Teenagers acquire superpowers and, being teenagers, videotape themselves as they learn what they can do in Chronicle, an entertaining comic book movie without the comic book.

You can say this for screenwriter Pablo F. Fenjves’ story: It stays busy. It starts in the hotel, moves to the ledge and then swoops back into a one-month-earlier flashback, explaining how Nick got there, why he went to prison in the first place and how he managed to turn a furlough for his father’s funeral into an opportunity for escape.

We meet Liam Neeson’s character, a heartbroken loner named John Ottway, on the verge of suicide and thinking back, obsessively, to the woman who got away.

Director Steven Soderbergh had an idea to showcase the serious, muscly agility of Women’s Mixed Martial Arts star Gina Carano, without a lot of digital this or stunt-double that. Early in the picture, special operative Mallory Kane, played by Carano, is being set up for a double-cross and suspects as much.

The focus is on a fictional group of men stationed at Ramitelli Airfield. Hard-drinking squadron leader “Easy” Julian (Nate Parker) is the by-the-book contrast to his best friend, the Jedi whiz of the bunch, Joe “Lightning” Little (David Oyelowo).

The International Film Series, which kicks off today, is an outlet for experimentation, and this season IFS Director Pablo Kjolseth created a program full of original ideas. Kjolseth’s job is

Playing a reformed cargo smuggler sucked back into the game, Mark Wahlberg is the star of Contraband, a fairly entertaining remake of the 2008 Icelandic thriller Reykjavik-Rotterdam.

Assembled from spare parts of Footloose and Sister Act, the serviceable gospel contraption Joyful Noise takes place in an economically hard-hit Georgia town, where the multiracial members of the Divinity Church Choir raise voices and spirits under the direction of their beloved choirmaster, played by Kris Kristofferson.

Deadheads rejoice — a new documentary chronicling the life of the late guitar-god Jerry Garcia is in the works for an end of the year release.

Please be silent behind the screen. Backstage at the 1927 Hollywood premiere of his latest screen triumph, film star George Valentin — played with irresistible zest by Jean Dujardin — waits for the crowd’s response. Standing in front of the sign shushing the backstagers, he hears the applause. We only see it, The Artist being a silent film (or nearly) whose story begins in the late silent era.