If You're Willing to Pay, iMovie Will Satisfy the Inner Auteur

If Ben Stiller can direct a movie with a lucrative Heineken tie-in, surely Hollywood has a place for you.

What's he got that you haven't got? Millions of dollars and a beautiful, marginally gifted actress wife with unnaturally fluorescent white teeth. Well, Arm & Hammer sells toothpaste with baking soda and Apple (AAPL Quote) ships every iMac, G4 and iBook laptop computer system with iMovie software.

Apple's advertising campaign is oddly compelling: Not because you've always wanted to elope to a tropical isle and don't know how to break it to your parents, but because we've all had the urge to climb into the director's chair. iMovie is your beginner's course. For from $1,500 to $3,000 -- you're going to need an Apple computer, which start at $799 -- anyone can take simple home-movie clips and turn them into snappy, finished products with music and effects. Weigh that against tuition payments for the University of Southern California's film school.

Reviewing the iMovie
Easy to master; you won't need a manual. Professional-looking effects	Sticker shock for computer users in the sub-$1000 crowd.	If you won't budge from Windows, you'll have to use a knock-off application.

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