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No matter the scale of the production, American cinema largely reflects the conditions of a society that still has a hard time exploring its diversity. To put it simply: A lot of movies are made by white guys and revolve around white guys. American filmmaker Sean Baker is a white guy, but the four features he has written and directed over the last decade delve far deeper into the crevices of a country that contains many more stories beyond the market standard.

Baker maintains a firm grasp of genre — as his other career, creating the dopey comedy shows "Greg the Bunny" and "Warren the Ape" prove — but applies it to unorthodox ends. While both his scrappy first feature, the college romp "Four Letter Words," and his latest effort, "Starlet" (which opens in limited release this Friday), revolve around archetypes of American youth, these familiar access points provide fluid transitions into perceptive looks at deep-seated insecurities.

Most filmmakers working with digital video try to achieve a "cinematic" look, but in Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker's Take Out—shot in 2004—the video looks like video. The camera records the squalor and the splendor of its New York setting sharply and clearly, such that every cockroach and neon sign is in perfect focus. And Tsou and Baker smartly use that clarity to smudge the line between documentary and fiction. Take Out has a slim narrative hook, but the directors use it primarily as an excuse to take a verité, day-in-the-life look at one busy Chinese restaurant in a diverse Manhattan neighborhood. Charles Jang stars as an illegal immigrant who owes money to the organization that smuggled him into the U.S., and is given until midnight to pay off the debt. Jang convinces a fellow delivery boy at the restaurant where they both work to let him take most.

By Neil Pedley

Among this week's offerings: The pregnancy comedy goes pre-natal, the fate of all the jungle rests in the hands of the world's most lethargic endangered species, and Dario Argento has a new film, rendering the rest of this list mostly unnecessary.

"Dreams With Sharp Teeth"

Author Harlan Ellison is widely regarded as one of the finest writers of the 20th century. He is also, as this documentary readily highlights, abrasive, petulant, egotistical and prone to fits of belligerent rage. Collecting together more than two decades worth of footage and interviews, "Grizzly Man" producer Erik Nelson lifts the dust jacket off one of literature's genuinely larger than life characters and a man who has filed more lawsuits than the Aclu, proving that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction, even Ellison's sci-fi tales.

Opens in New York.

"The Go-Getter"

On paper, it sounds like the dictionary definition of...