» Opens today at the Tower Theatre; rated R for language and some sexual material; 93 minutes.

The Paskowitz family, profiled in this engrossing but free-floating documentary, will make your family's quirks look tame. Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz and his third wife, Juliette, raised nine children - eight boys and a girl - in a 24-foot camper driving around North and South America, following Doc's philosophy of home-schooling and surfing. Director Doug Pray, who chronicled grunge in "Hype!" and hip-hop in "Scratch," examines the Paskowitzes' strained family dynamics, the troubles when Doc's parenting didn't live up to his philosophy, and the reconciling of the kids' hermitlike upbringing with adult life in the real world. Pray's fast-paced editing matches the Paskowitzes' rootless existence, though at times it's difficult to keep track of who's who.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

» Opens today at theaters everywhere; rated PG-13 for adventure action and violence; 111 minutes.

This tedious third installment of the series features a change of settings (China for Egypt), directors (Rob Cohen, the hack behind "The Fast and the Furious") and leading ladies (Rachel Weisz bowed out, and Maria Bello gamely and futilely tries to replicate her English accent). Adventurers Evelyn and Rick O'Connell (Bello and Brendan Fraser) head to Shanghai on a spy mission and end up reunited with their college-age son, Alex (Luke Ford), in a battle to keep an ancient evil emperor (Jet Li) from resurrecting his terra cotta army. Cohen opens with a deadly-dull 11-minute prologue, limits Li's presence to a cameo, wastes Michelle Yeoh and mounts computer-generated action sequences that are breathtaking in their idiocy. Can we just bury this franchise and promise not to dig it up?

Brideshead Revisited

» Opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; rated PG-13 for some sexual content; 135 minutes.

Evelyn Waugh's classic novel of upper-crust manners and religious self-destruction has already been made as a 11-hour miniseries, so it's difficult for director Julian Jarrold ("Becoming Jane," "Kinky Boots") not to make this film version feel rushed. The main victim is the lead character, would-be artist Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), a poor Oxford student who meets Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw), a fey and alcoholic classmate who brings Charles to meet his rich family. Charles is drawn to Sebastian and his sister Julia (Hayley Atwell), a relationship of which their mother, the sternly Catholic Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), would disapprove. Or is Charles really drawn to the trappings of the Flytes' palatial home, Brideshead? Jeremy Brock's screenplay hits the high spots, but leaves many characters - particularly the status-striving Charles - sketchy and incomplete. Only Lady Marchmain makes a lasting impression.

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