REEL CRITICS:

I was pleasantly surprised this weekend by a movie I expected to be mocking in this space. I heard that Disney’s mega hit “High School Musical” series has the tween population squealing with delight. But I anticipated that adults would find nothing of substance in this cinema version of TV cotton candy.

“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” turns out to be more like popcorn. It’s definitely lightweight snack food, but there’s something enjoyable to chew on for older members of the family. This retro look at allegedly modern high school kids is so wholesome it earned the very rare G rating. Some scenes would be at home in a Norman Rockwell painting.

It’s really a throwback to the teenage Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movies of the ’30s and ’40s. It’s full of bouncy teens with cheerful smiles and high hopes. They launch into snappy dance numbers and vibrant songs at the drop of hat.

It’s all pretty silly stuff but full of energy. And by golly, it’s fun to watch.

Ill man battles malaise in complex Kaufman flick

Charlie Kaufman, the man who wrote “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Being John Malkovich,” definitely has a gift for odd and oddly touching screenplays.

He makes his directorial debut in “Synecdoche, New York” and the talented cast are all exceptional but the film itself is quirky but slow, pretentious and melancholy.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (“Capote”) is Caden, a theater director whose artist wife (Catherine Keener) leaves him, taking their young daughter.

He wins a prestigious “genius award” and a lot of money and decides to stage his life as a play.

Years pass, women come in and out of his life, mysterious ailments plague him, and Caden becomes ever obsessed with his theatrical experiment set in a ginormous, abandoned warehouse — without ever performing in front of an actual audience.

Actors are hired to play real characters and real segments of his life, and the line between reality and fantasy becomes irrevocably blurred as Caden seeks to find out the truth about his life and death.

There are moments of brilliance and gentle humor in “Synedoche” that make it sporadically interesting, but moviegoers who like their story lines cut and dried for them will have a hard time wrapping their heads around this very ambitious concept.

This is one of those films that you will either find brilliant or boring.

JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office. SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a financial services company.