MGM, 1935: When a brilliant but off-kilter surgeon grafts the hands of a knife-throwing murderer onto a former pianist's arms, the musician discovers abilities he never before possessed.

Cinemation Industries, 1968: After her mother’s death, young Inga (Liljedahl) moves in with her equally sexy aunt Greta (Strömmerstedt). Although Inga is serious and shy, she seems to incite the sexual imagination of every man she meets—a Swedish Lulu combined with Little Annie Fanny.

The Exeter Theater Company has launched a membership drive to reopen the historic Ioka Theater in downtown Exeter. The volunteer-based, non-profit Exeter Theater Company, chaired by Tony Callendrello, has been challenged to recruit 1,000 “Premiere Members” by March 31 to prove there is community support and begin restoration.

20th Century Fox, 1989: Several months after the final events of “The Fly,” Seth Brundle’s lover Veronica gives birth to some sort of larval egg containing a human baby. Veronica dies during childbirth, but her son Martin is a remarkable boy, indeed.

Rated PG-13: There’s every indication that the dudes who made “Chronicle”—first-time director Josh Trank and writer Max “Son of John” Landis—were attempting something truly next-generation.

Essay Films, 1974: Fran and Miriam are two beautiful bisexual vampires who roam the English countryside looking for prey. They lure their victims back to their opulent estate for orgies of sex and bloodsucking. All goes according to plan until a young vacationing couple, John and Harriet, decide to park their camper near the castle for a few days.

Rated R: Though she exudes a definite animal charisma and solidly commanding presence, surrounding Carano with such a high-power boys club (there is not one other female character in the whole show) only serves to crisply define the emptiness of the space she’s supposed to inhabit. She delivers her few perfunctory lines like she’s pounding a sandbag, and, just as she repeatedly makes human ThighMasters out of her costars, she squeezes every bit of life out of their performances, as well.

Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment, 1988: Moral crusaders of the ’80s hated horror and heavy metal in equal measure, and you’d think producers of the time would have seized on this notion with aplomb, but the combination of metal and horror is remarkably rare. It’s rarer still to find these films on modern video formats.

Rated PG-13: In the winter, studios populate theaters with big, serious awards-contenders and misfit (usually mediocre) flicks they never got around to releasing earlier in the year. “The Artist” straddles the line between the two camps—it’s already racked up some awards (including honors at Cannes and a few Golden Globes), but it’s also an alien visitor to Planet Multiplex. Where are the crazy CG effects? How come the cute dog isn’t saying something sassy or pooping on the hero? A mostly silent, black-and-white film, it features real actors fervently, joyfully acting, and only a few special effects.

Central Films, 1989: Based on Susan Hill’s popular 1983 novel, the atmosphere of post-Edwardian England (staged with typical British excellence in costume and scenic design) is clammy and dank, even in the “cheerful” London scenes.

Rated R: John LeCarré’s famous 1974 spy novel, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” wasn’t written as a period piece, but it seems necessary to treat it that way now. LeCarré himself had worked for British intelligence for years before he quit to become a writer, and though his novels are fiction, they’re steeped in the sort of veracity that could only come from actually living through the Cold War inside the cold heart of MI5 and MI6.

Twentieth Century Fox, 1976: There’s something inherently creepy about cursed children. Sure, evil is generally a creepy phenomenon, but especially when personified in the form of an outwardly innocent little boy or girl. See young Regan’s head ratcheting around in “The Exorcist,” or little Danny croaking “red rum” in “The Shining,” or wee Gage wielding a scalpel in “Pet Sematary.”

Rated PG: One of the key elements that may have enamored readers around the world to the adventures of Tintin—a plucky boy journalist who fought corruption, solved mysteries and chased adventure in a Belgian comic series for more than half of the 20th century—was how well it balanced complexity of story with accessibility of style. Tintin, in both character and form, was drawn with bold, precise lines, subtle colors and no shading whatsoever. He subsequently became a wonderfully blank slate for followers to imprint themselves onto, step into his shoes, and actively engage in the adventures of imagination in which he was so often embroiled.

Filmove Studio Barrandov, 1970: Along with Polanski’s “The Fearless Vampire Killers” (1967) and Neil Jordan’s “The Company of Wolves” (1984), this is one of those rare horror films that doubles as a fairy tale.

Rated R: Over the years, David Fincher has shown himself to be a director of risk, invention and vision, often taking on projects of surprising, and sometimes confounding, subject matter. Risk doesn’t always equal success, however. For every “Fight Club” there’s a “Panic Room”; for each “Zodiac,” there’s a “The Game.”

Indústria Cinematográfica Apolo, 1964:Coffin Joe is an undertaker in a rural Brazilian town who is obsessed with two things: atheism and immortality.

“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” versus “Sherlock” (BBC One)

While the viewing public goes back to see a sequel because we liked the original and are interested in seeing the story and characters carried on in a similar vein, into something new and surprising and even better, filmmakers instead treat sequels like some sort of victory lap, a madcap reunion party of all the people who made the first movie, and as a reward they got money to make a second one and they’re all so happy they show up drunk or high and just throw something together that looks like it might have been fun to make, but hoo boy it sure doesn’t make much sense.

Gaumont Studios, 1959: In many respects, this film is not good, and yet it’s worth spending the 88 minutes to watch it. Fronju, who never garnered any serious respect as a filmmaker, understood the power of the medium better than many superior directors.

Anyone who’s taken a family vacation in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region is bound to harbor enduring memories, whether it was 50 years ago or just last summer. A new documentary shows how the region has changed and how it’s stayed the same over the decades, with time-lapse images of scenery, landmarks and more.

Rated R: Clooney trades his suave confidence for confusion and pain. He also gets to be funny, not in the cartoonish way he uses when cast in Coen Brothers films, but in an understated, affable way. His scenes with Woodley are precise moments of a father and daughter struggling to forge at first an uneasy alliance and, later, an actual relationship.

RKO Pictures, 1945: The Anatomy Act, allowing for the legal dissection of cadavers for medical training, was not passed until 1832. This film, clearly inspired by the Burke & Hare West Port murders, takes place in Edinburgh a year earlier. Boris Karloff, as Gray the cabman and corpse salesman, is magnificent, oily and reptilian, and the cheerful concentration of his good manners soaked in greed and sheer evil.

rated PG: No one with a hint of love in their hearts could want to dislike a madcap, song ’n’ dance infused escapade of talking frogs, stand-up bears and bug-eyed monsters with an itch to entertain. It was, no doubt, the goal of the latest Muppet feature’s creative team to do justice to the memory of Jim Henson and his wild little bunch of beasties. Their adoration of the man’s work is right on the screen, as is their apprehension of getting his recipe wrong. Many have called Henson a genius, and whether you agree with that or not is between you and your own heart, but that’s a lot to live up to.

Full Moon Pictures, 1999: Directly following the events of “Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge,” an aged Andre Toulon, the titular Puppet Master, is hiding in an abandoned building with his living dolls during WWII.

RKO Pictures, 1984: Nobody does tough guys like Walter Hill. Even when he frames his tough guys in an anachronistic setting full of elaborate rock ’n’ roll musical numbers, he still manages to make them tough guys. “Streets of Fire” was supposed to be a huge blockbuster feature in 1984, but it suffered the unfortunate fate of being released only a week prior to “Ghostbusters” and sunk like a rock in the box office. That's a shame.

rated PG: “Hugo,” made for film lovers, by film lovers, is a breed of cinema becoming more endangered by the week, one that encourages curiosity, rewards participation, and absolutely earns the right to be seen on the biggest screen you can get to, with as many friends and family you can bring along.

Rated R: Early in Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar,” we learn that there’s history, and then there’s history as told by J. Edgar Hoover. As played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Hoover is a man whose obsession with fact and truth ends when the subject is himself. The film opens with Hoover dictating a biography of his career to a junior FBI agent. The goal, he says, is to write something that clearly defines the heroes and villains of history.

Memorial-SAM Films, 1973: Young coffee salesman Mick Travis (McDowell) inherits a huge assignment for territory in the north of England and takes off to make his fortune. Along the way, he is seduced by women, mistakenly captured as a spy by the government, beds the daughter of a millionaire magnate, rises to the top and crashes to the bottom. Near the end, he auditions for a film role and is asked by the director to smile. Mick insists adamantly there is nothing to smile about. He is slapped hard across the face with the script. He smiles.

PBS walks softy and carries a big stick. When considering great contemporary television, it’s easy to forget all about them, even though their stations have been bringing excellent and diverse shows to us for decades. It shouldn’t be a surprise, however, since the big stick, the secret weapon they’ve been swinging for years, is none other than the BBC, a giant which is arguably the source of the greatest television in the world.

CJ Entertainment, 2009: A devout and selfless Korean priest volunteers to help test a vaccine for a deadly virus.

Rated R: Without even glimpsing a preview, this film carries default appeal on a number of fertile grounds. First, it’s based on a novel by Hunter S. Thompson, the mad gun-toting, motorcycle-riding, drug-gobbling, booze-swilling journalist and American cult icon with millions of rabid fans insatiably hungry for any new Gonzo material.

Galatea/Jolly Films Films, 1960: Bava achieves the almost impossible trick of elevating B-level material and resources to first-class filmmaking. Although he often worked wonders with color, this film is in luscious black and white, and the brooding, gothic atmosphere he renders from studio forests, castle halls, and crumbling tombs is magnificent. Lex Baxter’s swoony score perfectly complements the omnipresent moodiness.

rated PG-13: In the current adaptation of “The Three Musketeers,” the object of desire is a secret plan for a flying warship designed by Leonardo Da Vinci. Silk threads delicately strung across the vault’s hallway are set to trigger a powerful array of crossbows hidden behind the walls as Milla Jovovich twirls and vaults her way to sweaty, explosive triumph.

Dimension Films, 2000: Det. Joseph Thorne (Sheffer), a police officer with a brilliant mind for puzzles and games (and a zest for cocaine and prostitutes that might seem at odds with his job), investigates the scene of a bizarre death: a man appears to have been pulled to pieces by hooks on chains (boy, that’s a familiar M.O.).

Rated R: There are remakes, there are replications, and then there’s “The Thing” of 2011. Based on John Carpenter’s 1982 film of the same name, which in turn was based on the 1951 film “The Thing From Another World” (which was an adaptation of the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. short story, “Who Goes There?”), the latest “The Thing” is part remake, part prequel, and part reboot.

American Independent Productions, 1992: Four co-eds get dropped off at a creepy L.A. mansion with an assignment to clean the place up for the new owners, who will be moving in soon. What they don’t know is that occupants routinely disappear from the place and, at one time, a demonic presence did battle with crusty old Gideon Fisk for possession of an evil book.

Independent-International Picture, 1975: We all know the quintessential components of the vampire mythos: they are neither alive nor dead but undead; they drink blood, hunting for their prey at night and returning to their coffins by daybreak; they cast no shadow, are incredibly strong, and have a powerful aversion to garlic. And, oftentimes, they transform into bats. But did you know that, according to Romanian folklore, vampires can also take the form of large dogs, snakes, wolves or black cats? And did you know they meet annually in cemeteries to discuss who is to be killed in the coming year and by whom?

ABP Corp., 1970: Two lovely young nurses take a bicycle ride through the creepy, creepy countryside.

Kismet Entertainment Group, 2002: Look, folks, this movie has an extended sequence where one of the soldiers engages in hand-to-hand combat with a seven-foot-tall werewolf in the kitchen of a cabin—and it’s amazing.

Rated PG-13: Surely, a team of misfit players that nobody else wants will win the day. They do and they don’t, but “Moneyball” is more concerned with the men behind the near wins than the actual losses. Pitt captures the essential conflict in Beane’s character: he’s a guy who’s all heart, but one who knows that all the old equations don’t truly add up.

Fanfare Films, 1971: The hippie dream ostensibly ended with the murder of the Tates and the LaBiancas at the hands of the Manson Family, and “Simon” was intended to capitalize on those cultural anxieties à la 1970’s “I Drink Your Blood.” But the film manages to hang on to all the weirdness of ’60s counterculture, coming off like a back issue of “Doctor Strange” and “Tales From The Crypt” slammed together with none of the misinformed killer hippie hysteria.

Rated R

“Languid” is not a word typically associated with a fuel-injected crime thriller, but “Drive” is exactly that. Refn’s camera simply caresses the neon Los Angeles landscape, drifting meditatively to a gentle, sighing, ’80s-infused synth score, evoking feelings more along the lines of “Blade Runner” than “Gone in 60 Seconds.” Far more art than action, Refn’s direction shows no fear of silence, and like the best noir narratives, allows the shadows to tell the story, isolation to define the romance and, in properly European fashion, for mysteries to be answered by more questions.

A look at the six films featured in the 2011 Telluride by the Sea weekend in Portsmouth, plus a preview of SNOB and NH Film Festival.

A new batch of six international films will take the screen at The Music Hall Sept. 23 to 25, though it’ll be tough to follow up on the caliber of films presented in the 2010 Telluride by the Sea in Portsmouth. A highlight of last year’s event was “The King’s Speech,” which went on to win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. 

Rated R: With this superb debut feature, writer/director Joe Cornish reminds us that despite Hollywood’s frequent insistence that extraterrestrials need a reason to invade us (more often than not, apparently, to blow up our national monuments and poach our stuff), at its root, the word “alien” means simply, foreign or strange. The power of aliens, as a plot device, is embedded in the protagonists’ inability to fathom the depths or dimensions of an indefinite threat.

Tigon Productions, 1971: Scripted by oddball 22-year-old Robert Wynne-Simmons, the screenplay for folk-horror story was handed to young hired-hand director Piers Haggard, who did a commendable job at achieving atmosphere, eroticism and suspense. Angel Blake's steady transformation from comely country lass to Satanic priestess is impressive.

rated R: Ned’s a fool, but a holy one, spreading sweetness and light to all the squares he encounters. He’s a close cousin to The Dude in “The Big Lebowski,” but in search of his dog instead of a new rug.

Trimark Video, 1997: The villainous Leprechaun (Davis) from previous installments of the film series now inexplicably lives on an alien mining planet, far into the future. Despite this change of venue, he’s still hungry for money, obsessed with power, and crazy for a bride.

Baa-Ram-Ewe, 2004: A humanitarian trip to a rural Thai village by a coalition of Thailand's finest national athletes is interrupted most unceremoniously by a pack of bloodthirsty terrorists who take the place hostage and point a small nuke at Bangkok. Their goal is to ensure the release of evil drug lord General Yang (Gomarachun) who was recently captured by one of Thailand's invincible super-cops (Chupong). Too bad they never counted on that very same cop being in the captive village among the humanitarian aid workers, as well as numerous martial artists and one of Thailand's greatest living Thai boxers.

Rated R: How is it that a simple savage warrior from the imaginary world of Hyborea could endure in the popular consciousness for eight decades? It might be that his creator, Robert E. Howard, distilling the anxieties of an era of economic strife and cultural distrust, tapped into something visceral and archetypical with his blatant escape into raw, snarling, masculinity.

Rated R: The title of “30 Minutes or Less” doubles as a measure for how long the movie should actually last. That it stumbles on for 90 minutes, with its paper-thin concept and a noticable lack of comedy, seems improbable and unreasonable

Warner Brothers, 1971: This is strong stuff. Based on historical fact, and released the same year as Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” and Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs,” the shock of this triumvirate is as fresh as it was way back when.

Rated PG-13: In reality, some things, like running down the street trying to protect your soft bits, may not be so much better with monkeys.

Universal Pictures, 1932:  Caught in a vicious storm in a desolate region of Wales, Philip Waverton and his wife Margaret are reluctantly admitted along with their sardonic friend Penderel to a gloomy, foreboding mansion inhabited by the strange Femm family. Welcome to the original “the road-and-bridge-are-washed-out-and-you-must-spend-the-night-in-a-haunted-mansion-that-probably-houses-a-homicidal-maniac” story that will set a cultural precedent for the next century.

Rated PG-13: “Cowboys & Aliens” is a movie based on a comic based on a poster, which wouldn’t be so bad if the film ever moved beyond its own premise. But it doesn’t, and the crazy thrills promised by the idea of cowboys slugging it out with aliens never materialize.

New Line Cinema, 1985: High schooler Jesse Walsh (Patton) and his family have recently moved into a house on Elm Street. Pretty soon, strange things start happening: every room is always swelteringly hot, the family’s pet bird goes berserk and explodes in a burst of flame, and an unplugged toaster catches fire. Oh, and Jesse starts having dreams about a certain someone. Surprise, it’s Freddy Krueger!

Rated PG-13: What Marvel has done here is simply wonderful. Not only have they made five good superhero movies that are deeply respectful of their comic book roots and accessible and beloved by the general public, but they’ve turned movie reality inside out. Where once superhero films were a challenge, they now feel like a standard, and where once they struggled to break into the mainstream, now they seem like the very best examples of summer movie entertainment.

Johnny Tao Productions, 2007: Every frame of this movie is intended to thrill children with good, clean fun tempered with extravagant fight scenes. “Johnny Tao” is a violent movie, but it’s the sort of violence I’d be comfortable showing a 6-year-old.

Rated PG-13:  Nearly all the secondary characters get some great moments here, especially Maggie Smith, who’s both fierce and funny as she rallies the school’s defenses. Matthew Lewis, the once-bumbling-but-now-hunky Neville Longbottom, makes a heroic stand, and Julie Walters, the matronly Mrs. Weasley, has a nice bit in which she ruthlessly defends her daughter.

Hammer Films, 1970: We will never see the likes of Hammer again—dramatic but campy, low-budget but elegant, sexily bloody but never losing a sense of good taste. 

rated R: There’s a recession on and new jobs are hard to come by, and so Nick, Dale and Kurt decide to deal with their bosses in the most logical way possible: they’ll kill them. Exhibiting a flair for crime on par with their ability to find better jobs, they hire a “murder consultant” who suggests they each kill each other’s boss, a la “Strangers on a Train.”

Monarch Video, 1996: Glancing at the cartoonish cover art, and seeing jolly-ol’ Ernest Borgnine merrily telling a bedtime story, you’d think this was a children’s fantasy film. But you’d begin to have second thoughts when you saw a domestic cat bloodily maul a grown man, who proceeds to torch the cat alive by breathing fire in its face.

Rated PG-13: You know that one horrible neighborhood kid who would come over uninvited and gleefully, inexplicably smash every toy in your sandbox while you watched on, powerless to stop him? Michael Bay is that kid. Under Bay’s frenzied, over-caffeinated direction, "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" aggressively defies even the most basic vocabulary of cinema as it has come to be recognized over the last century

Brigitte Films, 1970: In a huge Victorian mansion near London, a bizarre quartet lives in its own singular world: Mumsy, the sterling matriarch; Nanny, the uniformed nurse and caretaker; Sonny, the late-adolescent schoolboy; and Girly, his prim if flirtatious schoolgirl sister. The “children” like nothing more than to bring home curious men from playgrounds.

Giant Leap Entertainment, 2000: Horror movie anthologies are a special breed. Counting the wrap-around segment, this movie delivers four stories for the price of one. And come on, it’s a horror movie with John Ritter.

Rated R: Teachers, especially those of the public school variety, have it rough. The job is difficult and thankless and teachers are at the mercy of parents, administrators and, occasionally, students. The pay sucks, the demands are impossible and often contradictory, and because they’re charged with educating children, teachers are held to a moral standard that even the most pious religious leader might find chafing.

The superhero movie is not just mainstream, but a staple, a genre necessary partly because our movie-going entertainment demands have grown so large they can’t even be contained by the laws of physics anymore. Remember when a car chase was a thrilling display of speed, force and danger? Now we want to fight in the sky, punch each other with bolts of energy, hear our lover’s thoughts and die in a blaze of incandescent color, and nothing less will do.

D&P Productions, 1983: Absolutely every facet of this movie is bouncing off the walls. It’s as though the writers of “Saturday Night Live” teamed up with the creators of Mad Magazine to make a ridiculous rock and roll comedy. And the music is great, too.

rated PG-13:  During its best moments, “Super 8” feels like a Spielberg flick that’s been beamed in from some alternate dimension, a lost film that’s only now resurfacing. Abrams successfully channels the Spielberg of 30 years ago, making “Super 8” a fizzy cocktail of nostalgia.

Compton Films, 1966: Roman Polanski’s life as a filmmaker has been so overwhelmed by the Holocaust, the Manson murders, and a 1970s sex scandal that it’s easy to neglect his brilliant half-century of work. He would go on to greater commercial and critical success with “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Chinatown” and “The Pianist,” but he still considers “Cul-de-sac” his most “cinematic” film.

Paramount Pictures, 1982: A bunch of unlikeable teens (played by 30-somethings) travel to a lakeside cabin for a weekend of fun and debauchery. Jason Voorhees, having miraculously survived the ending of “Friday the 13th, Part II,” turns up and decides to slaughter them all—in 3-D! No, seriously. 

It’s a fairly wonderful thing that in a series that so specifically explores the power of change, evolution, and fear of the new and different, strong elements occasionally do survive. Though the film has no lack of speed, invention, missile fights, shapely shape-shifters and fire-spitting bug people, they allow for the more cerebral themes of self discovery and ethical dilemma to pervade in just the right proportion.

The drive-in is gone, but not forgotten. Several Seacoast locations will offer outdoor movies this summer.

Rated R: Director Todd Phillips penned this sequel with Craig Mazin and Scott Armstrong, though how much actual writing they did is up for debate. “The Hangover Part II” is pretty much “The Hangover,” but with all instances of Las Vegas replaced with Bangkok and all the gags involving a cute baby revised to include a cute monkey with a denim vest and a pack-a-day smoking habit.

HandMade Films, 1987: Unemployed struggling actors Marwood and Withnail live in squalor and destitution in a sordid London flat  in the late 1960s. Surrounded by filthy dishes, unable to afford even a single bottle of booze, and accosted by uninvited, drug-dealing house guests, the two decide to escape to a rustic, countryside cottage owned by Withnail’s eccentric uncle Monty. But the getaway does not prove as relaxing as they’d hoped.

 Rated PG-13

Somewhere locked deep in Disney’s vault, there is apparently a secret Pirate Codex that lays out, in great specificity, the elements required to construct and launch a proper “Pirates of the Caribbean” episode. In addition to cutlass-clanging, rope-swinging, rum-swilling and cross-dressing, prerequisites include (but are not limited to) marginalized protagonists, sidelined romance, mutually opposed villains, convoluted plot machinations, and a minumum of 20 extraneous minutes. By cleaving closely to that guidebook, these tides remain wholly familiar.

How does one describe the cult cinema juggernaut that is Larry Clow? He’s both dedicated and crazed, a winning combination that has enabled him to review some 350 cult films (plus a couple of hundred mainstream Hollywood movies) since 2004. As a founder of both the annual Dover Zombie Walk and the Sub Rosa Drive-In film series, Larry is responsible for bringing some serious creep shows to town. But  after seven years penning The Wire’s weekly cult film column Tales from the Video Vault, Clow is moving on to other projects. Before he does, though, he talks abut his B-movie devotion and offers his picks for the top ten best and worst cult movies of all time. And... maybe it's your turn to write for the Vault?

rated R: “Bridesmaids” is star and co-writer Kristen Wiig’s first major starring role after toiling for years on “Saturday Night Live.” What’s more, the film has been pegged as a test case for a new comedy sub-genre, a cross between chick flicks and the raunchy, dude-centric oeuvre of Judd Apatow. But these pressures are ugly and ill-fitting and hide what’s so great about “Bridesmaids”—it’s funny, populated with actual characters, some grand comic set pieces, and a lot of great performances.

Produtzioni Intersound, 1989: “Santa Sangre” is by turns fascinating, disturbing and, in a small way, uplifting. Dig down past the surreal circus performers, the creepy Hitchcockian plot, and the weird religious fanaticism and you’ll find the story of a man trying to break free of his parents’  influence and come into his own.

Rated PG-13: Odin’s first born is, as strapping well-hewn warriors go, an arrogant, snot-nosed brat, and his second boy, Loki, is a conniving little sneak who just makes trouble for everyone. Neither seem quite worthy to protect the peace or withstand the weight of the crown, but the king is in a position to concede. After 1,000 years spent clobbering some peace out of an evil realm, he could really use a good nap and would like nothing more than for one of his sons to take control of his kingdom of Asgard.

Canon Films, 1985: Former architect turned vigilante Paul Kersey has ended his exile in Los Angeles and returned to New York. He’s vowed to give up his hobby of shooting muggers, thieves, drug dealers, rapists, and other bad guys, but all that changes when police chief Richard Shriker gives Paul carte blanche to dispense vigilante justice.

Rated PG-13:  It’s been 10 years and four sequels since “The Fast and the Furious” premiered, but watch “Fast Five,” the latest entry in the cars-babes-and-explosions series and you’ll barely register the passage of time.

Dan Curtis Productions, 1976:  When the Rolf family is offered a summer caretaking job in the California countryside, they can’t believe their luck. The Allardyce mansion is spacious and luxurious, if a bit rundown, and the only thing they have to do is spruce up the home and take care of the elderly Mrs. Allardyce who lives in the attic. 

rated R:  Way back in 1997, when the first sequel in the “Scream” series came out, it carried the tagline, “Someone has taken their love of sequels one step too far.” Who’d have thought that 14 years later we’d be saddled with “Scream 4.” 

Rose Releasing, 1998: If you’re a fan of noir, Gibson, Ferrara, Walken or Dafoe, “New Rose Hotel” is definitely worth watching. It’s flawed and frustrating, but will likely stand as one of the best adaptations of William Gibson’s fiction.

Rated R: Why should we, as discerning cultural consumers, be the least bit surprised by the idea of a homicidally telekinetic tire rolling along on a bloodthirsty killing rampage? French techno musician/filmmaker Quentin Dupieux tells us, literally, directly, and right into the camera: there is no reason. That simple. Movies are not real and are in no way subject to any kind of logic that we might expect from, say, reality.