In one of the few moments in "Salt" in which Angelia Jolie stops for breath, the seasoned action-movie Fury removes a pair of contact lenses and a row of false teeth, and then dyes her blond hair black.

This "disguise" enables the fugitive CIA agent played by Jolie to emerge from hiding, as if the star's celebrated cheekbones, Chester Gouldian jaw and pneumatic lips -- not to mention the canyon-like groove of her philtrum -- weren't utterly distinctive and distractingly striking, even in a crowd focusing most of its attention on the even more unusual sight of a coffin containing the body of the vice president of the United States.

I'm calling "I Am Love" the best movie of the year to date; a companion viewer called it "repulsive," in condemnation of the behavior of the lead character played by Tilda Swinton.

Does one opinion invalidate the other? Or can we both be right? "I Am Love" is complex enough to invite  such questions, and rich enough -- like many great adult works of art, of which there are too few at the movies -- to resist answers.

Variously described as "Art Clokey on acid" (Clokey was the creator of Gumby and Pokey) and "zany, brainy and insane-y" (sounds like a lost verse from "The Addams Family" theme song), "A Town Called Panic" is a bizarro delight -- a surreal stop-motion adventure from France that should be a hit with fans of Wallace & Gromit, "Robot Chicken" and Willis O'Brien's "King Kong," not to mention Monty Python and Wes Anderson (one can imagine young Ash from "Fantastic Mr. Fox" rolling with laughter while watching "A Town Called Panic" on a treehouse television).

Part murder mystery, part coming-of-age drama, "Winter's Bone" transports moviegoers to a real place most of us haven't seen before: the darkling woods of the Missouri Ozarks, where clannish mountainfolk stew squirrels and cook methamphetamine with sometimes-equal gusto.

Influenced by the loosey-goosey reality of cartoons (a clip from a 1955 Tex Avery short is instructive) and silent comedy, "Micmacs" is a colorful three-ring circus of a movie, as one might expect from a production with a cast of characters that includes a human cannonball and a comely contortionist ("I'm a sensitive soul in a flexible body," she proclaims).

A metaphysical heist film in which a handpicked team of crackerjack conspirators attempt to burgle a dreamer's unconscious the way the ensembles of "Ocean's Eleven" or "Mission: Impossible" break into a bank safe or museum gallery, "Inception" is motivated by a challenge as great as that facing its heroes: It's writer-director Christopher Nolan's attempt to crack the Great Film vault -- to produce a distinctive, grandiose masterpiece and commercial blockbuster that will demonstrate the director of "The Dark Knight" doesn't need Batman any more than Stanley Kubrick or Fritz Lang, in less juvenile eras, needed superheroes to mesmerize audiences with their state-of-the-art cinema fantasies.

"Complaints Choir," a funny and thoughtful Danish-made documentary about the global phenomenon of "complaints choirs," in which groups of people gather to harmonize about things that annoy, anger and distress them, is the kickoff feature for the Indie Memphis Freedom Series, devoted to films about human rights, free speech and related issues.

"Complaints Choir" screens at 7 tonight (July 15) at Malco's Studio on the Square. For more information and a full Freedom Series lineup, look here and here.

Directed by Ada Bligaard Soby, this "docu-musical" is essentially comedic as it chronicles parallel attempts to organize "complaints choirs" in proudly blustery Chicago and cautious, repressive Singapore, where even public gum-chewing is forbidden by the government. Most of the typically humorous complaints submitted for the choirs' original songs are more personal than political: "Pants aren't my size"; "Too many people believe in the Rapture to do anything about global warming"; "All the good-looking guys are gay." Some of the Singapore-specific gripes may be hard for outsiders to understand, as when one resident complains: "We don't recycle plastic bags, but we purify our pee." It's all quite fascinating, and the Memphis premiere of the film will be accompanied by a performance of the Memphis Complaints Choir. The film's producers, Frank and Lisa Mauceri, will attend, to discuss the project. Later tonight, Frank, a musician, will join legendary punk rockers Cheetah Chrome (The Dead Boys) and Sylvain Sylvain (New York Dolls) in their latest band, the Batusis, scheduled to take the stage at the Hi-Tone at about 11 p.m.

Two distinctively Memphicentric documentaries this week began generating financing -- and enthusiasm -- on Kickstarter, an online "funding platform" for artists, musicians, filmmakers, inventors and other creative types.

A project of filmmakers C. Scott McCoy and Laura Jean Hocking, with musician Ross Johnson, writer John Floyd and former club owner Steve McGehee acting as producers, a yet-untitled feature about Memphis' legendary punk/underground music club, the Antenna -- which hosted everyone from the pre-fame R.E.M. to the never-famous Distemper -- looks like it could be a nonstop blast. The Kickstarter project page, complete with irresistible promotional trailer, is here. 

Nearer completion is the long-aborning "Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin'," a potential piledriver of a documentary about the glory days of Mid-South grappling, from Sputnik Monroe to Andy Kaufman. A production of Sherman Willmott's Shangri-la Projects (the company also issued Ron Hall's essential illustrated history, "Sputnik, Masked Men & Midgets: The Early Days of Memphis Wrestling"), the film is wonderfully promoted by a trailer -- complete with Jackie Fargo, Jerry Lawler, Jimmy Hart and other illustrious eye-gougers -- that can be found here on Kickstarter.

The walking mops from the classic Mickey Mouse episode of 1940's "Fantasia" make a cameo appearance in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," the latest built-to-please product from the Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer assembly line that previously delivered the "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "National Treasure" series.

When Hammer Films released "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave" with Christopher Lee in 1968, the tongue-in-cheek (fang-in-throat?) ad campaign proclaimed: "You just can't keep a good man down."

Indeed, it takes more than a stake and sunshine to sideline a cinema bloodsucker, a truism that will demonstrated again Tuesday, July 20, when the Memphis-made vampire film "Daylight Fades" returns at 7 p.m. and 9:25 p.m. at the Malco Studio on the Square.

The screenings will be the first public showings of director Brad Ellis' Old School Pictures production since its sold-out premiere June 15 at the Malco Paradiso. Tickets can be bought here. To read more about the film, look here.