Last year’s Sundance Film Festival saw an uptick in films regarding, weirdly enough, cults and cult-like sensibilities. This year’s theme has turned to an appropriate cousin to the dangers of indoctrination – the crumbling of the American dream. Characters that bought into what they thought they could (and should) get out of life have faced copious crises throughout the festival’s films, and Todd Louiso‘s lovely Hello I Must Be Going distills those big ideas and issues down to focus on just one victim of the American nightmare. Perpetual supporting standout Melanie Lynskey leads the film as directionless thirtysomething Amy Minsky. Amy’s happy (in her eyes) marriage to David (Dan Futterman) has recently ended, and she’s left with one place to go – back to her parents’ home in chi-chi suburban Connecticut. Without a job, a finished degree, friends, or most of her belongings, Amy is forced to acclimate to Ruth (Blythe Danner) and Stan (John Rubinstein) as they embark on the next step of their lives. In Louiso and screenwriter Sarah Koskoff‘s spin on a “one last job” film, Stan has one more big fish client to land before retiring – an engagement that could be ruined when Amy takes up with the client’s stepson, Jeremy (Christopher Abbott), who just happens to be only nineteen-years-old.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in a big red suit and sneaks into people’s houses. The only difference is that he sneaks into the houses of all the naughty girls. But before he can manage that undertaking, he sets his sights on the last wash of movies hitting the multiplexes this season. He travels with Jack Black to the Bermuda Triangle in Gulliver’s Travels then heads out west to catch a killer with True Grit. Finally, he brings his Christmas movie watching to a close by stabbing himself in the face with Little Fockers. Ho ho ho, the humanity!

Here we are back again in Focker-dom, that wonderful place of crushing comic awkwardness, painful slapstick and the no less excruciating specter of great actors slumming for paychecks. Surely, the world did not need Little Fockers, this second sequel to the somewhat overrated Meet the Parents, but like an obligatory stocking-stuffer it has arrived – to cash in for Christmas – and must be dealt with.

In what sounds a bit like Chalk meets Dangerous Minds meets Half Nelson, newcomer Carl Lund’s script for Detached has an absurd amount of acting talent currently stapled to its cover sheet. “Mad Men” firecracker Christina Hendricks, Lucy Liu and William Peterson (who some remember from “C.S.I.” but no one seems to remember from Young Guns 2) have signed onto a cast that already includes Adrien Brody, James Caan, Blythe Danner, Marcia Gay Harden, Bryan Cranston, and Tim Blake Nelson. Doug E. Doug is also involved – in case you had any doubts left.

Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro are at it again. They are once again at odds in the world of family politics polluted by oft poorly timed puns about the name of a male nurse named Greg. And this time, there are Little Fockers involved in the shenanigans. And Harvey Keitel. It’s hard to say what Keitel is doing in that equation, but it’s beyond me to question this franchise. Twice now this franchise has spewed forth films that don’t exactly look right upon first glance, and twice now it’s delivered the funny. I give up trying to fight it.

The actress has just signed on for the third installment of the Meet the Parents franchise, and she’ll have a few things to teach her co-stars.