NEIGHBORS

Director Nicholas Stoller's Neighbors is being marketed as a slapstick sausage fest in which that eternal frat guy Seth Rogen, playing a beleaguered suburbanite, wages war against a houseful of more age-appropriate frat guys led by Zac Efron. That's why it's both unexpected and kind of awesome to find that this meandering, intermittently hilarious movie is actually stolen by a female - or two, if you count the voiceless, ridiculously adorable Elise Vargas as a grinning newborn who would melt the heart of W.C. Fields himself. Really, though, the film belongs to no one so much as Rose Byrne as Rogen's former-party-girl wife, and considering how riotous the performer was in Bridesmaids and Stoller's Get Him to the Greek, this probably isn't the surprise I'm making it out to be.

NEBRASKA

After opening nationally (in larger markets) in November, Alexander Payne's comic elegy Nebraska - nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Director - finally hit Quad Cities cineplexes this past weekend.

PROJECT X

In director Nima Nourizadeh's teen comedy Project X, three nerdy high-school pals in North Pasadena decide to make names for themselves by throwing a wild party, and then throw the party.

Now that we've dispensed with the plot, let me try to explain why, through almost its entire running length, this movie made me want to repeatedly plunge an ice pick through my skull.

STEP UP 3D

From its opening, outdoor melee, in which we're assaulted by soap bubbles and multi-colored balloons, to its jaw-dropping dance-off finale, which suggests a mass seizure titled Attack of the TRON Clones, Step Up 3D is proudly, even profoundly, ridiculous.