“The Fourth Kind” is being sold to the public on the wings of a gimmick. This is not a first for Hollywood, joining the likes of “White Noise” and “The Haunting in Connecticut,” which used marketing angles based upon the suggestion of truth to sell an exhaustively fictional multiplex event. However, “Fourth Kind” is far more aggressive, flat-out daring the audience to believe this alien abduction tale. It’s the kind of chutzpah that all but promises a scintillating, skin-crawling motion picture, but “The Fourth Kind” is actually quite stunningly ineffective for all the hot air it generates.

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It appears the trilogy is now complete. After creating starring vehicles for his characters Ali G (2002’s “Ali G Indahouse”) and Borat Sagdiyev (2006’s smash “Borat”), the time has come for Sacha Baron Cohen to allow Bruno an opportunity to carry his own picture. “Bruno” will likely be welcomed by an adoring audience fully equipped to endure the traditional blast of Cohen-approved smut and merciless social commentary, especially after “Borat” turned his obscure antics into box office gold. However, don’t hold sudden international success against Cohen’s superb modus operandi, who once again tears into a clueless world seeking to mock, celebrate, and disgust anyone who will welcome him.

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“House of the Devil” is a throwback horror film that actually makes an effort to look and sound like a bygone era. Granted, 1980’s genre nostalgia is nothing cinematically revolutionary, perhaps even clichéd, but writer/director Ti West keeps to the task at hand. Forgoing irony or vile retro winks, “Devil” plays it straight. While that doesn’t generate the most riveting suspense piece of the year, it does deliver a hugely satisfying chiller that’s effectively minimal and marvelously made.

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In 2004, Rupert Issacson and his wife Kristin found out their little boy, Rowan, was suffering from autism. Traditional medicines and therapies weren’t helping the child, who fell further into fits of tantrums and incontinence. Raising Rowan they best they could, Rupert and Kristin faced a bleak future with a boy unable to break free from his mental containment. And then Rowan met Betsy, a neighboring horse, and he opened up in ways his parents never thought possible.

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“An Education” is a sharply crafted ode to the loss of innocence, boasting top-shelf performances and evocative cinematography. It’s also material about two tantrums and a “Gossip Girl” cast member away from becoming a Lifetime Original event, making the nuanced accomplishments of the feature shine all the more brightly. It’s a wildly predictable film of extreme formula, but there’s a special effort made to confront that numbing familiarity, showcasing a mature, level-headed take on a frightening coming-of-age journey.

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The title is not “This Is It,” as in the hottest ticket in town. It’s more “This Is It,” admitting a scarcity of content. Marketed as the final goodbye to the self-proclaimed “King of Pop,” this hastily assembled performance film seems less like a eulogy and more like a chance to cover the losses incurred when Jackson died during rehearsals for his pricey comeback tour. The stank of opportunism is all over this baby, and while I wouldn’t begrudge the average superfan their chance to publicly mourn, “This Is It” takes Jackson’s musical legacy and squeezes it for every last remaining nickel.

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Oh, what a bizarre film “Stunt Rock” is, but its oddity is a gift. More of a bruising cinematic experience than a narrative-driven feature film, “Stunt Rock” is the 1970s packaged up to near perfection, combing the hurricane forces of daredevil filmmaking and shtick-laden heavy metal. Brian Trenchard-Smith’s masterpiece of stackable-amp cinema is such a carefree, tinted-shades delight, it’s nearly impossible to convey its widescreen enthusiasm on the page. It’s a shapeless experience, but an exceptional ride that offers thrills, grins, and an impressive argument for the supremacy of Australian cinema during the 1970s.

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When “Hardware” slipped into theaters in the autumn of 1990, I was much too young to see it, unable to properly grasp its European cinema homages and suffocating future shock textures. I simply hated the thing, tremendously disturbed by its brutal imagery and salacious appetite for perversity. Fortunately, I wasn’t unable to flush the feature out of my system. With time and maturity, I grew to value Richard Stanley’s feature as a fierce, enthralling depiction of utter ecological and social anguish. “Hardware” slowly became a personal favorite, and nearly 20 years later, it’s finally arrived on a format that permits clarity to the fine details and piercing discomfort Stanley busted his hump to produce.

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There’s a power of mimicry and lavish flight photography that keeps the bio-pic “Amelia” in the air. This is not a strong motion picture, nor a particularly informative one. Instead, it’s a finely polished soap opera from a wonderful director starring fantastic actors, and nobody can quite connect the ambition of the piece with the execution. Moments of midair ecstasy hold it together and without those peaceful pauses of expression, “Amelia” is simply mawkish entertainment, stable and worthwhile for the average moviegoer, but it never finds a comfortable altitude.

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The projectionist could’ve run this film backwards, and I don’t think I would’ve noticed. “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” is a Hollywood attempt to massage author Darren Shan’s 12-part saga of vampires and teenagers into a viable, cash-cow franchise. Spanning the first three novels, “Assistant” doesn’t tell a story as much as it hurls everything that isn’t nailed down against the wall to see what sticks. Labored and often tedious, the picture is a friendly stab at Burtonesque macabre antics, but director Paul Weitz is in way over his head trying to juggle huge portions of the grotesque and the epic.

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