Adventureland (2009)

Recent college graduate Jesse Eisenberg falls in love with Kristen Stewart and smokes pot with the other dead-end kids at an amusement park in 1987. Eisenberg and Stewart are so natural together, and the film never plays the period for broad laughs.

d: Greg Mottola | imdb.com | trailer | Hired | Date with Lisa P.

Sugar (2009)

Former baseball player Algenis Perez Soto plays a sensitive Dominican pitching prospect adjusting to life in the minor leagues and America — just one of the many realistic touches in an objective film that deserves a place on the shelf next to “Bull Durham.”

d: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck | imdb.com | trailer | car-boat
French toast | Welcome to America. | No chicas in the bedroom.

Goodbye Solo (2009)

Souleymane Sy Savane plays a taxi driver in Winston-Salem, N.C., an African immigrant and American dreamer. Red West is his passenger, an old man ready for his last ride. They form a knowing relationship, and both actors deliver quiet, masterful performances.

d: Ramin Bahrani | imdb.com | trailer

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

Virginia Madsen violates a real estate rule: If the rent on a house, which used to be a funeral home where séances were held, is too good to be true, don’t move in. The film’s grisly images aren’t enough to outweigh every horror movie cliché.

d: Peter Cornwell | imdb.com | trailer | Dishes | Shower | Birds

Duplicity (2009)

Clive Owen and Julia Roberts are rival corporate spies and lovers, except they have no sexual chemistry and Roberts looks old. The caper tale — told in flashbacks and in exotic cities — isn’t nearly as clever as it thinks it is. The film outsmarts itself.

d: Tony Gilroy | imdb.com | trailer | How do I know you?

I Love You, Man (2009)

Engaged but friendless, Paul Rudd looks for a best man and finds fellow Rush fanatic Jason Segel in a poor man’s version of a Judd Apatow film. The movie is so precious, so sweet that it needs a shot of adrenaline — maybe a bar fight or Steve McQueen.

d: John Hamburg | imdb.com | trailer | Open House | Rushified