HOME
unrated, 91 minutes

If Matt Zoller Seitz’s “Home” is an accurate depiction of life in Brooklyn, then I’m glad I donate plasma weekly in order to afford Manhattan. A Robert Altman movie with training wheels, “Home” is a roughly crafted film about a guy who goes to a party in a Brooklyn brownstone. He hangs out and eventually hooks up with the hostess after everyone else has gone home. The characters and dialogue overlap as the camera flits from person to person. This would be fascinating if any of these people were interesting. But they’re not. So it isn’t.

As a film critic for the New York Press, you’d think Mr. Zoller Seitz would steer clear of film cliches, but he embraces them with relish here. There are some nice moments in “Home,” little character bits that feel new. He captures the life cycle of a party in sharp detail, but all too often this feels like an Aaron Spelling television show called “Park Slope, 11215.” A pregnancy is revealed. Someone cries over their ex-boyfriend. There are six musical montages, cartons of cigarettes are smoked, bowling shirts are worn, microbrew is consumed, and there are dozens of conversations about nothing that turn out to be about something.

For every catchy bit of dialogue there are two clunkers, and each well-acted exchange is offset by acting that belongs in a high school play. If you’re fascinated by the hooking-up habits of middle-class white kids in Park Slope, then this movie is for you. If you find the idea of a fiveminute scene where two characters relate last night’s dreams boring, then I’d advise you to just stay home.

– Grady Hendrix

DEEP SEA 3-D
G, 40 minutes

“Deep Sea 3-D,” a new Imax movie, may be the 21st century’s answer to the Pink Floyd laser light show at the local planetarium. With 3-D glasses strapped to your face and an Imax screen that stretches far past your peripheral vision, this is a pleasantly disorienting, all-enveloping optical illusion that lasts for 40 minutes, and all the better – any more time might make your eyes melt.

“Deep Sea 3-D” tries to shred your optic nerves with fluorescent colors, weird shrimp, scary squid, and schools of jellyfish sitting on your lap. Spiraling tendrils, coiled tentacles, and weird, clashing patterns of protective coloration give it the visual appeal of a Tim Burton film, as does the music by Danny Elfman and the narration by Johnny Depp. Mr. Depp shares voice-over duties with Kate Winslet, and while he gets all the corny jokes, she gets to glamorously over enunciate lines such as, “Kawl mowntins rise haf a meyle uh buv the oh shin flaw.”

Aimed at an under-12 audience, this is basically an “isn’t that neato?” documentary in which we learn that marine life spends most of its time eating, dissolving, and digesting other marine life. There is a political message in all this oceanic gastronomica: Our seafood is going extinct at an alarming rate and most biologists believe we’ve reached a tipping point where pollution and overfishing are about to cause mass waves of sea life extinction. If that happens, expect a crisis for makers of Imax films who may find themselves at a loss for subject matter.

– G.H.

DOING TIME FOR PATSY CLINE
unrated, 95 minutes

Ralph, an Aussie farm boy, dreams of country-western stardom in Nashville. Like most stars of Australian comedies, he tries to follow those dreams, and so we have “Doing Time for Patsy Cline.” The film is an undistributed leftover from 1997, which came on the (high) heels of “Priscilla,” “Muriel,” et al. Stars Miranda Otto (Eowyn in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) and Richard Roxburgh have since moved on to blockbusters, and left Aussie comedy to the likes of “Danny Deckchair.”

The sappy heartbreak and wry charm of country music gives this road trip surprising mileage, but not enough to overcome the unworkable conceits and weak direction.

Hitchhiking, Ralph (Matt Day) gets picked up by Boyd (Mr. Roxburgh), a slickster in a Jag, and his hothouseflower wife, Patsy (Ms. Otto). Ralph is nursing a crush on Patsy when police stop the car and jail both men on suspicion of drug-running. Patsy slips away but reappears in Ralph’s neon daydreams of Nashville glory.

Most of the film languishes in jail with Boyd and Ralph, where cellmates caterwaul country ditties. The leads do their best to carve out characters from the slim material. Mr. Day’s Ralph is a nice sulkysweet creation, soldiering on, and Boyd is a likable jerk. Ms. Otto is stuck with Patsy, a first-love fantasy forever on the verge of drifting away.

She does show off a nice set of pipes in Ralph’s reveries, though. In that world the two perform as a pair of singing twins (which means they can’t kiss in public). Like the movie itself, these fantasies are slightly less cutesy than you’d expect – but still unwieldy.

– Nicolas Rapold

WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN
unrated, 88 minutes

“Woman is the Future of Man” frolics back and forth between qui etly involving and remarkably tedious. Hong Sang-soo’s minimalist film doesn’t quite approach 90 minutes, but its uneasy place is exhausting. Mr. Sangsoo (“Turning Gate”), who scripted as well, presents a pair of South Korean childhood friends, now grown into adulthood. One, Hyeon-gon (Kim Tae-woo), an aspiring filmmaker, has recently returned from America. The other, Mun-ho (Yu Jitae), has stayed behind in Seoul and thrived as an arts professor. The two reminisce in a local noodle shop, growing increasingly drunk. The slurred, awkward conversation soon turns to Soenhwa (Seong Hyeon-a), a young woman whom both men were involved with years ago. They begin to imagine what might have happened to her in the ensuing time, and it isn’t long before they decide to track her down.

The themes of lost love and missed chances here are attractive, but the majority of scenes are presented as long, unbroken takes. Camera movement is rare, and close-ups are nonexistent. With such a thin plot to support it, this dull, frustrating approach grows stale long before the end credits roll.

– Edward Goldberger

AQUAMARINE
PG, 109 minutes

Legend has it a creature will rise from the sea who is the perfect embodiment of pubescent body angst, boy-craziness, and glorious hair. Alternatively: Oh-my-God-she’s-totally-amermaid!

What do you expect? A preteen mermovie is what it is: Enter a baby-pop universe where one of this movie’s stars had a multiplatinum album at age 13. Claire (Emma Roberts) and Hailey (singer “Jojo” Levesque), who’s about to move away, find a mermaid (Sara Paxton). They set her up with a hunky lifeguard and learn a lesson about friendship.

Ms. Paxton dons a tail and perks her way through “Encino Man” (sometimes “T2”)-type culture-shock shtick. Her costars give off a sleepover-fun vibe. They teach “Fishbutt” about teen mags, mall makeovers, and the art of calling up crushes and hanging up.

The makers of “Aquamarine” have concocted a television-ready (and simply shot) entertainment that makes the right noises for message-wary parents. Everyone repeatedly praises Aqua’s amazing self-confidence. (Even though that requires overlooking her feral obsession with Raymond, which suggests pesky primal spawning urges.) The film should get credit, though, for the infinitesimally brief but detectable moments when its own giggly melodrama bears fruit.

– N.R.