Info: Opens today in theaters everywhere; rated PG for thematic elements and mild language; 108 minutes.

There are times when I desperately wish Hollywood movies didn't have to be so Hollywood, and "Martian Child" is one of those times. As a character study of David (John Cusack), a widowed science-fiction writer, adopting Dennis (Bobby Coleman), a troubled 6-year-old who tells people he is from Mars, the movie is involving for its first hour. Credit goes to Cusack's soulful yet unsentimental portrait of a self-doubting new dad, Joan Cusack's turn as David's know-it-all sister, and director Menno Meyjes' sensitive handling of the David/Dennis relationship. But the script, by Seth E. Bass and Jonathan Tolins ("The Twilight of the Golds"), succumbs to the Hollywood drive for melodrama and a cathartic finale, pumping in a ton of false emotion that undercuts everything Meyjes and Cusack had worked to build.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

Info: Opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; rated R for language and disturbing content involving suicide; 88 minutes.

A dispiriting premise yields a happy surprise with this offbeat comedy-drama, starring Salt Lake City's own Patrick Fugit ("Almost Famous") as Zia, who kills himself only to land in a dreary afterlife populated by fellow suicides. When Zia learns his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) killed herself too, he takes to the road with a hard-drinking Russian, Eugene (Shea Whigham), and pretty Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), who argues she arrived in this purgatory by mistake. Writer-director Goran Dukic (adapting a short story by Etgar Keret) fills this gray landscape with unusual characters - including a distracted wise man (Tom Waits) and an arrogant cult leader (Will Arnett) - and an off-the-wall humor that makes laughing at death an unabashedly pleasant experience.

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)

Info: Opens today at the Regency Trolley Squares Cinemas; not rated, but probably R for violent images and language; 85 minutes.

Most documentarians would tackle the subject of corruption and kidnapping in Brazil with gritty hand-held camera moves walking through the dirty alleys of S o Paulo. Jason Kohn is not most documentarians, as evidenced by the surreal imagery in this film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Kohn used to work for Errol Morris, and it shows with his perfectly framed shots of such oddities as a frog farm and bulletproof-glass field tests. They, along with a plastic surgeon who specializes in rebuilding ears, are crucial elements in this oddly paced look at how officials have stolen billions from the Brazilian government, and how the poor take some of that money back by kidnapping the rich. In style and content, "Manda Bala" has a shattering impact.

Kurt Cobain: About a Son

Info: Opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; not rated, but probably R for language; 96 minutes.

Not even Kurt Cobain could answer the psychological puzzle he left behind with his 1994 suicide, so this documentary - which excerpts hours of audio interviews between Cobain and biographer Michael Azerrad from a year before the Nirvana frontman's death - has its work cut out. Director AJ Schnack, who profiled They Might Be Giants in "Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)," takes an unusual approach, filming in the places Cobain frequented, from his hometown of Aberdeen, Wash., to the Seattle bars where Nirvana first performed, as a visual counterpoint to Cobain's voice and the music of the bands that influenced him. (Rights to use Nirvana's music are tied up with the widow Cobain, Courtney Love.) Alas, Schnack's images and Cobain's droning, self-involved commentary combine into a sort of white-noise generator, turning this experimental biography into a pretty snooze.