Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in Baby MamaBABY MAMA

Despite its sunny, friendly veneer, there's a rather scrappy little war being waged within writer/director Michael McCullers' Baby Mama - one between a lighthearted, pleasant sitcom and a sharper, smarter, more cynical sitcom. (Two and a Half Men versus 30 Rock, as it were.) The former wins, and we could have predicted as much, but the best parts of this engaging buddy flick suggest the truly sparkling comedy it might have been, if only it weren't so eager to be ... well, lighthearted and pleasant.

Johnny Knoxville, Jessica Simpson, and Seann William Scott in The Dukes of HazzardTHE DUKES OF HAZZARD

Since there's exactly one entertaining scene (preceded by one entertaining cutaway) in the entire film version of The Dukes of Hazzard - one sequence in this shockingly wrong-headed comedy that's the least bit amusing - let me just save you the $10 and describe it now: For reasons I've gone to great lengths to forget, Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) decide to make a pilgrimage to Atlanta, so they hop in the General Lee and high-tail it out of Hazzard County, speeding along their dirt road with "Yee-haaaaw"s a-blazin'. Cut to the freeway in Atlanta, with the General Lee stuck in traffic. (A nice moment.) As they wait, vehicles pass them on both sides; half of the drivers and passengers greet the boys with hearty "Way to go! The South will rise again!" admiration, and the other half sneer at them with "You're gonna be late for your Klan meeting, rednecks!" revulsion. It's unclear whether the boys ever realize that the source of the travellers' contention is the trademark Confederate flag on the General Lee's roof.