'Going the Distance" sounds so clean on the surface. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, but they live on different coasts. Can they keep a long-distance romance alive? And it stars the real life double-cute on again-off again couple Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. How sweet. Yeah, but then you see the movie. And a rain of raunch begins and never stops, right up to the very end.

Tough guy actor Danny Trejo stars in this campy, gory, flesh-filled exploitation send-up about a man with a machete fighting for justice in Texas. Funny, but the joke wears thin eventually.

What happened to movies with minority actors in the lead? This question pops up while looking back over the summer movie season that has just passed and looking ahead to both the Toronto International Film Festival and the film schedule for the rest of 2010. Simply put, things are looking very vanilla. We're talking snowstorm.

To celebrate this weekend's "The American", we look at five favorite movies with "American" in the title. Among them? In an exciting departure from "Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers," writer-director John Landis cleverly balanced the funny and the frightening with a story of a couple of American students (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne) who run into some monstrous trouble while backpacking through England, in 1981's "An American Werewolf in London."

New and notable on DVD this week.

This dark, mesmerizing Australian film about a young man who gets entangled in a murder committed by relatives features fine performances and a real-noir aesthetic that's haunting.

There's so much huge entertainment in town this week, how do you decide where to spend your time? Read on for our picks and other happenings, organized by big shows, parties, stage, film and more.

The odd thing about "The American" is that it's thoroughly European.

The announcement this past week that producers plan to make a sequel to "Piranha 3D" seemed to make little sense. But overseas audiences clear up the mystery. Plus: Kristen Bell news, early Oscar news and "tragedy" striking "Twilight" star Taylor Lautner.

Filmmaker Aviva Kempner's childhood was defined not only by the bustling world around her but also by the TV shows she and her brother watched, with the most important one being "The Goldbergs." Kempner's gratitude for Berg can be felt in her film, "Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg," which arrived in theaters last year.

Lovely and astounding, "Mao's Last Dancer" is a modern epic of art and ambition triumphing oppression.

"Hiding Divya" takes place within a South Asian-American community, and like similar efforts, it will likely resonate better within that community than outside it.

Demonic possession goes the shaky, hand-held camera route in "The Last Exorcism," a backwoods psychological thriller delivered faux-documentary-style, with mixed results.

'Takers" is a slick heist film, but that's all it is.

New and noteworthy on DVD this week:

Idris Elba is in a hotel suite at the MGM Detroit Grand talking up his new movie "Takers" as part of his first extensive movie publicity tour. And if the 37-year-old British actor has his way, it will be his last, too. By the time he hit Detroit earlier this month, Elba had already visited Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Miami, and still needed to travel to Las Vegas and Atlanta. But the actor, best known for his role as streetwise businessman Stringer Bell on HBO's "The Wire," was convinced to go on the road and talk up "Takers" by Quentin Tarantino, sharing a "Pulp Fiction" publicity technique.

Monroe -- One of the stars of the mega-popular "Twilight" movie series will be in Monroe next month.

Actor/director Ted Raimi returns home to Detroit on Saturday for a screening of his Web series, "Playing Dead," at the Detroit Film Theatre.

Films from a parent's perspective.

The voices of donor offspring are being heard more widely and clearly than ever, thanks to Internet-based social networking and other recent developments.

Jason Bateman is great but somewhat wasted in this artificial insemination mix-up movie co-starring Jennifer Aniston. It's not a bad film, really, just sort of average. But Bateman is so good in it -- natural, funny, yet full of real emotion -- that you immediately want to see him again in a better film. Somebody give this guy a shot at an Oscar. This certainly isn't that shot, although it is Bateman's movie all the way.

Nanny McPhee is back to teach a new batch of children life lessons in "Nanny McPhee Returns," the mixed sequel to 2006's "Nanny McPhee" about a nanny who imparts life lessons on a group of rambunctious children.

Bow Wow and Brandon T. Jackson bring energy to this story about a project kid who has to protect a winning lottery ticket over a long weekend, but the story's a stretch. Let's call it four out of six numbers, with no power bonus.

Robert Duvall is slyly brilliant as a country hermit who wants a funeral while he's still alive -- the eccentric and ultimately touching premise of "Get Low," based on the story of a man in the '30s who supposedly did emerge from solitude and throw himself a funeral party. With Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black.

In 2005, the actress turned from classics to comedy when she starred in "Nanny McPhee," about an unpleasant-looking woman who magically transforms chaotic households into peaceful homes. Before receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she talked about the sequel, "Nanny McPhee Returns," opening Friday.