Movie NUTThe Science of Sleep/Jackass Number Two    "TheScienceofSleep" Rated:R(for adult language)

Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal) is a strange young man who's come home to France to take a job at his mother's behest. Stephane has lived with his divorced father in Mexico for years, but his dad has died. His mother wants Stephane close-and apparently with good reason. We soon real- ize that Stephane's not exactly equipped to cope with reality, al- though at first his odd behavior strikes us as endearing.

Stephane hides inside his head, transmitting emotions to himself from some cerebrally concocted TV studio. He functions, safely ensconced within the confines of those dreamlike transmissions, comforted by the fantasies of fre- quent sleep that seem more real to him than those hours of conscious- ness.

Stephane meets Zoe (Emma de Caunes) and Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), across-the-hall neighbors who find him flaky but sweet. Emotionally ill-equipped, Stephane pretends to like Zoe but in reality falls for Stephanie, who is slow to respond to his shy flirta- tion, assuming he's attracted to her roommate.

"The Science of Sleep" is a teetering, faltering romance, based on the deceit-however well-in- tentioned-of Stephane's oddly functioning mind. The film inter- weaves moments of rich fantasy and quiet poignancy, although I suspect that many viewers may become lost in the uncertainty of such a mix.

The film's biggest flaw is that the audience is gradually extruded from Stephane's benign behavior into a more caustic world, far less stable that what we originally be- lieve. Stephane's charm begins to dissipate; he grows frustrated with his own inability to distinguish re- ality from his dreams. His gradual, erratic behavior with the woman he believes he loves renders him progressively unsympathetic- even as a New Age antihero. He whines, he weeps, he self-inflicts wounds to emotionally batter the bewildered Stephanie.

While art house fatalists (espe- cially those who parlez Francais, since the film is partially subtitled) may find Stephane's tortured soul tragic and, yes, almost heroic, I suspect that most American filmgoers will dismiss him as ego- centric. Stephane is rendered too disjointed, too abstract and ulti- mately too unsympathetic by writer/director Michel Gondry. As Stephane drifts off for one final happy ending in his mind, the most we can feel is a longing sorrow for Stephanie, a sense of futility should she choose to remain with so comatose a soulmate.  "JackassNmberTwo" Rated:R(for extremely crude humor and dangerous stunts) I'll be blunt. "Jackass Number Two" is a film with no socially redeeming value whatsoever. The cast exhibits crass, utterly unac- ceptable and obnoxious behavior, and we're all paying 10 bucks a seat to witness it. But at least we know what we're getting.

Much like "Jackass: The Mo- tion Picture" (2002) and before it the long-running MTV series "Jackass Number Two" is little more than a series of sophomoric and startling vignettes. These guys perform stunts like seesawing in the middle of a bullring (raising each other above a charging bull- oops, sometimes not quite fast enough), cattle branding each other's bare behinds, and locking "one of the bro's" in a room with poisonous snakes . . . just for fun. (And these are the film's least ob- noxious stunts. Frankly, some of the segments cross the line of taste- lessness into the gross or psy- chotic. Some are sexual and oth- ers involve bodily functions or se- cretions.) These guys will do just about anything on a dare.

I took my wife along to share the experience. She's a highly in- telligent, sophisticated sort of woman who'll breathe in an ex- pensive glass of wine and say something like, "Ah, a delicate hint of almond, an undercurrent of blackberry." We were probably the oldest in the theater (the over- whelming demographics of this film being male, under 25, and very likely emotionally underdevel- oped). But you know what? For much of "Jackass" she and I laughed like crazy. Occasionally we laughed until we cried. We couldn't help ourselves.

Think of this one as a cinematic traveling sideshow carnival- should anybody remember those days when one could gawk at bearded women or Siamese twins or the carnies who'd bite the heads off live chickens. "Jackass" simply modernizes the concept. Why do they do it? Only Freud knows for sure.

In a nutshell: The fewer brain cells you own, the more you'll en- joy this film. (Me? Hey, it's my job.) Otherwise, if you're even remotely curious, check out one of MTV's numerous reruns. They're far less offensive and just as insane.