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"More of this is true than you would believe," "The Men Who Stare at Goats" cheekily informs us as it opens. And while its tone is high satire, even farce, the story it tells is not hard to believe at all. Military officials are portrayed as credulous, ineffectual, and petty. But they are also portrayed as candid, open-minded, and forthright. Much of what goes on in the military's 20-plus-year exploration of what we used to call the "human potential movement" seems outlandish, but those were outlandish times. And one aspect rings especially true. According to this film, based on the non-fiction book by debunking Welsh journalist Jon Ronson, the real reason the US and the USSR entered into these "new age" programs was that each was convinced the other was doing it. So much for the efficacy of "remote viewing."

That would be the power to see something mentally that could not be seen visually, either because it was too far away or on the other side of a wall. This division, led by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), whose long, gray braid hangs down over his fatigues, experiments with all categories of extra-sensory perception including telekinesis (the ability to affect objects without touching them), clairvoyance (the ability to read minds), and precognition (the ability to predict the future).

Jeff Bridges, as a Viet Nam vet who explores the new age fads of the 1970's, one hot tub at a time, conveys slightly seedy optimism in the early days of the program and shows us the consequences of too much mind-bending at the end. Kevin Spacey is the ambitious psychiatrist who guides the program as it mutates from exploring what our troops can do to exploring how what we have learned can take away from the humanity of the enemy troops we capture. George Clooney centers the film as the most gifted of the program's subjects, a man who seeks some way to integrate his abilities and experiences to find some meaning in the effort. But Ewan McGregor never convinces us that he is a dumped husband, a reporter, or an American. The reference to Jedi warriors just reminds us of his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the "Star Wars" movies and makes his appearance seem like an in-joke.

The light-heartedness of the movie's tone goes from pratfall humor to a wrenching depiction of the consequences of foolishness. It is smart enough not to be entirely dismissive of the idea that some or all people may have some uncharted capabilities we should try to understand and focus. But it is clear that none of that will do much good against a gun and that the efforts to pursue it may lead to extensive personal and organizational trauma. The main character is unhappy that his scoop is almost entirely ignored when it is published. The media picks up only on the side detail that Barney music was used to break the spirits of prisoners. The pernicious influence of that song appears to have been the only usable information produced by the program; something that any parent of a toddler could have conveyed with great enthusiasm. If this movie directs more attention to Ronson's findings, that will be gratifying to him, but to us it should also be an important lesson about how one factor in allowing large organizations get out of control is that no one is paying attention.

Back in the era of Saturday matinées, "Aliens in the Attic" would have been just fine sandwiched between a couple of cartoons and a newsreel, especially if about half an hour was lopped off and there was a bit more imagination or wit in the title invaders. It's probably better suited for DVD and a pizza at slumber parties than for an $8 movie theater ticket. But as long as no one expects too much, this is not a bad time-waster.

The Pearson family: mom, dad (SNL and "Weeds" vet Kevin Nealon), love-struck teen queen Bethany ("HSMs" Ashley Tisdale), sulky middle child Tom (Carter Jenkins), cute sock-monkey-clutching kid Hannah (Ashley Boettcher) are joined in their vacation home by their grandmother (Doris Roberts of "Everybody Loves Raymond"), uncle (Andy Richter), and cousins, aggressive Jake (Austin Robert Butler of "Zooey 101") and gamer twins (Henri and Regan Young). Tom is not happy with himself, with being away from his computer, with having to go fishing, with any of his family, and especially with the uninvited arrival of Bethany's boyfriend Ricky (Robert Hoffman), who seems able to fool everyone but Tom with his good manners and preppy appearance. And then there are the aliens in the attic, four little green creatures with many arms who have come in search of something they need to take over the planet. One of their most potent weapons is a mind-enslaving dart that turns humans into remote-controlled zombie slaves.

But it only works on adults.

And so the kids have to learn how to work together to protect the grown-ups and the planet. What works best in the film are the special effects, clearly the primary focus as the talented cast, including Tisdale and SNL vet Tim Meadows, get less attention than the CGI and wire work. The gamer expert twins use the Wii-style remote to manipulate the zombified Ricky and grandma, the kids have to assemble weapons with whatever they have on hand, and the aliens turn off the gravity and get tangled in a Slinky. A lot of slapstick and a little crude humor went a long way with the kids in the audience and there were frequent hoots of delighted laughter. I could hear some of the punchlines repeated and stored for later use. (That last point is as much a warning as an endorsement.)

Paul Rust is 28, and looks it, maybe a little older. But in "I Love You, Beth Cooper" he plays Denis Cooverman, a high school valedictorian. Jack T. Carpenter, last seen playing a college student in "Sydney White" two years ago, is 24, and looks it. But he is also playing a graduating senior, Cooverman's best friend Rich Munsch. As the movie opens, two actors who look like they should be playing guys in lab coats and stethoscopes wearing suits and carrying briefcases are wearing cap and gown and pretending -- badly -- that they are at their high school graduation. They look older than their principal, clue number one that no one is paying much attention to making sure this movie is going to work on any level.

Clues two through twelve that this movie is a mess come very quickly, and that is all that comes quickly in this slow-moving, sour-tasting disaster. It is possible -- unlikely, but possible -- that there is yet some unexplored humor to be made out of difficulty in opening a champagne bottle, but what this movie gives us instead is an excruciatingly drawn-out extended sequence with the most unimaginative of pay-offs. The characters race from one place to another for no purpose -- either in story or in comedy. There are more locations than there are laughs.

Cooverman, the high school valedictorian, gets up to give his graduation speech and instead of the usual, "as we go forth," he decides this would be a good time to tell the school's mean girl that she is an insecure witch, the school bully that he is cruel because he was abused, Munsch that he should come out of the closet, and the school cheerleader, Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere of "Heroes") that even though they have never spoken, he loves her. So the rest of the movie consists of the consequences of these poorly-timed revelations as Cooverman has to run from Cooper's crazed and coked up boyfriend and Munsch keeps telling everyone he's not gay. Oh, and everyone gets to break in on Cooverman's parents having sex in a car. Cooverman's father is played by Alan Ruck, who must have spent every minute on set wondering how he could be in both one of the all-time best teen movies ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off") and one of the worst (this one). Every single character is a dull paper-thin caricature, from Cooper's roid rage boyfriend to Cooverman's despised ex-girlfriend, whose unforgivable failing is that she is not pretty and she likes him.

The wild last night of high school party movie can be done well ("Can't Hardly Wait," "Dazed and Confused," "American Graffiti"). Here, however, director Chris Columbus seems to have taken the tiredest and most predictable elements from each of them, wrung out anything resembling an authentic or appealing detail, and then dragged out every single set-piece to the agonizing breaking point. I can't say I've never seen a clumsy attempt to open a champagne bottle go wrong on screen before, but I can say I have never seen one so poorly staged and lugubriously paced. It look Cooverman less time to get through high school than it felt like I spent watching this film.

This third in the Ice Age series is a bit sweeter and gentler than the first two, perhaps less ambitious in scope than the first but much more engaging than the second. The 3D animation is beautifully immersive and the story is exciting but so low-key that everyone, even the scary dinosaurs with the big teeth, ends up happy.

Again this is the story of woolly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano), sloth Sid (John Leguizamo), and saber tooth tiger Diego (Dennis Leary), now joined by Manny's mate Ellie (Queen Latifah), who is about to have a baby. Everything seems settled and happy, but of course we would not have a story unless everything got unsettled pretty quickly. Diego is feeling left out and worried about getting older and less powerful, so he decides to leave the makeshift "tribe" they all think of as family. Sid finds three huge eggs and immediately adopts them, his nesting instinct so over the top that he insists he is their mother. The eggs hatch, and at first the little dino babies happily follow Sid around like ducklings, though they are not entirely on board with the idea of vegetarianism. But then their mommy dinosaur comes to get them, grabbing Sid along with her chicks, and pending childbirth or not, Sid, Manny, Ellie, and Diego go off to rescue him.

They end up in an underground portal to a place where the weather is temperate and the dinosaurs still rule. "I thought those guys were extinct," one of our heroes comments. (Note that in real life the last Ice Age was about 20 thousand years ago and the last dinosaurs were about 65 million years ago, but what the heck, animals do not talk or build playgrounds, either.) There they meet up with an off-beat piratical weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg), who teaches them some survival skills and leads them to Sid. Along the way, they have a number of adventures, and yes, that baby decides to arrive at just the wrong place and time, but despite some chases, several falls, and one near-ingestion by a hungry plant, everyone ends up happy and healthy.

Children and their parents will enjoy the portrayals of family life. "You're trying to childproof nature," Ellie chides Manny as his approaching fatherhood brings literally home to him the dangers of the world. And they will enjoy Buck's rakish antics and the traditional subplot about the prehistoric squirrel Scrat and his perpetual quest for the elusive acorn. This time, his biggest impediment is a long-lashed female, who outsmarts him at every turn.

Scrat's romantic confusion is a lot of fun, but there is a sense that the folks behind this movie are not evolved enough to think of the female characters as anything other than wise and nurturing -- and a little bossy. Ellie's job in the movie is to be the grown-up; apparently even in pre-historic times the females were more, uh, evolved. Not as funny, however.

But the sweet nature of this film is engaging and the adorable characters designed by illustrator Peter de Seve make this movie both satisfying and fun. The squirrels' tar pit dip, romantic tango, and post-romantic home-decorating session, Sid's efforts to mother the adorable dinosaur babies, and a nimble balance of action and humor make this one of the best family films of the year.

"Honey, I'm home" takes on a cheerfully creepy new meaning in "Monster House," a fresh, fun, and deliciously scary animated film produced by Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) and Stephen Spielberg (Jurassic Park, Jaws) and it is a great choice for a Halloween treat.

Every neighborhood has that house. You know, the one the little kids tiptoe past and the one where the bigger kids dare each other to touch the front door. In D.J's neighborhood, it's the house across the street, owned by mean Mr. Nebbercracker (voice of Steve Buscemi). He yells at any kids who come near the house or anyone who touches his lawn.

It's just before Halloween, Mr. Nebbercracker is taken to the hospital, and D.J. (voice of Mitchel Musso) has been left with Zee (voice of Maggie Gyllenhaal), a teenage babysitter who pretends to be sweet and responsible in front of grown-ups, but who, once she knows D.J.'s parents have left, tells him to stay out of her way so she can hang out with her slacker boyfriend Bones (voice of Jason Lee).

D.J.'s best friend Chowder (voice of Sam Lerner) comes over, and they begin to observe the increasingly scary things happening at the Nebbercracker house. When Jenny (voice of Spencer Locke) comes to their neighborhood selling cookies and starts up the front walk to Mr. Nebbercracker's house, D.J. and Chowder try to stop her. (She crisply informs them that if they are mentally challenged she is certified to teach them baseball.) But she discovers that the house is as dangerous as they say, and they decide to investigate.

This follows in the grand tradition of adventure stories with middle-school-aged heroes (and heroines), the big, scary world of the story standing in as a metaphor for the big, scary world of adolescence and adulthood. Jenny, D.J., and Chowder get no help from parents or the babysitter, not even from the police (voices of Kevin James and Nick Cannon). They have to learn to rely on skills they did not know they had. They show themselves and each other that they have the wisdom, curiousity, determination, loyalty, and courage to take on whatever lies beyond home, family, and all that is familiar.

The clever and involving script, the fluid and realistic movement of the characters (using the same rotoscope-style techniques developed for The Polar Express), and the unaffected and appealing voice talents of the young actors keep us on the side of the young adventurers. The house itself is imaginatively anthropomorphic. And the mystery is solved with a satisfying resolution that is sad and even a little scary but less spooky and more reassuring than the usual thriller.

Parents should know that this movie is intense, especially in its 3-D format, and may be overwhelming for young kids or those who are easily scared. Even though most of the frightening stuff is in the "boo!" or fun-scary category, it still may be overpowering for some audience members, even though by the end of the story almost everyone comes out of it as well as possible. There are some graphic images and some jump-out-at-you shocks. A character steals medication to sedate the monster. The resolution of the mystery may be reassuring to many in the audience but may be disturbing to others. Spoiler alert: the source of the house's destructive power comes from an overweight woman whose cruel treatment led to madness and death. Parents should also know there is brief crude humor and potty jokes that should appeal to kids and a sweet kiss.

Families who see this movie should talk about how bullying and teasing can have profoundly damaging consequences. They should also talk about things that they once found scary and then discovered not to be so scary after all.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy scary comedies like The Cat and the Canary, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. More mature fans of scary movies will enjoy Poltergeist. Classic movies that beautifully evoke a child's point of view on creepy neighborhood houses include To Kill a Mockingbird and Meet Me in St. Louis. Older audience members might appreciate the way producer Zemeckis made the same house look both inviting and terrifying in the otherwise unimpressive thriller What Lies Beneath.