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It’s tricky to summarize Lovers of Hate in a way that indicates some of what makes it so interesting while avoiding spoilers. It’s fundamentally a story of two brothers’ sibling rivalry. Paul (Alex Karpovsky) is the very successful author of a Harry Potter-like children’s book series. Rudy (Chris Doubek) is, well, not doing so hot: the opening scene finds him trying to take a sponge bath in a car wash before he goes to work. Rudy’s jealousy of Paul finally gets the better of them, and therein lies the tale. But a synopsis doesn’t convey the crazy seesaw act that Lovers of Hate manages. On the one hand, there’s broad, physical comedy that sometimes verges on slapstick. On the other hand, there’s a lot of emotional realism shot through with dark wit. This is a very funny movie, but it’s a squirmy sort of funny. Karpovsky and, especially, Doubek turn in bravura performances, which is critical, because it’s important that neither brother completely usurp the audience’s sympathies. Heather Kafka is also excellent as Rudy’s estranged wife, Diana.

Lovers of Hate was my introduction to writer/director Bryan Poyser, and now I want to see everything else he’s ever done. Highly recommended.

The big shocker for me in the Q&A following The Freebie was when writer/director/co-star Katie Aselton revealed that the script (about a couple who decide that both of them having a one-night-stand will renew the erotic spark of their marriage) was almost completely improvised from a 6-page outline. I’m very impressed by Aselton and her co-star Dax Shepard’s improvisational skills, because — with the exception of one confrontation that felt forced to me — the script felt tightly written. It was frequently awkward, but it was dealing with awkward stuff, and the chemistry between Aselton and Shepard was so convincing that I wondered if they might be on off-screen couple.

First-time director Aselton made some bold and interesting choices in bringing her story to the screen. The camera is often tight on the actors’ faces, sometimes so much so that a cheekbone will briefly dominate the frame. And the sound design in a scene where the couple wash dishes was extraordinary. I liked it walking out of the screening, but after thinking about it since I think I like it even more.

Bonus weird thing: In one of the first shots, Dax Shepard’s character Darren is reading Dash Shaw’s Bottomless Belly Button, probably the best graphic novel I’ve read in the last year or two. Lotta alliteration there, but also ensured I’d warm to the film early.

Carter Gunn and Ross McDonnell’s documentary about the modern bee industry has an unusual structure: there’s some get-you-up-to-speed background info (the money is not in honey, in but in trucking hives around the country to pollinate seasonal crops), and then the picture is roughly split between the struggles of the Seppi family — who describe themselves as having hive-like specialization — to maintain their pollination business, and an examination into Colony Collapse Disorder. Make no mistake, Colony Collapse Disorder is some scary stuff, not least because the root cause (or causes) have not yet been identified. The footage of the the Seppi’s tribulations is often startlingly raw. Gunn and McDonnell’s cinematography is often striking — the film is filled with beautiful and arresting images. I found it thought-provoking, which is certainly one measure of success, but on some level its disparate components didn’t quite gel into a whole for me.

Lemmy delivers almost exactly what’d you expect from a documentary about Motörhead’s legendary bassist, vocalist, and all-round heavy metal icon Lemmy Kilmister: there are interviews with a score or so of the many musicians inspired by him, interview footage with Lemmy himself (including a protracted tour of his somewhat scary crib), a bit of background bio (a visit to his former school yields a charming surprise that I won’t reveal) and, of course, plenty of music, from his time with The Rockin’ Vicars and Hawkwind to recent jams with Metallica and Slim Jim Phantom (of The Stray Cats), as well as footage of Motörhead faves like “Overkill,” “Damage Case,” and the almighty “Ace of Spades.”

Lemmy is an easy film to recommend to anyone who loves Motörhead, or any of the many acts Motörhead inspired and influenced — which includes pretty much all thrash/speed metal, and a good proportion of hardcore punk. But Lemmy is kinder to its subject than either Some Kind of Monster, which delved deep into Metallica’s dysfunction, or Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which found both humor and pathos in Anvil’s dogged multi-decade breakthrough-free career, not to mention the inherent ridiculousness of middle-aged men playing music that fundamentally celebrates adolescence. As co-director Wes Orshoski revealed in the Q&A session, the film makers had too much respect for Lemmy to not let him shape his portrayal in the film; Lemmy, for instance, wasn’t keen to have his ongoing drug use in the movie, so references to drugs that aren’t in the past are minimized. The talking head clips have a similar tone: they offer a few humorous anecdotes and a lot of accolades, but nothing challenging. And Lemmy is fully in control of his own interviews: he’s quite happy to show off his knife collection, quite skilled at deflecting anything that threatens to go beneath his surface persona. He remains an enigma, an icon of cool — which is probably exactly how he wants it.

At IFF Boston you get these ballots that ask you to rate each film from one to five, with five being best. These get counted up for the audience choice awards, and presumably factor into what is considered for next year’s lineup.

I am really bad at rating things from one to five. The numbers fill me with questions I know the organizers don’t want to hear: is it a linear scale, or logarithmic? Is a bell curve distribution expected? Would a “five” mean the best film I see in the festival, the best film I see all year, or an all-time favorite movie? I have to make up my own answers to these questions, and the result is that even if I really, really like a film, I usually don’t grade higher than four. (I gave my physical therapist answers like 2.35 when asked to rank my pain from one to ten, but IFF Boston doesn’t allow intermediate values.)

So it means something that I unhesitatingly gave Winter’s Bone a five. I was drawn into its compelling story from the opening seconds. Ree Dolly, a young woman essentially raising her two younger siblings, learns in the film’s first few minutes that her father put her house and land up for his bail bond, and he’s gone missing. If Ree can’t find him, she and her charges will be thrown out of their home. The performances are uniformly outstanding, with Jennifer Lawrence as Ree and John Hawkes as her uncle being particularly noteworthy.

The script, which director Debra Granik and co-screenwriter Anne Rosellini adapted from a novel by Daniel Woodrell, displays uncommon emotional depth and psychological realism. Granik has a documentary film background, which manifests itself in exacting attention to detail and authenticity: the film was shot on location in Missouri, in and around real people’s homes, and using local talent. The production traded local residents new clothes for old to put the actors in clothes that were actually worn-in rather than artificially distressed. But the gritty conviction these choices confer is balanced by unexpected moments of cinematographic lyricism: the winter Missouri landscape is beautiful as well as foreboding.

Irony Dept: One of the running themes of this year’s IFF Boston (even more than last year, I think) has been the difficulty of getting funding to make these films. Several filmmakers, including Granik, refused to make the compromises that backers wanted and completed their films with private money. Granik revealed that she could’ve gotten backing if she’d cast an inappropriate big marquee name in the role that went to John Hawkes. But it was actually Hawkes’ name that lured me to this screening; I’d been planning to see something else until I noticed his name. I thought Hawkes was enormously likable as Sol Star in Deadwood, but there he played a character who was almost anachronistic: not particularly sexist, racist, or even violent. Deadwood gave me no idea what his range as an actor was like — Winter’s Bone does.

Everyone once in a while I want to urge people to avoid previews, ads, and reviews and just go see a movie with no expectations. I feel that way about Cyrus, not because I don’t think it can stand up to repeat viewings — in fact I’m eager to see it again so I can catch the lines I missed when the crowd was roaring with laughter — but because it was a lot of fun being surprised by this movie. It’s a pleasure you’ll miss if you go in knowing too much. (And there’s one awesome sight gag that I fear commercials will spoil.)

I expected John C. Reilly to be good, and he certainly is, but the shocker for me was Jonah Hill’s performance. (You might remember him as the scene-stealing waiter from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, or from Funny People.) Reilly and Hill evolve a fabulous vocabulary of non-verbal communication with impeccable timing. Marisa Tomei is overshadowed in the straight man role, although in her defense, the script (by directors Mark and Jay Duplass) leaves her motivations unclear. And the overall shape of the story isn’t very interesting or surprising. But those flaws didn’t matter to me, because the film achieves its main objectives: it’s sometimes borderline disturbing, but mostly just hilarious.

Fans of indie-rock act Bishop Allen, whose lead singer Justin Rice stars as Harmony*, or anyone who likes to watch off-the-cuff footage of songwriters working on material should run, not walk to any chance to catch Harmony and Me. I would have gone home happy if hearing Rice run through Jonathan Richman’s “Government Center” was the film’s highest point, and I don’t think it was. There are several scenes of Rice and other musicians working out parts and performing; they had a lovely, loose, candid quality to them. (Many of the other scenes had the sort of slightly stilted, self-consciously artificial delivery I associate most with early Hartley films.)

The rest of the world will probably find Harmony and Me a mixed bag. After being dumped by his girlfriend half a year ago, Harmony is wallowing in self pity, wearing it, rather literally, like a badge on his chest. The dialogue was frequently witty and/or trenchant, and the picture got a lot of laughs from me and the audience I saw it with. Still, I felt like the whole wasn’t quite equal to the sum of the parts. Writer/director Bob Byington seems to struggle with the narrative arc; the resolution was trying hard to avoid cliché, but it still felt a little glib and unsatisfying. The pacing has an odd, slightly disorienting rhythm, with characters and settings popping up unexplained, then returning after long stretches. (Maybe that was meant to mirror Harmony’s dazed and unfocused state.) Overall it gets a qualified thumbs up, and it leaves me curious to see what Byington does next.

If you see it, make sure to stay through the credits for more of Parks and Recreations‘ Nick Offerman’s bit part.

* a guy named Harmony? I struggled with that all the way through the film, which I thought was going to be about a guy dumped by a woman named Harmony. And it leaves me confused as to just who the “Me” in the title is supposed to be.

Once again, I’m going to try to do capsule reviews of all the films I see as part of Independent Film Festival Boston. Here’s the first.

A remark in the entertaining and informative post-screening Q&A by co-writer/co-director Robert Pulcini (along with Shari Springer Berman, half of the husband-and-wife writer/director team behind the terrific Harvey Pekar flick American Splendor) crystallized my slight misgivings about this movie: he said he loved Jonathan Ames’ novel so much that when adapting it for the screen, he crammed in some of of his favorite lines out of context. I think this contributes to the film feeling like it’s working very hard to be quirky with a capital Q — as if it’s shooting for prime Wes Anderson, but winds up feeling more like Darjeeling Express, or maybe Garden State. I liked it, but I would have liked it more if it been just a touch more restrained and naturalistic.

Regardless, Kevin Kline is a lot of fun to watch as unwilling mentor Henry Harrison, in a performance that reminded me of Falstaff (a role Kline has played) or a less dark Henry Fool. Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood) is an excellent foil and portrays the hapless Louis Ives with consummate awkwardness, but not so broadly as to lose all humanity.

And The Extra Man convinced me that I should acquaint myself with some of Jonathan Ames’ prose. If that was its goal, it certainly succeeded with me.

***

Kline was also vigorous, smart, and very funny in the Q&A session, responding to audience questions with refreshing candor. His reaction to learning that the artist who fabricated the “Lifetime Achievement Award” that IFF Boston presented him with went by the name “Skunk” was quite extraordinary.