Movie Stars

Adam A kind of romance between a lonely New York toymaker who has Asperger’s syndrome and the woman who moved in downstairs. The movie, which Max Mayer wrote and directed, flavorlessly combines romance, sitcom, and television drama in the hopes of entertainment. It’s probable that this movie will bring Asperger’s to an audience that’s never heard of or experienced it. It’s also likely to bore them. (99 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

Afghan Star Documentary follows an “American Idol’’- style TV show in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Director Havana Marking understands that voting for a singer may be a silly form of democracy, but it still counts. Take the teenagers. In English, Dari, and Pashtun, with subtitles. (87 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Aliens in the Attic How many alien-invasion movies do you see where you root for the aliens to win? Except for one splendidly bizarre kickboxing sequence, this boilerplate action/sci-fi/comedy appears designed for families who never leave the mall. (86 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

Bandslam Costarring Vanessa Hudgens, but - surprise - it’s closer to “School of Rock’’ than “High School Musical XVIII.’’ By handing this new tweener pop drama to Todd Graff, the smart writer-director of “Camp,’’ the filmmakers have come up with a let’s-put-on-a-show movie that’s unoriginal but extremely charming. (111 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

Cold Souls Paul Giamatti plays a depressed actor named Paul Giamatti, who has his soul removed. Sophie Barthes’s comedy could have coasted on that joke. Instead, it finds a better one in a Russian black market for souls. (101 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

District 9 Out of left field - South Africa, actually - comes a gritty, grubby, relentlessly paced sci-fi action movie about race and extraterrestrials. Neill Blomkamp has made a smart and frenetic outsider blockbuster, but all the style can’t disguise the story’s shortcomings. Beware of extreme shaky- cam. In English and Prawn, with subtitles. (112 min., R) (Ty Burr)

(500) Days of Summer A gimmicky little romantic comedy with enough charm to get by. It’s your basic boy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets girl (Zooey Deschanel), boy loses girl, boy tries to get girl back again, but director Marc Webb shuffles the scenes out of sequence with sweetness, glib wit, and an awareness of the hero’s passivity. (95 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Funny People Bad-boy comedy maestro Judd Apatow has decided he has something important to say: Being funny is no fun. Adam Sandler is excellent as a nasty Hollywood star with a fatal disease, but at 2 1/2 hours, “People’’ is two movies, neither very good. (146 min., R) (Ty Burr)

G-Force If you can’t squeeze a decent family movie out of talking 3-D super-agent guinea pigs, you may as well throw in the towel. Despite a high-end cast - Sam Rockwell, Penèlope Cruz, and Tracy Morgan provide the voices - the story line is a mishmash. The very small will like it; others beware. (89 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard Anyone looking for a cheap, vicariously timely alternative to the government’s Cash for Clunkers program might try this comedy, set on a California used-car lot. You put up the cash. The movie clunks. With Jeremy Piven, James Brolin, and Ving Rhames, and David Koechner. (90 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Installment six merely gets us one movie closer to the series’ big finale. Harry learns more about Voldemort, the terrorist who killed his par ents, and Jim Broadbent arrives as a professor who used to teach Voldemort. Harry and his friends’ hormones suggest the series works better as a collection of teen movies. (153 min., PG) (Wesley Morris)

The Hurt Locker This war film focuses on the work of an Army bomb squad and one particularly gifted soldier (Jeremy Renner), who seems to have no fear of roadside bombs. (88 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

In the Loop A brutally funny political satire about war machinations on both sides of the Atlantic. Director Armando Iannucci amasses a group of boobs, users, and charlatans and asks us to recognize our duly appointed officials. With James Gandolfini as a three-star general. (106 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Inglourious Basterds Quentin Tarantino takes on the Nazis. Strenuously unserious, it’s a manically playful revenge fantasia made from the spare parts of Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns and strapping WWII action flicks like “The Great Escape.’’ It’s also the director’s weakest film yet. (153 min., R) (Ty Burr)

Julie & Julia The easiest thing Nora Ephron has ever done with a movie. Half the film is spent with Meryl Streep as Julia Child in France in 1949. Half is spent 50 years later in Queens with Amy Adams as Julie Powell, who devotes a year (and a blog) to exploring the recipes from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.’’ The movie is more than a tale of two women (although it is certainly that). It’s a tale of two different ages for women. With Stanley Tucci and Chris Messina. (123 min., PG) (Wesley Morris)

Lorna’s Silence A starkly moving moral tale of the New Europe from Belgium’s Dardenne brothers. Arta Dobroshi plays the title character, a young Albanian immigrant whose involvement with thugs in a green-card scheme proves to be her spiritual ruin and salvation. In French, Albanian, and Russian, with subtitles. (105 min., R) (Ty Burr)

One Day You’ll Understand In 1987 France, a businessman discovers that his mother has hidden her Jewish roots from her children. Rich emotional delicacy ensues rather than melodramatic fireworks. Her reticence has its reasons. Directed and co-written by Amos Gitai. (88 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris)

Orphan Two dumb parents adopt a spookily polite 9-year-old girl who turns out to have a taste for cutlery. As a concept, “Orphan’’ is reprehensible. As a movie, it’s entertaining trash - a good bad movie you can either shriek at, laugh at, or both. (123 min., R) (Ty Burr)

Paper Heart Actress-comedian Charlyne Yi crosses America looking for the meaning of love. The interviews are real, but director Nicholas Jasenovec is played by an actor, and the scenes documenting Yi’s growing romance with actor Michael Cera, playing himself, are patently staged. The movie’s a platypus: cute as the dickens but what the heck is it? (88 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Party Mix: 2009 Animated Shorts Program A dozen animated shorts showcases a wide spectrum of creativity selected from audience and jury favorites of the New York International Children’s Film Festival. While aimed at kids, the program is appropriate for any animation fan. (75 min, unrated) (Joel Brown)

Ponyo In Hayao Miyazaki’s movie, a sea creature longs to be a real, human girl who can eat ham and have fun. But it’s more an ecological cautionary tale than a fable. Miyazaki’s ability to weave the ordinary and the irregular into something dreamlike keeps the movie from abject cuteness. With the voices of Tina Fey, Liam Neeson. (101 min., G) (Wesley Morris)

Post Grad Recent college grad Ryden Malby has a plan: Get a job at a top publishing firm and buy a swanky apartment in downtown LA. But after she finds her plan shattered by the ruthless job market, she moves back in with her eccentric family. It’s a disjointed tale that spirals far from the topic at hand. (89 min., PG-13) (Laura Bennett)

Séraphine The story of Séraphine Louis, a country washerwoman who painted ecstatic, almost hallucinatory still lifes in pre-war France, may be one of the most unsettling films ever made about the hazy line between art and madness. In French, with subtitles (121 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Shorts The new family comedy from Robert Rodriguez is the multiplex equivalent of ADD. A simple story about a bunch of kids and a magic wishing rock is told out of sequence with manic overexuberance. Your kids may like it but you’ll need a drink. (89 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

Spread Shameless playboy Nikki (Ashton Kutcher) spends his days living large in Los Angeles on the tabs of the wealthy older women he seduces. The film is a glossy romp through every male fantasy imaginable, rife with nudity and lurid sex scenes. But “Spread’’ loses any trace of luster as soon as Nikki’s philandering dissolves into moony romance with a woman (Margareta Levieva) who plays the game as well as he does. (91 min., R) (Laura Bennett)

Thirst Park Chan-wook, the bad-boy director of subversive Korean action films like “Oldboy’’ and “Lady Vengeance,’’ returns with an entertainingly deranged tale of vampirism, Catholic priests, infectious disease, and plain old murderous adultery. Not for the faint of heart. In Korean, with subtitles. (133 min., R) (Ty Burr)

The Time Traveler’s Wife Eric Bana plays a man afflicted with “chrono-impermanence,’’ meaning he bounces back and forth between moments in his own life. It’s hell on a relationship, but his wife (Rachel McAdams) bears up with a beatific smile. An effective tearjerker, but the film’s extreme tenderness leads mostly to dullness. (107 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

The Ugly Truth Katherine Heigl in another diet-romantic comedy. She plays a TV news producer who accepts dating advice from the chauvinist Neanderthal (Gerard Butler) her station has just hired. The movie has embarrassingly limited ideas about both the sexes and sex. (97 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg A very haimish documentary that pays loving tribute to “The Goldbergs,’’ the popular radio and TV series that ran from 1929-1956, and its creator-star, Gertrude Berg. Like the series, the film is big on heart-warming, not big on hilarious. (92 min., unrated) (Mark Feeney)

An archive of movie reviews may be found at www.boston.com/movies. Theaters are subject to change.