Bert Stern: Original Madman

"Bert Stern: Original Madman" introduces us to the Hollywood photographer Bert Stern, who started as an advertising photographer and pioneered the concept of the modern ad photo with the primacy of its single image. (Until he came along, ad photos were basically illustrative, often consigned to the spare space not consumed by the dominant text.)

Violeta Went to Heaven

“Violeta Went to Heaven,” about the Chilean folk singer and artist Violeta Parra, takes the fragmented form of a sort of cinematic memory quilt of the life and loves of Parra, played captivatingly by Francisca Gavilian as a headstrong, dominant woman with a clarity if not a singleness of purpose and zero tolerance for those niceties that perpetuate the societal status quo.

Stolen Seas

The documentary "Stolen Seas" examines the metastasizing problem of Somali piracy, now the African nation's leading "industry." The filmmakers use audio recordings and interviews to recreate the tense, months-long talks between Per Gullestrup, owner of a Danish shipping line, and Ishmael Ali, the gregarious and experienced Somali nabob the pirates bring aboard to bargain on their behalf.

Upstream Color

To say that no movie released this year will be weirder than "Upstream Color" is an understatement. It's also a mesmerizing mind-fuck, at least while it's happening.

In The House

François Ozon's "In the House" features a fascinating concept: Claude, a bright high-school student eager to learn to write, worms his way into a schoolmate's household, ostensibly to tutor him in mathematics, and writes about the real and imagined goings-on for his literature teacher, Germain, who finds the submissions inappropriate at first but soon can't get enough.

Oblivion

There are those who won't go to any movie with Tom Cruise in it, and I have no problem with that. For those who'll see one if it's decent, check out "Oblivion," a well-constructed science fiction adventure with a script that's smart and satisfying.

Disconnect

Henry Alex Rubin's "Crash"-meets-the-Internet roundelay "Disconnect" is slick, watchable, and structurally sound for the first hundred minutes but doesn't know how to end in the last fifteen and winds up with little to say. The three primary interlocking storylines involve cyber-bullying, identity theft, and the exploitation of minors on sexually explicit websites.