BIG SCREEN

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (PG) -- Miami homeboy Phil Lord directs (with Chris Miller) this animated adaptation of the beloved children's book about a town where food rains from the sky. See it in IMAX 3-D for maximum effect. Also, the title makes us strangely hungry.

The Informant! (R) -- After a couple of quasi-experimental forays into history (Che) and the world's oldest profession (The Girlfriend Experience), director Steven Soderbergh returns to the mainstream with this comic drama about a corporate whistleblower (Matt Damon) working with the FBI to expose a price-fixing conspiracy. But when the tattletale keeps changing his story, the feds start to wonder if he's not just a gigantic liar.

Jennifer's Body (R) -- How do you follow an Oscar-nominated, sweetly observed and widely beloved movie about teenage pregnancy? If you're Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody, you go with a horror comedy about a high-school cheerleader (Megan Fox) who becomes possessed by a demon and starts killing every boy in sight. The director is Karyn Kusama, who came on strong with her debut Girlfight but has laid low since the debacle of Aeon Flux.

Love Happens (PG-13) -- That strange sound you'll hear next weekend is the collective heels of men being dragged by their dates to see this story about a widower (Aaron Eckhart) who becomes a self-help guru after he writes a book about mourning, then falls for one of his readers (Jennifer Aniston). Depending on your point of view, this qualifies as either a romantic drama or an all-out horror movie.

-- RENE RODRIGUEZ

SMALL SCREEN

The Jay Leno Show (10 p.m. Monday, NBC) -- After 17 years on The Tonight Show, most of them at the top of the late-night ratings heap, the comedian moves his act to prime time. Whether broadcast TV's first prime-time daily talk/variety show can or will find an audience is an open question, but Leno, noting that NBC is in fourth place and sinking, says he can't possibly do worse. ``Screw them,'' he told reporters recently. ``If we go down in flames, we'll be laughing all the way.'' Hey, that's the corporate spirit!

The Beautiful Life (9 p.m. Wednesday, The CW) -- Arrrgh! Mischa Barton has gained two pounds! Call the United Nations! A soapy new series about the sad, oppressed lives of supermodels, who have to dress up in clothes in return for nothing more than millions of dollars and scads of public adoration.

Community (9:30 p.m. Thursday, NBC) -- Chevy Chase stars as a retired guy who goes back to junior college in this sitcom that's kind of an Animal House or Van Wilder for geriatrics, except instead of drinking beer and spying on naked sorority girls, everybody sits around and recites lines from The Breakfast Club. You think I'm kidding? Boy, will you be surprised.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (10 p.m. Thursday, FX) -- What if everybody on Friends had been ugly, ill-kempt and mean? No, you idiot, it wouldn't have been Seinfeld. Well, maybe. But that's gone, too, so all we've got is the go-round of Danny DeVito and his scabrous slackers, who've opened previous seasons by adopting a baby they found in a dumpster and going cannibal. (No, no, those were two separate shows.) This year they take on the mortgage crisis. My advice: Rent.

-- GLENN GARVIN

Let Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin program your TiVo! Just click on his best bets for the week at www.tivo.com/guruguide.

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