"The Band's Visit" An Arab police band takes the wrong bus and gets marooned in a dead-end Israeli town. Writer-director Eran Kolirin pushes the expected we're-all-human-beings buttons but then goes further, probing the mysteries of the human heart. A small, profoundly satisfying movie that keeps echoing long after it's over. Starring Sasson Gabai and the remarkable Ronit Elkabetz. In Hebrew, Arabic, and English, with subtitles. (84 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
½ "Be Kind Rewind" After a freak accident destroys the cassette collection of a vintage video store, two buddies (Mos Def and Jack Black) are forced to remake the entire inventory themselves. Their rousingly bad moviemaking brings out some of writer-and-director Michel Gondry's most blissful. This is comedy. This is a radical thematic departure from Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Science of Sleep." Now his filmmaking is civic-minded: He wants to connect people rather than personify the erasure of the bonds between them. The wonderful cast includes Melonie Diaz, Mia Farrow, and Danny Glover. (104 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)
"Charlie Bartlett" It takes a minute for this high school comedy to distinguish itself from the movies ("Rushmore," say) it appears to be ripping off. But once it does, the movie transforms into an exuberant, unexpectedly smart comedy about the fraught symbiosis between kids and grown-ups. The title hero (Anton Yelchin) is a preppie who becomes popular at his new public school. Robert Downey Jr. is the principal. Hope Davis is mom. And Yelchin in uncannily good. The whole cast is. (97 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
"Diva" Jean-Jacques Beineix's cult movie - the hip date flick of 1982 - gets dusted off for a 25th anniversary release. What seemed delightfully fizzy back then now feels like threadbare New Wave gossamer, but if you go in expecting nothing but high style, you'll be all right. (123 min., R) (Ty Burr)
"Renewal" A documentary tracing the rise of religious environmental activism in America, from evangelical Christians in Kentucky and organic Muslims in Chicago to Connecticut Jews and Mississippi Baptists. Earnest, idealistic, and fired with the righteous potential of making a difference, the film stresses the connections between faiths and the idea that we're just getting started. (88 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)
"The Signal" A homemade sorta-kinda horror thriller in which TVs are broadcasting an emission that turns whoever watches it into a paranoid killer. The writer-director-editors David Bruckner, Dan Bush, and Jacob Gentry directed different portions of the movie, and the shifting tone is interesting, never more so than when the film turns into a black comedy. Despite the gathering force of the acting and directing, the movie has an underwhelming fear factor. How could it, when almost every scene seems to be unfolding in a video for a Hoobastank song? (103 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
"Vantage Point" An unpleasantly gimmicky thriller that reduces global terrorism to a Rubik's Cube. After the US president (William Hurt) is shot at a peace conference, we rewind and see the event from various points of view. It's the "Rashomon" gambit in the service of an action flick: The results are both clever and stupid. With Dennis Quaid (as a true-blue Secret Service agent), Matthew Fox, and Forest Whitaker. (90 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
"Caramel" A Lebanese "Steel Magnolias." Director/co-writer/star Nadine Labaki sets her sisterly comedy-drama in a Beirut beauty shop, a novel setting for the bustling cast to act out familiar melodramas. In a culture where female sexuality is problematic at best, how's a woman supposed to feed both body and heart? Through makeovers, support, and necessary lies, Labaki curtly answers. In Arabic and French, with subtitles. (95 min., PG) (Ty Burr)
"The Eye" Jessica Alba stars as a chic blind violinist whose sight is restored in a cornea transplant. Suddenly, those blurring images she's seeing are trying to tell her something - and no, it's not, "Get a new agent." The latest homely Hollywood remake of an Asian horror film could credibly double as one of those feminine sixth-sense TV dramas. (95 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)
"Fool's Gold" Nothing works in this would-be adventure-romance about a himbo treasure hunter (Matthew McConaughey), his soon-to-be ex-wife (Kate Hudson), and the hundreds of millions of dollars in ancient treasure they stop squabbling long enough to find. It's "National Treasure," the Kathleen Turner-Michael Douglas edition. With Donald Sutherland as a rich guy with a boat, Alexis Dziena as his spoiled daughter, and bodies of water that, under the garbagey circumstances, may as well be colored with 2000 Flushes. (110 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)
"4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days" Writer-director Cristian Mungiu confirms the Romanian renaissance while creating a paradox: a bleak tale of illegal abortion that powerfully affirms one's faith in people. Anamaria Marinca plays a tough-skinned college student helping her friend (Laura Vasiliu) procure a "termination" in a culture that treats men likedirt and women like even less. As the heroine's day becomes thankless in ways almost impossible to comprehend, she becomes strangely purified. In Romanian, with subtitles. (113 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)
"In Bruges" What are two Irish hit men (Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell) doing in Belgium's most well-preserved medieval city? Hiding out after a job goes south, waiting to hear from their gangster boss (Ralph Fiennes, sleek and nasty), and soaking up culture against their better instincts. Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, writing and directing his feature film debut, slums with style while learning the ropes. (107 min., R) (Ty Burr)
"Persepolis" Marjane Satrapi's cartoon adaptation of her graphic novel about growing up in revolutionary Iran and hedonistic Europe is absurdly entertaining when it's not breaking your heart. The story filters questions about identity and homeland through sardonic feminism and the immediacy of good comic art. With the voices of Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, and Danielle Darrieux. Co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud. In French, with subtitles. (95 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
"Renewal" A documentary tracing the rise of religiousenvironmental activism in America, from evangelical Christiansin Kentucky and organic Muslims in Chicago to Connecticut Jews and Mississippi Baptists. Earnest, idealistic, and fired with therighteous potential of making a difference, the film stresses the connections between faiths and the idea that we're just getting started. (88 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)
"Strange Wilderness" There are stoner comedies and then there are stoner comedies that ain't funny, and the latest effluvium from Adam Sandler's production company is mostly a bummer. Steve Zahn - a roadshow Owen Wilson here - is a pothead nature-show host in search of Bigfoot with a herb-happy crew. The funniest part of the movie is the trailer for "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" that's running before it. (87 min., R) (Ty Burr)
"U2 3D" This film supplies an amazing fly-on-the-amp view of the Irish rockers in their natural habitat. "U2 3D" was shot during the Mexican and South American legs of the band's 2005-06 "Vertigo" tour. It offers a dizzying, you-are-there quality that not only puts the viewer front and center, but behind, above, and next to Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. Yet, even more impressive than the 3-D aspect is the unbelievably pristine sound quality. (85 min., G) (Sarah Rodman)
"Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" A comedy that wants us to believe that James Earl Jones and Margaret Avery could be the proudish parents of Martin Lawrence, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Mo'Nique. You can't ask comedy to pull that off when it's science fiction's job. Then again, realism gets beat up something awful in this long, chaotic family-circus of a movie. So do we. (114 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)
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