Dirty Girl is a candy-coated collection of ’80s hairstyles, pop tunes and other sparkly flourishes. Despite the best efforts of Juno Temple, who perfects her standard character — the sullen oversexed young woman — it’s a forced, facile effort. The film takes a premise with promise, in which the titular “dirty girl” (Temple) searches for her long-lost father, and flushes it away in a haze of standard road-trip silliness. It’d be hard to conceive of a movie more painstakingly comprised of dramatic filler than this one, in which nothing of consequence happens until the climax. Danielle and her shy study buddy Clarke (Jeremy Dozier) take off from Oklahoma for California, in the hope of finding the absentee paterfamilias who knows not of her existence. Both misfits are escaping unfortunate home situations: Danielle’s mom Sue-Anne (Milla Jovovich), a former “dirty girl” herself, wants to settle down with the domineering Mormon Ray (William H. Macy). Clarke has it worse. His father Joseph (Dwight Yoakam) abuses him, sends him to therapy and threatens military school if his son can’t repress his homosexuality.

As the only literate Reject, it’s my duty to find the latest, the greatest and the untouched classics that would make great source material for film adaptations. I read so you don’t have to. There has been a lot of commotion and debate surrounding the new edition of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” because it waters down the language (at least a certain part of it). It has shocked people that a classic could be so obliterated for the sake of political correctness, but the book was weakened years ago considerably – by movies. It’s time for a fresh cinematic take on Mark Twain‘s – a take that is gritty and hilarious and strongly-worded as the book truly is.

Kevin Carr sits his chubbiness down and sees if Avatar, Did You Hear About the Morgans? and Up In the Air can make the grade.

Kevin Carr reviews this week’s new movies: The Proposal and Year One.