The Mother of Tears is silly, awkward, vulgar, outlandish, hysterical, inventive, revolting, flamboyant, titillating, ridiculous, mischievous, uproarious, cheap, priceless, tasteless and sublime.

With a script that snaps, characters that pop, a blaze of streetwise attitude and enough firepower to pulverize a significant chunk of South Philadelphia, Next Day Air nears neo-blaxploitation perfection. Good things come in strange packages.

An itsy-bitsy, ultra-indie, super-silly comedy packing huge laughs and unexpected heart.

The movie is legitimately greasy, authentically nasty, with a good old-fashioned sense of laying waste to everything in sight -- including the shallow philosophizing and computer-generated fakery that have overrun the summer blockbuster.

The most impressive special effect here is Mr. Matsumoto's hilariously restrained performance, a tour de force of comedic concision in a movie bloated by increasingly surreal developments.

This powerful, conceptually sure film is relevant beyond the concerns of the moment as both a model of documentary method and compassionate social filmmaking.

At once a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse, bittersweet autobiography and witty trip down art-world memory lane, Guest of Cindy Sherman isn't out to settle scores or exploit access, public or otherwise.

Fearless sustains the tradition of ethically inflected Chinese action movies.

Directed by Auraeus Solito from a screenplay by Michiko Yamamoto, Maximo has charmed film festival audiences from Sundance to Jerusalem with its refreshingly blasé handling of homosexuality, its amiable actors and its delicacy of milieu. Credit, above all, the talented Mr. Lopez, whose effortless charisma buoys the movie even when it goes heavy with contrivance.

Boring people who made extraordinary music, the Pixies are inexplicable. In attempting to demystify them, the directors Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin achieve the opposite.

As much a work of sculpture as of cinema, this 71-minute movie, 13 years in the making, is the handmade brainchild of Christiane Cegavske, an artist who dabbles in film but whose talents and sensibility align more naturally with those of the contemporary-art world.

This particular wheel hasn't been reinvented, but at least it gets a nice fresh coat of bubblegum-pink paint and a star to pilot it with aplomb.

A bright, nimble diversion, a quick-witted picture that's fast on its feet.

A gentle, pleasantly unrushed piece of moviemaking. There’s a tonic simplicity to how it gets the job done, and if the film comes off as fairly conventional stuff, it nevertheless succeeds on its own modest, middlebrow terms.

May or may not appeal to fans of the Japanese fantasy franchise it is based on, but aficionados of apocalyptic teenybopper kung fu extravaganzas are in for a real treat.

Well-researched and generally evenhanded in its delivery of information (Ted Danson provides the narration), the movie more than makes its points without needing to resort to a montage of adorable fish being bashed on the head.

Smart, resourceful indie.

One of the more disciplined entries in the LaBruce oeuvre, Otto is sexy and silly in just the right proportions, a cult item with a real heart.

Mr. Sharma's film emphasizes testimony over context to such a degree that it feels at first of little use to anyone except gay Muslims who might take comfort in knowing they're not alone. But the documentary gains depth of feeling as it goes and even develops something of a nail-biting narrative.

The darker side of the story -- how the advent of pro surfing was taken as an act of cultural colonialism by some of the locals -- adds gravity to this otherwise lightweight, if amiable summer diversion.

There's an itch for this kind of material, and here it is scratched -- to the bone.

A loving if routine primer on this bright young man.

The fixation of independent movies on the arrested development of bourgeois dullards may have less to do with the relevance of the topic than the class of people who get to make movies. Whatever the case, James Burke directs from a screenplay by Brent Boyd.

Despite its empty head and arduous length, Flyboys is ever so nice, in the manner of a Norman Rockwell illustration. The director, Tony Bill, may not be a philosopher but he is a gentleman, moving things along with a tidy, well-mannered hand. In another context, such politesse might feel tonic. Given the state of things, it’s nearly toxic.

Mindlessly repeats the archetypal "Chainsaw" scenario.

Mr. Pettyfer is no Sean Connery, no Roger Moore, no Pierce Brosnan, no Timothy Dalton and no George Lazenby even, but the director, Geoffrey Sax, compensates for his zero of a hero by indulging the exceedingly amused and amusing supporting cast.

Directed by Erik Nelson, Dreams recalls the career of a runty young geek who evolved into a world-famous artist -- and ladies' man.

Like most flower-power nostalgia trips, Eight Miles High has the irksome effect of reminding the audience -- whether too young or too square -- that it missed out on the grooviest moment in history, man. But as these things go, this one goes with flair.