Satirizing art schools - particularly coming from writer Daniel Clowes, who went to Manhattan's Pratt Institute - is too easy and, for all intents and purposes, pointless. "American Idol," Bush-Cheney and institutionalized art do a fine job of self-parody, thank you very much.

To be fair, for the first hour or so, "Art School Confidential" is much funnier than "American Dreamz" (but then, so is a trip to the dentist) with many of the laughs coming courtesy of the always reliable John Malkovich and Jim Broadbent. But the film, written by Clowes and directed by Terry Zwigoff (who teamed on the great "Ghost World") suffers from an uncertain, unfocused tone and a weak lead character, a kid who cheerfully moves from idealist to murder suspect over the course of a couple of hours.

"It's only when human misery is a big joke that you can get some enjoyment from this life," observes one of the movie's terminally unhappy characters, and indeed, "Art School Confidential" treats everything - even a campus serial killer - as a running gag. But the targets are too obvious and the story too insubstantial to make the movie feel like anything more than an occasionally diverting amusement.

Like most freshmen, he also wants to hook up with the opposite sex. (Jerome's past failures in that area lead his parents to believe he is gay). Jerome quickly meets his dream girl, Audrey (Sophia Myles), a nude model in one of his classes. She likes his perspective on art; he likes her, um, abundant charms.

Jerome also spends time with a self-involved professor (Malkovich), an angry, alcoholic artist (Broadbent) who wears his bitterness on his stained sleeve, a wannabe filmmaker roommate (Ethan Suplee) trying to turn the escapades of the campus' serial strangler into material for his slasher movie and a stud student (Matt Keeslar) whose crude drawings draw unexpected raves, leading Jerome to feel angry and bitter before he has even finished a semester at school.

The surplus of plot and characters does not translate into an abundance of interesting situations. Quite the contrary. The movie peters out about midway through, with Jerome aimlessly wandering through the various plot strands.

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