PURGATORY HOUSE [R]
One of perhaps five features ever written by a teenager that found substantial distribution, Boston-born director Cindy Baer’s debut film features author Celeste Davis as the protagonist, Silver Strand, who is based on some of her own tormented adolescence. Davis started writing the script at 13, and her Big Sisters mentor Baer was so impressed that she made the script into a digital video feature. To be fair, it does not have the production values or acting skills of many films comparable in theme, although its many visual effects are remarkable given its low budget. Yet Silver’s story is certainly not typical of other teens obsessed with sex, sedation, and suicide, because she has already killed herself and now spends an uncertain eternity with other teens who also must confront their spiritual and metaphysical states of existence. The teens’ pontifications are downright engaging and provocative, and the film asks us to reconsider the adolescent experience from a perspective that is sincerely youthful, marked by a candid admission of the unknown, an optimistic determination to find fulfillment, and rarest of all, a critical examination of the morals and mores that are foisted upon young people today. –Timothy Shary

Score: 3.5/5

LA MOUSTACHE [NR]
While Hitchcock was essential in the development of French cinema — particularly the New Wave — there is more to Emmanuel Carrère’s suspenseful debut film than the comparisons to the American master on the cover would lead one to believe. Adapting his own novel, Carrère puts his star (and ringer for Kevin Kline) Vincent Lindon (La Haine) through a series of absurdist events in which his grasp on reality is challenged, à la Being John Malkovich. The story, with its intense focus on the refreshingly non-melodramatic mid-life crisis of its protagonist and the matter-of-fact presentation of class status, is very reminiscent of the nouveau roman, or “new novel,” books by the likes of other authors-turned-filmmakers Marguerite Duras (The Lover) and Alain Robbe-Grillet (Last Year At Marienbad). Emmanuelle Devos (Gilles’ Wife), as Lindon’s foil fatale/spousal enabler, is no Deneuve or Binoche — and thankfully so — instead delivering the role with a kind of admirable strength and straightforwardness atypical of recent French actresses. The icing is Philip Glass’s relentless score, which helps Carrère cement in our psyches his curiously captivating Möbius flypaper of a film. –Marcia Butzel

Score: 3.5/5

MAY 6th [R]
Art legacy Theo Van Gogh presents a visually pleasing yet distractingly convoluted snapshot of the assassination of Dutch rightwing politician Pim Fortuyn. His political thriller/conspiracy theory/murder mystery focuses on polar opposites – geopolitical, racial, metaphysical, etcetera — which, as presented, is likely to cause confusion with most viewers unfamiliar with the Dutch political arena. This smorgasbord of who knows who and who works for which acro-named government agency is intriguing, yet unfortunately, also extremely drawn-out. The talented storyteller’s expansive view of events just leaves a few too many strokes on the canvas (forgive the unsubtle allusion to his more well known great-grand-uncle, Vincent.) While making his controversial film about the government, dishonesty, and death, Van Gogh was asked if he might be killed for speaking his mind. The defiant director’s response: “One should not evoke violence by acting fearful.” Theo Van Gogh was stabbed, shot, and killed by a Muslim extremist in November of 2004, a most unfortunate case of life imitating art. –Gregory Johnson

Score: 2.5/5

GOING BACK [NR]
It is sad in a way that first-time filmmaker Ron Teachworth never made another film after this 1982 coming-of-age drama. He didn’t die or anything, rather, the film did, though the chronologically questionable rights limbo he claims in the liner notes becomes very suspect after watching just 10 minutes of it. The story concerns two high school buddies in Michigan in 1964 taking One Last Road Trip before college, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENS. If it were not for the fact that it stars Bruce Campbell, fresh from Sam Raimi’s indie hit, The Evil Dead, Teachworth’s choppy and amateurish labor of love would have stayed buried as an IMDB footnote. Worth watching only for the recently recorded Campbell commentary track. –Robert Newton

Score: 2/5

DOCTOR WHO: SEASON 2
Sci-fi fans miffed at the departure of the time-traveling Doctor played by the cheeky Christopher Eccleston should thrill to Doctor #10, David Tennant, not to mention his sexy sidekick, played by pop star Billie Piper.

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
Less grating and much funniest than Dane Cook’s stand-up routine is the comic’s screen debut, with him playing a slacker out to win the heart of big-eared freak Jessica Simpson.

GRIDIRON GANG
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wrangles just about every football and troubled teen cliché there is, but still manages to engage an audience as the hard-nosed coach of some young people in the pokey.

THE PROTECTOR
Spry and apparently indestructible Ong Bak dynamo Tony Jaa does it again, here as a dutiful Thai fighter who sets out to return his village’s Dumbo-napped elephant.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING
If you don’t have anything nice to say…you probably sat through this pointless, by-the-numbers prequel to the 2003 remake of the 1974 horror classic about a cannibal brood with a penchant for power tools.