The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (Paramount Vantage)
Shoddy, vulgar comedy about a failing used-car dealer (James Brolin) who summons a team of crack freelance sales types (led by Jeremy Piven) in a last-gasp bid to save his business. Despite a plotline about freewheeling Piven's desire to settle down as a family man, director Neal Brennan's gear-grinding lemon mostly runs on humor and language as sordid as the strip clubs its characters frequent. Strong sexual content, including adultery and brief graphic nonmarital sexual activity, full nudity, drug use, about a dozen uses of profanity, and pervasive rough and much crude language. (O, R)

Inglourious Basterds (Weinstein/Universal)
Provocative World War II fantasy in which a team of ruthless Jewish-American commandoes led by a hard-bitten Southern officer (Brad Pitt) and a young French Jewish woman (Melanie Laurent) passing as a gentile cinema owner in occupied Paris plot independently to assassinate key Nazi leaders during a gala film premiere, even as the German officer (Christoph Waltz) who killed her family threatens both schemes. Between episodes of graphic bloodletting, writer-director Quentin Tarentino weaves a suspenseful, though somewhat lurid, alternate history, but the Americans' systematic brutality toward enemy soldiers can only be accepted within a genre far removed from reality and on the supposition that all Teutonic combatants were Holocaust enablers. Strong violent content, including torture and mutilation, complex moral issues, a few uses of profanity, and much rough and some crude language. (L, R)

Post Grad (Fox Atomic)
After failing to secure her dream job, a recent college graduate (Alexis Bledel) is forced to return home to her eccentric parents (Jane Lynch and Michael Keaton) and feisty grandmother (Carol Burnett) whose antics distract her from her employment search and from her efforts to choose between her longtime boyfriend (Zach Gilford) and a Brazilian-born ladies' man (Rodrigo Santoro). A talented cast is becalmed, in veteran animation director Vicky Jenson's live-action debut, by a listless script which, though it boosts family solidarity, also features a passionate encounter between characters who have barely met and repeatedly refers to the importance of condom use. Brief nongraphic, nonmarital sexual activity, occasional sexual references, a half-dozen uses of profanity, at least one use of the F-word, and some crude and crass language. (A-III, PG- 13)

Shorts (Warner Bros.)
Clever children's fantasy about a rainbow-colored rock that grants the wishes of anyone holding it, and the chaos its misuse wreaks on the lives of a bullied schoolboy (Jimmy Bennett), his parents (Jon Cryer and Leslie Mann), his chief persecutor (terrific newcomer Jolie Vanier), her tycoon father (James Spader) and their suburban community in general. Told in a series of nonsequential episodes, writer-director Robert Rodriguez's lively yarn, which carries messages about the dangers of power and the isolating effects of contemporary technology, generally makes for appealing family entertainment, though perilous special effects may overwhelm the most sensitive viewers, while some parents may find a story line about a mucus monster unpleasant. Occasional menace and mildly gross humor. (A-II, PG)

Taking Woodstock (Focus)
This fact-based slice of psychedelic history sees the young manager (Demetri Martin) of a failing Catskills motel owned by his downtrodden immigrant parents (Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton) inadvertently becoming a crucial player in the staging of the iconic 1969 music festival when he uses a legal permit to ease the way for the event's organizer (Jonathan Groff) and introduces him to the owner (Eugene Levy) of the dairy farm that would serve as the concert's setting. Along with the flower people's fondness for disrobing and drug-taking, director Ang Lee's gently rambling adaptation of Elliot Tiber's 2007 memoir portrays its protagonist's public avowal of his homosexuality as a positive step toward emotional maturity. Benign view of homosexual acts, group sex and transvestism, nonsexual full frontal nudity, drug use, a half-dozen uses of profanity, and frequent rough and some crude language. (O, R)

USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classifications: A-I ---- general patronage; A-II ---- adults and adolescents; A-III ---- adults; L ---- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling; O ---- morally offensive.