THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD Ever tried in vain to prove to your kids that old movies are cool? For the next three months, you have an ally in the Belcourt, which has taken Boston Globe critic Ty Burr’s book The Best Old Movies for Families—a delightful guide to films that can overcome your youngster’s allergy to anything old-fashioned—and created an entire series of weekend matinees to watch together. First up is this thrilling 1938 swashbuckler, the pinnacle of Warner Bros.’ blockbuster Technicolor panache, which my 3-year-old Jamie asks for as “that sword movie.” It has some of the most ravishing color cinematography ever to come out of Hollywood; it has a rousing Erich Wolfgang Korngold score; and it has two eminently hissable villains in Basil Rathbone and Claude Rains. Best of all, it has Errol Flynn in fighting trim as the Prince of Thieves, a monarchist who behaves like a Marxist, leading his Merry Men and romancing Olivia de Havilland’s luscious Maid Marian with equal aplomb. (“You speak treason!” she gasps at his brazen defiance, to which he replies, “Fluently.”) Your kids will love the rowdy humor, the whizzing arrows and the climactic duel, which movies have been ripping off for seven decades: without Flynn, there’s no Princess Bride or Captain Jack Sparrow. The supporting cast includes Alan Hale (the Skipper pere) as Little John, Ian Hunter (not the Mott the Hoople frontman) as King Richard and Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck; Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) replaced William Keighley as director, and both receive screen credit. —Jim Ridley (Noon Oct. 6, noon & 4 p.m. Oct. 7 at the Belcourt)

THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB A meet-cute at Starbucks sets the tone for this half-caf caramel macchiato of a movie, based on the premise that reading the Austen oeuvre will provide guidance for real-life dilemmas ranging from rocky marriages to adultery. I don’t disagree, although the answers you’re likely to get from Austen’s merciless social maneuvering are more like The Art of War than the follow-your-heart bromides here. (The recent Becoming Jane seemed closer in spirit, mostly because it portrayed marriage as a cold fact of survival—the most limiting of limited options—rather than a bond of fluttering hearts.) Working from Karen Joy Fowler’s book, writer-director Robin Swicord brings together six Californians in various stages of lovesickness—from anger (Amy Brenneman’s jilted wife) to denial (Maria Bello’s oblivious singleton) to bargaining (Hugh Dancy’s token beefcake, who woos Bello with Ursula K. LeGuin novels)—then parcels out a complication apiece for each of Austen’s novels. The device is so contrived and cutesy that it manages the unthinkable: by book four, you start to wish Austen were actually less prolific. But ensemble pieces like this give off a sense of instant companionship that’s as hard to resist as comfort food, and at least one performer ultimately transcends her schematic role: the exciting Emily Blunt, who injects palpable desperation and erotic longing into the part of a pretentious, regretful high school French teacher (a brief detour to the realm of Flaubert). For guys who get sucked into going, there’s the emergent Bello, now fully ensconced in that Susan Sarandon torrid zone of smokin’ midlife hotness. But Swicord knows her intended audience, and she targets it with a bullseye—right down to the shot that checks out studmuffin Dancy from the package up. —Jim Ridley (Opens Friday)

STRANGE CULTURE On the morning of May 11, 2004, Steve Kurtz woke to find his wife dead of a heart attack. Hope Kurtz was a healthy woman in her mid-40s and, like her husband, a founding member of Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), “a collective of five artists of various specializations,” per its website, “dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical theory.” Steve practiced Bio Art, a form of installation art based on physically harmless, if politically volatile, biotechnology experiments. Arriving at the Kurtz residence, local police panicked at the sight of paraphernalia more commonly associated with chemical weapons than cultural critique, and rang up the FBI. Soon thereafter, the mild-mannered professor of art and grief-stricken widower was detained on suspicion of bioterrorism and came face to face with the very subject of his art: the brave new world of ideological science, corporate capitulation and Patriot Act paranoia. Strange Culture, an impishly intelligent documentary by Lynn Hershman Leeson, proposes that overzealous authorities seized on the Kurtz case as an opportunity for political intimidation—persecution as propaganda. As Kurtz still awaits trial, and is thus forbidden to discuss details on camera, Leeson blends his cautious testimony with performances by Thomas Jay Ryan (Kurtz) and Tilda Swinton (Hope). Slipping in and out of character, the actors manage both dramatic reenactment and its deconstruction with aplomb. —Nathan Lee (Oct. 7-10 at the Belcourt)

GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL Asger Leth’s documentary explores the Port-au-Prince slum Cité Soleil, identified by a UN agency as the “most dangerous place on earth.” It’s a prismatic, jagged, none-too-coherent travelogue—a portrait of Haiti’s post-Aristide political chaos centered on the rivalry between two gang leaders or “ghosts”: the charismatic 2pac (also a rap artist) and his aggrieved brother, Bily. The two supported Aristide, but although both eventually turned against the beleaguered president, they are equally threatened by the rival criminal gangs that deposed Aristide in 2004. Leth allows the two men to speak directly to his camera, mainly in English. Their threats and boasts are made against a roiling backdrop of street demonstrations, suffering babies, power cuts and voodoo rituals. This urgently choppy, often inexplicable, series of incidents finally ignites, as Port-au-Prince becomes a total free-fire zone. Leth gained remarkable access to his subjects, such as one citizen of Cité Soleil who stares dispassionately into the lens and tells the filmmaker, “I feel like killing you to take the camera.” It’s not difficult to believe he would. Every documentary has its own process; in this case, that backstory might overwhelm the film. —J. Hoberman (Opens Friday at Green Hills)