Around the Bend (R, 85 mins.) Henry’s (Michael Caine) will instructs the three estranged younger generations of his family, including Christopher Walken and Josh Lucas, to drive his ashes across the Southwest, in this woozy father-son reconciliation flick.

Derrida (unrated, 85 mins.) Film Forum brings the deconstructivist back to life with this 2002 documentary directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman.

Dig! (unrated, 115 mins.) The “Hoop Dreams” of indie rock, Ondi Timoner’s “Dig!” follows two bands on the flip side of success over seven years: the Dandy Warhols, led by Courtney Taylor (who narrates the film), and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. “Dig” is the best movie about music this year.

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (unrated, 81 mins.) Set almost entirely inside a decrepit Taipei movie house about to shut down, Tsai Ming-liang’s latest masterpiece is a peculiar kind of haunted house movie. A wordless, gimpy cashier (Chen Shiang-chyi), snacking projectionist (Kang-sheng Lee), young Japanese man (Kiyonobu Mitamura), and several ghosts have gathered, somewhat improbably, around the fading flame of “Dragon Inn,” a classic swordplay flick, to say goodbye.

I ♥ Huckabees (R, 106 mins.) Jason Schwartzman stars as sad-sack poet-activist who hires a pair of “existential detectives” (Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman) to help him protect meadowlands from the Brad Stand’s (Jude Law) soul-sucking Huckabees corporation. Not easy to love, this one’s far too unusual to dismiss.

Primer (PG-13, 78 mins.) In industrial park Texas, Abe (David Sullivan) and Aaron (Mr. Carruth) build a time machine in their garage. In his debut film, director Shane Carruth has rigged up a science fiction that grows more compelling the more it recedes from its audience.

Shark Tale (PG, 90 mins.) A giant, kindly, secretly vegetarian shark (played by Jack Black) is set to inherit the family business, but keeps making the wrong friends, including a would-be-dinner clown fish (Will Smith).”Shark Tale” is chock full of tossed-off celebrity-voiced performances, sub-par animation, and low quality puns.

Silent Waters (unrated, 95 mins.) In this thoughtful, heartbreaking film, a Suffi woman in 1979 Pakistan watches her once decadent son convert to fundamentalism and reject his Sikh ancestry. The American-educated Pakistani director Sabiha Sumar’s film is an ode to moderate Islam and the women who are in all probability its greatest defenders.

Stage Beauty (R, 105 mins.) Richard Eyre’s film is set in England during the reign of Charles II, when the Elizabethan ban on women acting in plays was lifted. Those susceptible to clever dialogue and handsome production design may find great virtues in this effort.

Taxi (PG-13, 97 mins.) Is it tacky to call Tim Story’s “Taxi” a car wreck? Certainly it’s true; A bland, awkward misfire, the sole laugh comes within the first five minutes and it’s not even intentional. SNL Alum Jimmy Fallon plays an inept cop who teams up with a local cabbie (Queen Latifah) to stop a group of supermodel bank robbers. High jinks ensue. Laughs do not. If Mr. Fallon wants to become a big-time movie star, or at least a respectable one, he’d be wise to double-check the scripts he’s agreeing to.

Tying the Knot (unrated, 87 mins.) Documentary filmmaker Jim de Seve tells the story of two gay couples. At its best, this documentary celebrates the heartfelt desire of most people – gay or straight – to marry, but that tale is too often interrupted by news footage that fails to scale up the individual stories.

Vera Drake (R, 125 mins.) In “Vera Drake,” everyone has a secret, from Sid (Daniel Mays), the black-marketeering son of Vera (Imelda Staunton) and Stanley Drake (Phil Davis), to Susan (Sally Hawkins), the upper-class girl who, date-raped and impregnated, seeks to keep an “operation” hidden from her parents. Ms. Staunton gives a tremendous, Oscar-worthy performance in the title role of this fantastically detail-oriented film.

Wimbledon (PG-13, 100 mins.) Briton Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) is a neurotic tennis player who cannot realize his potential. Then he meets Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst), a snappy whiz in whites from America. Richard Loncraine’s cheerful film is just the right mix of romance, tennis, and snappy one-liners.