New releases

★★★½ Ballplayer: Pelotero We don’t need a documentary to tell us that baseball is king in the Dominican Republic. But how many of us knew that the island produces 20 percent of the professional players in the United States? And who’s paying attention to the good, bad, and ugly of how they’re treated? This well-crafted film might be essential education for fans. It’s a bonus that it’s so entertaining. In English and Spanish, with subtitles. (72 min., unrated) (Janice Page)

★★Ice Age: Continental Drift For their fourth outing, prehistoric pals Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), and sabretooth Diego (Denis Leary) are dropped into a pirate tale that couldn’t feel any more arbitrarily conceived. Peter Dinklage works hard as an amusingly designed, gold-toothed monkey mariner, but there’s a sense that we’re watching filler. Jennifer Lopez is his tigress first mate. (94 min., PG) (Tom Russo)

ricardo vaz palma/tribeca film

Samy Seghir (left) and Tomer Sisley in Frédéric Jardin’s “Sleepless Night.”

★★½ Neil Young Journeys The least of the three documentaries director Jonathan Demme has made with the legendary rocker; but in its shaggy, eccentric way, it may be the truest. A May 2011 solo electric stand at Toronto’s Massey Hall — experimentalist and occasionally glorious — is intercut with a guided tour of Young’s rural Canadian roots. (87 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

★★★ Sleepless Night Another one of those French crime thrillers that wants nothing more than to run its hero and its audience entertainingly ragged. Tomer Sisley plays a dirty Paris cop trying to rescue his kidnapped son from a nightclub run by gangsters; the movie’s fast, lean, satisfying, and ultimately forgettable. In French, with subtitles. (98 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Previously released

★½ The Amazing Spider-Man The worst superhero movie since “Green Lantern,” this uninspired, unnecessary remake plays like the contract extension it is. Talented actors like Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Rhys Ifans are saddled with generic dialogue, and director Marc Webb (“(500) Days of Summer”) muffs the action sequences. This isn’t a movie, it’s a mugging. (136 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★★★★ Beasts of the Southern Wild Benh Zeitlin’s astonishing first feature is a magical-realist fable that’s set in a small Louisiana community at the time of Hurricane Katrina but that plays like a primeval foundation myth. As the 6-year-old protagonist, Quvenzhané Wallis gives a performance that grows in majesty over the course of the film. (91 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★★½ The Invisible War This documentary about rape in the US military is doubly disturbing. The individual stories it relates from victimized former service members are heartbreaking and enraging, while the ineffectiveness of the Defense Department’s response to the problem is enraging in a different way. (99 min., unrated) (Mark Feeney)

★★ Katy Perry: Part of Me Cameras follow the singer as she tours the world after the phenomenal success of her CD “Teenage Dream.” (The daughter of two Pentecostal preachers became the first woman to produce five No. 1 singles off of one album.) But even as she’s playing to packed houses, Perry struggles to keep her marriage to Russell Brand from falling apart. The movie is part concert film, part documentary. (97 min., PG) (Mark Shanahan)

★★★Moonrise Kingdom When two 12-year-olds (Kara Heyward, Jared Gilman) plot a secret getaway to a remote part of their fictitious New England island, the adults in their lives come looking for them. Wes Anderson directed and co-wrote the movie with Roman Coppola, and it feels utterly real, vividly dreamt, and totally remembered. Anderson’s dollhouse aesthetic acquires a long-overdue soul. (94 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

★★★½ Never Stand Still This 2011 documentary is director Ron Honsa’s “love letter” to Jacob’s Pillow, the historic and internationally beloved summer dance festival and school founded by Ted Shawn in Becket. Precious archival footage of dance greats of the past is seen alongside today’s stars and tomorrow’s hopefuls. Narrated by dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones, it’s a treat for dance lovers and a decent primer for the uninitiated. (74 min., unrated) (Janine Parker)

★★½ Rock of Ages For those who can’t stop believin’ and fans of bizarro Tom Cruise performances. This star-studded adaptation of the Broadway jukebox musical, dedicated to the enduring power of cheesy ’80s pop-metal, alternates plastic bombast with moments of comic invention: It’s karaoke night on a Hollywood budget. Cruise plays an Axl-like rock god; Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, and two dull ingénues also appear. (123 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

★★★ Safety Not Guaranteed A small, charming shaggy-dog comedy about an oddball (Mark Duplass) who claims to have built a time machine and the alt-weekly intern (Aubrey Plaza) who wants to find out if he’s crazy or not. The film sticks to its droll indie aesthetic while giving Plaza (“Parks and Recreation”) the star-making role a lot of us have been waiting for. With Jake M. Johnson. (94 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★★ Savages Despite a lousy ending, it’s Oliver Stone’s strongest work in years — a propulsive ultra-violent thriller with a mean streak and a devilish sense of humor. Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch play naive pot entrepreneurs in trouble with a Mexican cartel. Costarring Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, and a funny, scary Benicio Del Toro. (127 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★½ Take This Waltz Writer-director Sarah Polley (“Away From Her”) makes her bid to be taken for an auteur with this visually striking, narratively vague story of love, lust, and infidelity in Toronto. Some very good moments, but Michelle Williams’s ethereal uncertainty is in danger of turning into schtick and Seth Rogen is out of his depth. (116 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★★★ Ted Writer-director Seth MacFarlane’s debut feature is a crass, foul-mouthed, mostly hilarious, surprisingly sentimental bromance about a grown boy named John (Mark Wahlberg) and his bong-huffing teddy bear (voiced by MacFarlane). It’s really about that screw-up friend you want to outgrow but can’t. (100 min., R) (Ty Burr)

★½ That’s My Boy As a Somerville middle school kid, Donny scores with his teacher, gets her pregnant, and raises their son when she goes to jail. Now all grown up, the loser-doofus Donny (Adam Sandler) tracks down his estranged offspring (Andy Samberg) on the eve of the son’s wedding. Cue the family reunion and Van Halen-infused soundtrack. Full of wooden writing, stereotypes, and bodily fluids, this is more raunch-fest than comedy. (114 min., R) (Ethan Gilsdorf)

★★½ To Rome With Love Woody Allen follows up the biggest hit of his career (“Midnight in Paris”) with a charming but self-indulgent trifle that’s less than the sum of its parts. A large cast gallivants through four separate story lines set in the Eternal City. Two work, two don’t. With Allen, Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, and many others. (102 min., R) (Ty Burr)