Would it be a better musical experience if when Gene Kelly splashed about in Singin' in the Rain, you saw each drop of water bouncing towards you? Or if while viewing Week-End in Havana, you felt you could pluck a berry from Carmen Miranda's turban? And what if it seemed you could almost look up Julie Andrews' skirt as she twirled about the hills that were alive with music?

Step Up 3D, with its relentless kaleidoscopic imagery, begs these questions as its youthful dancers burst off the screen in a nonstop bustle of gymnastic twirls, head spins, and rock 'em-sock 'em gesturing. With the slightest of storylines, even less character development, numerous actors who wouldn't be out of place in the C-movies of the 1950s, and choreography that's more Olympian than Fosse-esque, the third dimension supplied here often seems more gimmicky than artful.

True love seldom runs smoothly, especially in Denmark. Just ask Hamlet. And in Nicolo Donato's discerning Brotherhood, an exploration of the rebirth of the Danish National Socialist Movement, romance has an especially difficult path to tread.

The film begins late at night by a water tower. A gent in a hoodie is wooing a young homosexual man, who quickly discovers, when his pants are down, that he's been set up to be brutally attacked by a group of neo-Nazi thugs.

Dear Reader, I regretfully must inform you that Christopher Nolan’s bombastic Inception has enough startling footage with which to edit 30 exquisitely enticing trailers, but not enough to compose one comprehensible movie from.

So what is the most anticipated film of the summer like? If you recall the scene in Dahmer (2002) where Jeremy Renner as the deranged killer drills holes into his victims’ heads, you’ll know what watching this Freudian claptrap of a thriller is like.

Adrian Brody as an action hero? Yup. The Pianist who survived King Kong only to become Rickity the Field Mouse in The Fantastic Mr. Fox does a star turn here as the mercenary Royce. Especially when Mr. Brody starts running about bare-chested near the finale -- you'll want to applaud his exquisitely chiseled torso. Sadly, a six-pack does not a movie make.

This latest in the Predator enterprise (begun in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger when he still had hero status) is barely a film. An unimaginative plot line, a stilted script, nil character development, and paltry special effects add up to . . . . Well, they don’t add up to much.

An early realization of my intellectual inferiority occurred sitting in a San Francisco revival house in the '70s. There, perched on an achingly springy seat, I was unable to comprehend, let alone sit through, Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad (1961).

I have always promised to give myself a second viewing of this groundbreaking, nonlinear classic, even though some critics like David Thomson argue against such an action, citing the film's "enervating High Vogue solemnity" and Resnais's inability "to make a communicative contact with audiences."

Having had a virgin or two in my day and having been one once, I'm not quite sure why this state of inexperience is so prized in our society and, for that matter, the world over. I surmise some folks want to be the first, whether it's for an iPhone purchase, the initial screening of a Star Wars entry, or just saying hello to a clitoris.

I've always felt being second or third or tenth is much wiser, whether it's walking on ice, being on a conga line, or having intimate relations. Technique can improve over the years. Just take a second and ask yourself whether you'd want your gall bladder removed by a newbie or an experienced M.D.

If you are conflicted, you are not alone. As the writer Edward Dahlbert noted, "What men desire is a virgin who is a whore."

Writer/director David Michod's Animal Kingdom is another one of those tiny, volcanic Australian dramas (e.g. Romper Stomper (1992); Blessed (2009)) that explode off the screen more from superb casting and direction than from originality of plot, which is not to say the plot here is ever less than engrossing.

Animal Kingdom is a searing study of the characteristic impossibility of breaking out of the crime cycle, especially when all your blood relatives are hoods, drug addicts, insane, or all of the three. At least that’s what 17-year-old Joshua “J” Cody (James Frecheville) swiftly ferrets out.

Operatic in scope, Luca Guadagnino's mesmerizing I Am Love chronicles the carryings-on of an aristocratic Italian family from one grand meal to another. But with each bite taken from each exquisitely prepared dish, the final course of tragedy gets more and more ready to be served up.

In the opening scenes, in an overwhelming Milan manor, the matriarch, Emma Recchi (Tilda Swinton), along with her brigade of servants, sweeps from room to room, making sure every detail is perfect. Even in the kitchen, a misplaced drop of sauce on a plate is carefully wiped away.

And while the pots are ever so carefully stirred, the children and the guests arrive like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that don't quite fit together.

Stones in Exile DVD (Eagle Records)

Time passing creates a tremendous sense of reverence, but at the time, the exit of the Rolling Stones from Britain to the south of France wasn't seen as a sublime act of creative integrity, but one of supreme betrayal, the petulant flouncing of the newly spoilt rich of rock. It was also a move of extreme expediency, escaping the trappings of tremendous success, appalling mismanagement of their affairs, and a massive tax bill. They really were the original band on the run.

Nellcote was Keith Richard's mansion, and after a fruitless search of empty theaters, recording studios, and halls, none of which proved suitable, it was decided to take root there to record a new album.

Little more than a week ago I was going Hollywood in mid-Manhattan with dozens of other Big Apple critics. In other words, cabbing from a 6:00 p.m. midtown advance screening of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to an Upper West Side 8:30 p.m. S.R.O. showing of Sex and the City 2. Yes, from a surprisingly charisma-less Jake Gyllenhaal in search of a magical dagger to a rancid Sarah Jessica Parker seeking empty post-marriage passion in the Middle East.

Verdict: both stars should avoid sand.

Jake, so good bottoming in Brokeback Mountain, here lacks top appeal. Too bad gravitas can't be sprayed on like a tan.

Worried About the Boy

Some people were born to be sold, and George O'Dowd always seemed to have a price on his head -- one of his own making. He was one of the children of the revolution in dark corners, the bastard spawn of Bowie, that distant father-figure of difference who deserted those he had inspired, then returned to their gaudy playground to use them in his next chameleon project, namely his Ashes to Ashes video. The late '70s and early '80s revealed a legacy, and a need to challenge that has all but expired. The New Romantic era was the baroque riposte to punk's safety pins, and Boy George became its ambassador to a startled world.

Do you remember when you first learned the word "ka ka" or "poo poo" and then kept repeating the term incessantly for days on end at inappropriate moments? If so, you have a handle on the woefully unfunny, extended Saturday Night Live sketch MacGruber.

Apparently a takeoff on the '80s TV series MacGyver, which itself was a takeoff on spy movies, the film -- co-written by its star Will Forte, its director Jorma Tacone, and SNL resident scribe John Solomon -- has nothing on its little mind except trying to cash in big on opening weekend.

LENA HORNE 1917-2010

Some things are impossible to deny. One of those was that Lena Horne was beautiful, another was her talent as an actress and singer, the third was that she was black. Horne once quipped that what the MGM Studios knew about black people, they'd gleaned from the Tarzan films, and she flatly refused to pretend to be Latin American so that her movies might fare better in the Southern States. It is hard to believe that scenes containing black actors were routinely chopped from films before they were shown there. A fitting testament to this spirited woman and her bravery in the face of stupid prejudice is that the world has moved on somewhat, and has all but forgotten these sins; now a black man resides in the White House.

The great French film Mademoiselle Chambon, based on a novel by Eric Holder, never strives for greatness. It just gently saunters there with a majestic, relentless vision of an impossible love.

From the opening scene of a picnic where two parents awkwardly try to help their son with his grammar assignment (what is a “direct object”?), director and co-screenwriter Stéphane Brizé sends forth his simple plot along with nary a shove.

Jean (Vincent Lindon), the dad, is in construction: he builds houses. Anne Marie (Aure Atika), the mom, works at a printer, assembling books.

One afternoon, Mom twists her back, and Dad must pick up Jérémy (Arthur Le Houérou) at school. There Jean meets Véronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain), the teacher.

To muck up the sequel to Iron Man for the hungry legions of metalheads would require mistakes so monumentally stupid that it's barely worth imagining. All that's needed is screens, seats, Robert Downey Jr., the suit, and the CGI, and it's got all of those things in abundance. In fact, it has several suits, as well as a legion of killer robots, Scarlett Johansson in Emma Peel drag, and Mickey Rourke as a greasy Russian bad guy with bad teeth and a degree in physics.

Rourke's character, Ivan Vanko, wants to de-chrome Tony Stark (Downey Jr.), primarily because Stark's father (Mad Men's John Slattery) screwed his inventor dad back in the '60s. There's a lot of back story that bubbles up in this picture, but it really boils down to dueling hi-tech chest bling and a lot of close-ups of Rourke gnashing his metal-lined choppers and pining for his cockatoo.

Freetime Machos

If you're not offended by blond, Finnish, amateur rugby players who have a penchant for blowup dolls, homosexual allusions, the frequent use of “pussy,” and a fear of being fired by their employer, Nokia, Mika Ronkainen’s affable documentary might just be up your alley.

This oddball look at the Oulos, the third lousiest rugby team from their area, clearly argues that men will be men no matter the latitude: “In Finland, you rather get stabbed in the back than complain of female trouble.”

Openly gay Turkish film director Ferzan Ozpetek, like Almodóvar, has never been nelly about scattering characters of his own persuasion throughout his oeuvre.

In Steam (1997), a young married Italian inherits a steam bath in Turkey, and when he visits his bequest dressed in a towel, he unexpectedly falls for a young male native.

In The Ignorant Fairies (2001) , a widow discovers that her deceased spouse, who had been hit by two cars traveling in opposing directions, had a secret life composed of drag queens and gays of all varieties. Infiltrating this campy cabal out of a depressed curiosity, she, against her will, rediscovers happiness.

Between its attention to detail and subtle humor, Black Dynamite is one of the most original approaches to film making since Woody Allen's early comedies. It’s hard to say what’s more tragic, that moviegoers have been reduced to relying on the mediocre talents of Judd Apatow and Jason Friedberg to provide them with big screen laughs, or that the funniest film in years was released this past October and couldn’t build an audience until it came out on DVD.

Labeling this film as a mere Blaxploitation spoof would be a gross simplification, as it boasts action sequences that could take on Bruce Lee and bad-ass dialogue that could rival anything to come out of Shaft’s mouth.

It wasn't a matter of if, but when Johnny Depp would adopt the guise of the Mad Hatter. It was a role that had long lain in wait for him. Lewis Carroll's sublime text has been given the full Tim Burton treatment. The unreality made real provides a seamless and Gothic, visual deception. Computer animation has erased all the cracks and joints we used to notice in the days of older celluloid fantasy -- the strings, the painted backdrops, the clunky animation. Burton's audience is instantly transported into a world that they know can't possibly exist, but which their eyes are forced into passive acceptance of. Although this is a Disney Studios feature, Burton makes no concession to the house style. Here is a dark location, a perfectly realized nightmare in which anything can, and does, occur.

1. Pumzi

It's 35 years after World War III, all water sources are radioactive, and the land is infertile. As for the robotic remnants of mankind, they live underground in a high-tech, totalitarian empire with a regime so invasive that when a computer detects you are dreaming, a recorded voice commands, "Take your dream suppressants!"

As for sources of water, one's urine and sweat are gathered and then recycled into drinkable liquids

How to Train Your Dragon concerns a youth and his best friend, a dragon. Sound familiar? Been there, done that with Eragon, Mulan, Pete's Dragon, and a dozen others. For a refresher course, check out the site Dragons of the Silver and Small Screen.

Of course, this 3D effort by the writers/directors of Lilo & Stitch, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, is often visually enticing, yet after viewing Avatar so recently, the Pow! Factor is at times missing.

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

By the time of his death in 2000, illness had once more had a transfigurative affect on the life of Ian Dury. Cancer, and the public knowledge of his impending absence from the world, turned him into a national treasure, the much-beloved rogue who had a magical turn of phrase. Mat Whitecross is no stranger to touchy subjects -- he proved that with Road to Guantanamo -- but Dury, notoriously cantankerous and volatile, is presented here in a warts-and-all cavalcade of chaos. He remains strangely lovable when many of his actions are not. The pace of the movie is as jagged and frenetic as one of Dury's frequent rages, but once it settles into a semi-narrative, the spirit of the man emerges. It is a white-knuckle ride of pathos and monstrosity.

In 1953, the democratically elected government of Iran was being overthrown thanks to a CIA-backed coup d’état with the aid of an oil-greedy Great Britain. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed, and numerous lives were lost, not counting many freedoms. The aftermath? Turn on CNN.

Situated in that pivotal year, photographer Shirin Neshat’s startling feature debut, Women Without Men, is meant as a tribute to those Iranis who fought, those who were crushed, and those who died thanks to foreign imperialist interference.