The Last Song

What it’s About: Based on best-selling novelist Nicholas Sparks’ (“A Walk to Remember,” “The Notebook”) novel, “The Last Song” is set in a small Southern beach town where an estranged father (Greg Kinnear) gets a chance to spend the summer with his reluctant teenage daughter (Miley Cyrus), who’d rather be home in New York. He tries to reconnect with her through the only thing they have in common -- music. It also helps to have a hunky boy around for her. Miley Cyrus and Nicholas Sparks fans will embrace this predictable teen soap opera that has all the pat tropes in the right place: Cyrus starts out as an alienated teenager who dislikes her father and, though a child prodigy, doesn’t want to attend Julliard; she meets a handsome young man in a cute way; falls in love; learns to understand her father; and even finds her way back to her music.

Furry Vengeance

What it’s About: Brendan Fraser transplants his family from Chicago to the Oregon woods to oversee the construction of a supposedly “eco-friendly” housing development in this live-action/CGI kiddie comedy. But when the development encroaches on their habitat, the local animals, led by an incredibly clever raccoon, put him on their hit list, stymie the development and teach Fraser about the environmental consequences of man’s encroachment on nature.

Poor Brendan Fraser. The talented actor (rent ‘Gods and Monsters’ to see this guy’s range) has made a heck of a lot of bad role choices (aside from ‘The Mummy’) and this one is no exception. If you want to see CGI animals pummel a human mercilessly, then this is your cup of tea. But if you want humour -- and the eco-message promised by the filmmakers -- go elsewhere. Not even the kids liked this one.

Black Orpheus (1959)

Winner of both the Academy Award for best foreign-language film and the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus brings the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the 20th-century madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. With its eye-popping photography and ravishing, epochal soundtrack, “Black Orpheus” was a cultural event, kicking off the bossa nova craze that set hi-fis across America spinning. Two-disc set with new, restored high-definition digital transfer. Extras: Optional English-dubbed soundtrack; archival interviews with director Marcel Camus and actress Marpessa Dawn; new video interviews with Brazilian cinema scholar Robert Stam, jazz historian Gary Giddins, and Brazilian author Ruy Castro; “A la recherche d’ ‘Orfeu negro,’” a feature-length documentary about “Black Orpheus’s” cultural and musical roots and its resonance in Brazil today; theatrical trailer; booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson.

Ca$h (2010)

Sean Bean, Chris Hemsworth, Victoria Profeta. Sam Phelan and his wife Leslie are facing financial problems to pay their mortgage after a period of unemployment. While driving his old Buick below an overpass, a case falls onto the hood of the car and he finds $600,000 inside. Sam and Leslie quit their job; pay their mortgage; buy a Land Rover; and refurnish their house. But a vicious criminal who had disposed of the money before getting arrested sends his killer brother after the couple to retrieve the ill-gotten gain.