Ty's movie picks for Friday, June 19

Thinking of seeing either of the two new studio releases, "The Proposal" or "Year One"? Spare yourself and your loved ones. You don't have to believe just Wesley and me (links above) -- almost everyone has joined the pigpile on the Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds rom-com and the Jack Black/Michael Cera caveman "comedy". Even my 12-year-old found "Year One" actively painful to sit through, and I think she's the target demo.

Instead, I direct you to the Kendall Square and/or the Coolidge to see "Food Inc." and "Burma VJ." Oh, I know, two documentaries: how boring. How good for you. How totally non-summer-tastic. Oh, spare me. "Food Inc.," directed by Rob Kenner, is a brutal and thorough takedown of the American food industry (see photo above), a film that dabbles in trendy Michael Moore-isms but mostly serves its outrage cold and straight. See it before your next trip to the supermarket, if only to gauge your own concerns about what ends up on your plate. It's the rare film I wish had been longer, the better and more thoroughly to state its case.

"Burma VJ" is absurdly relevant in this astonishing week of Iranian social dissent. The film follows the popular uprising in Myanmar in August and September, 2007, as captured through the illegal video-camera lenses of reporters for the Democratic Voice of Burma. The footage of Buddhist monks and average Burmese on the march is inspiring; the eventual crackdown by the country's military dictatorship is heartbreaking. Forget about the Globe's troubles; if these journalists are captured doing their job, they are dead men.

Also opening: Francis Ford Coppola's glorious mess of a family epic, "Tetro," beautifully shot and increasingly, operatically bonkers. I mean that as a compliment. Coppola, in his own words, is in a pretty good place at the moment, and this film finds him stretching in fascinating ways. "Treeless Mountain" is a spare and moving story about two Korean girls abandoned by their mother; it's been slightly overpraised on the festival circuit but I have to admit I was a wreck by the final scenes. "Moon" is a neat, small-scale sci-fi conundrum with multiple performances by the always welcome Sam Rockwell. It plays like "2001" shrunk to the confines of a "Twilight Zone" episode. "Departures" won the best foreign language Oscar this year, but it dilutes an interesting subject (Japan's burial customs and the social taboos surrounding death) with a slick, sentimental style. Which is doubtless why it won.

Classic gangster flicks at the Brattle all weekend -- made it, Ma, top of the world! Monday night, the Coolidge is bringing in the rarely-seen 1996 film version of "American Buffalo," starring Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz, in partnership with the David Mamet festival of plays over at the American Repertory Theatre. Director Michael Corrente will be at the screening for a Q&A. But, seriously, see "Food Inc." and "Burma VJ" first.