The moral issues uncovered in every scene range from the central one how should the privileged treat the poor to the acceptability or otherwise of gossiping about friends, building an extension that blocks the neighbours' view, overreacting when someone takes your parking space, or stealing an employer's expensive face-cream (perfectly permissible if you use it on your feet).

ECONOMIST: Independent films

Michel Camdessus's final days at the IMF's helm are most vividly remembered for a face-full of anti-globalization cream pie he got at the UNCTAD meeting in Bangkok last month.

CNN: Bright Ideas

After Jordany Valdespin's game-ending grand slam last month, Buck clobbered him in the face with a whipped-cream pie.

WSJ: The Catcher Whose Kudos Can Hurt

As the tosser, a comedian known as Jonnie Marbles, came out of nowhere to blast Murdoch in the face with pie filling (or shaving cream), 42-year-old Wendi leapt up and smacked him square across the face.

FORBES: Who Will Play Wendi "Dang" On SNL?

Murdoch is lucky that a prankster got close enough to spatter him with shaving cream from a failed pie-in-the-face attempt.

FORBES: Murdoch Survives Hearing, But His Aura Takes a Hit

These works are certainly in your face, but whether they have the satirical impact of more than a shaving-cream pie is debatable.

ECONOMIST: It��s stupidity, stupid

Cosmopolitan's health and beauty editor Laura Bacharach recommends face-lifting creams which she says are "a more sophisticated version of egg whites and haemorrhoid cream used by Hollywood film stars".

BBC: Surviving the big day

He commandeered the pie-smashing duties last season, elevating the act of slamming whipped cream onto one's face into a science.

WSJ: The Catcher Whose Kudos Can Hurt