Now, I got into Battles because of drummer John Stanier, who was a hero to me in Helmet when I was first starting to play in bands in the early ’90s. Little did I know that I was about to walk into a drumfest at theLaunchpad. I got there quite a bit early to hang out alone and have a few beers—alone time being at a premium with a new son. After several PBRs and a few games of Ms. Pacman, Ponytail took the stage.

Writer-director John Carney, a former bassist for The Frames, has said that, while being a fan of the Hollywood musical, he wanted to modernize the genre in such a way that the YouTube generation would not recognize Once as a musical. Whether or not this film is a musical is debatable, but what Carney has kept intact, sans lavish production numbers, is the sweet romantic spirit of people and community banding together for a shared cause.

Picture the biggest, most rundown waterfront trailer park retirement community imaginable, fill it with elderly eccentrics, slap on some Vegas-style kitsch and you’ve got a good idea of the Salton Sea, the Imperial Valley, Calif. locale outside of San Diego and Palm Springs that once was a booming resort town.

Red Road, the debut feature by English director Andrea Arnold, is a fascinating, skillfully directed drama that operates within the framework of a thriller, but the film is so methodically paced during its first two acts, by the time the mysteries begin to unfold, the thrill is gone.

Filmgoers who remember Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) and Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration (1998) might feel a twinge of nostalgia while viewing After the Wedding, a captivating Danish drama that was a Best Foreign Language Film nominee at this year’s Academy Awards.

Stephanie Daley, the sophomore feature from writer/director Hilary Brougher, is a topical and sadly familiar tale of unwanted pregnancy. The film’s titular character, strongly portrayed by Amber Tamblyn, ignites local controversy when she gives birth to an unwanted baby girl on a school ski trip. Having kept her pregnancy a secret, Stephanie is accused of murdering the child she claims was stillborn.

Ever needed tips on the best way to drive home intoxicated after a party? Or how to prevent the cocaine in your pocket from being dampened by sweat while dancing? That’s where The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down can help.

In James Scurlock’s alarming documentary Maxed Out, an investigation into the plague that is American debt, the director interjects clips from a stodgy black-and-white educational film to illustrate how dramatically the credit industry in the United States has changed over the last 50 years.

In the 40 years that Ken Loach has been directing feature films, the iconic English director has favored a working-class realism that has made some of his work seem more foreign to U.S. audiences than actual foreign-language imports.