' attraction to Mary (Katie Holmes), his co-worker at an environmental magazine, or his fascination with tranny bars and cross-dressing.

Peter Travers picks the season's can't-miss films and the ones with a bad vibe in his summer movie preview.

That's the setup for the script Ames co-wrote with directors Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, the husband-and-wife team who scored big with American Splendor and fell ignominiously with The Nanny Diaries. But whenever The Extra Man falters in pace and focus, Kline comes to the rescue. Whether Henry is teaching Louis about the perils of educating women or how to pee with style in the street, Kline finds every nuance of mirth and melancholy in this wonder of a role and rides it to glory. You can't take your eyes off him.

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“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."