He got the honor of acting in the super-successful, critically acclaimed, award-winning Gigli. (I kid.) Then he got to sink his cinematic teeth into two helpings of National Treasure, and one Failure to Launch. Now Justin Bartha is getting to play the young boyfriend of the one and only Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Variety reports that the actor has signed on to star with Zeta-Jones in The Rebound -- a romantic comedy currently filming in New York City that I first posted about last month when the actress signed on. The film stars Zeta-Jones as a mom in Manhattan who starts to date her neighbor (Bartha), a 25-year-old young man. As I noted then, this seems to be project close to writer/director Bart Freundlich's heart. He just so happens to be Julianne Moore's 9-years-younger husband. Funny enough, that is also the age difference between Bartha and Zeta-Jones, who then, in turn, is 25 years younger than her real-life man, Michael Douglas. It's age gaps all around!

This will mark Freundlich's first written/directed feature without Moore, who has acted in his three other features -- The Myth of Fingerprints, World Traveler, and Trust the Man. How he fares with Zeta-Jones, we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, both Catherine and Justin have other films on the way, like her Death Defying Acts and his Shoe at Your Foot.

Take the title "Holy Rollers." What does it make you think of? There are all sorts of possibilities, but I bet this one didn't pop into your mind -- drug-dealing Hasidic Jews. Oh yes, The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale) and Justin Bartha (National Treasure) are starring in a Jewsploitation comic drama called Holy Rollers. Funnily enough, this isn't taken from the realms of fantasy, like Adam Goldberg's awesome Hebrew Hammer. This puppy is based on a true story.

Set in 1999, the project is "ripped from true-crime headlines" where Hasidic Jews were tapped to smuggle drugs into the U.S., and "follows an impressionable youth (Eisenberg) from an Orthodox Brooklyn community. He's lured into becoming an Ecstasy dealer by a friend (Bartha) with ties to an Israeli drug cartel." The duo do their business in a club, and Danny Abeckaser (who has had bit parts in films like El Cantante and The Education of Charlie Banks) has been tapped to play the club's owner.

The film will be Kevin Asch's directorial feature debut, from a script by Antonio Macia. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you're looking for questionable material), Macia's first and lone screened writing credit (he also penned the upcoming Ego) is Anne B. Real -- which has the honor of being #9 on IMDb's Bottom 100 list. It has a user rating, out of 2,331 votes, of 1.7. That gives new meaning to flops and bad movies. But still, it has Eisenberg, so I'm holding out some hope. Maybe, at the very least, it'll be so bad that it's good?

What happens when you take Nick Cage's geeky sidekick and mash him up with a French actress, a hockey player-turned-model and a hobbit? You get a new bilingual, indie, romantic comedy called Shoe at Your Foot. The feature stars Justin Bartha (National Treasure), Melanie Laurent (Days of Glory), Jessica Paré (Stardom) and Billy Boyd (Lord of the Rings). According to The Hollywood Reporter, this will be the first feature for writer/director Jennifer Devoldere, and the English/French comedy has already started filming in Paris, which will be followed up with a week of production in Montreal.

Shoe is about an American guy named Jack (Bartha) who wins a vacation for two to Paris. However, his girlfriend (Paré) dumps him right before they're set to leave. Jack's Scottish best friend (Boyd) convinces him to go alone. He takes the advice, but finds further troubles as his luggage was swapped with a French businesswoman named Chloe (Laurent). One would think it would be as simple as the pair falling for each other as they meet and exchange belongings, but it is a bit more quirky than that. On one side, there's Jack, who can't speak French and is stuck in his hotel with no money or clothes. On the other, there is Chloe, who "falls in love with his belongings (including his shoes) and, feeling fate has brought them together, sets out on a search to find him." I wonder if this will be followed in a few years by Shoe to the Head, a sequel that covers their romance as they realize that weird shoe fetishes don't make for healthy relationships.

Anyone who enjoys movies keeps a secret tally of any movie's strengths and weaknesses. Like an Olympic judge rating an athlete's performance, the final score determines whether a movie rates a recommendation or is forgotten as an also-ran.

As far as formula fare goes, one could do worse than the above-middlin' romantic comedy Failure To Launch starring Matthew McConaughey as a 30-something who still lives with his folks (Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw) until they hire a motivationalist (Sarah Jessica Parker) to help him fly the nest. Naturally and against all odds, McConaughey's and Parker's completely artificial relationship blossoms into something more. Here's how I broke it down:

First, it's funny. Not just an occasional giggle, sit-com kind of funny but infused throughout funny. TV vets Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, who are attached to this year's Steve Carell update of Get Smart, may be green as screenwriters, this being their first project produced, but with that inexperience comes a kind of hunger. Of course, most first-timers become well-fed and lazy after a taste of success like this, but for now, proof of their talent is apparent. Each character is created with a specific purpose, as is every scene, sequence and act. It's all very textbook, but it works. Mark one in the "plus" column.