Now-a-Dollar Aug 24

Pro strippers and amateur security are on the agenda at local second-run theaters this weekend.

The top offering is Magic Mike, director Steven Soderbergh's slick and generally satisfying story of male exotic dancers in Florida. Channing Tatum -- playing a role based on his real-life experience -- anchors the solid cast that also includes a terrific Matthew McConaughey as the mentor/club manager, with Soderbergh giving the story his typical enjoyable polish. The morality-play material in the third act falls short, but it's better than you have any reason to expect a stripper movie to be.

Considerably bumpier in its execution is The Watch, with Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill and Vince Vaughn as suburbanites whose neighborhood-watch activities reveal an alien invasion. There's some funny material scattered throughout the dialogue, but the whole things feels sloppily composed, the science-fiction elements never fully mixing with the broad, crude comedy. It's like a version of Ghostbusters without the discipline to know when it's time to shut up.