Underrated/Overrated

‘Stand Clear of the Closing Doors’ (2014): A lovely and poignant snapshot of New York seen from the city’s ever-churning subway system, this indie film captures the sensory overload and inevitable indifference of urban life through the eyes of a lost autistic boy. Director Sam Fleischner covers a lot of ground here with nods toward the city’s ethnic and class divisions, but the film retains a graceful magnetism while drawing a portrait that is too often left in the margins.

Tuatara: A wonderfully weird instrumental indie supergroup that includes the Screaming Trees’ Barrett Martin, Luna’s Justin Harwood and avant-jazz saxophonist Skerik, Tuatara returns Tuesday with a new double album, “Underworld.” First formed in the ‘90s to score as-yet unwritten films, the group remains as evocative and unclassifiable as ever, with lush Eastern textures, taut jazz-funk grooves and guest turns from R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready.

‘Tiny: A Story About Living Small’ (2013): There’s no faulting the spirit of this earnest documentary, which chronicles a young man’s quest to build and live in a home slightly larger than some closets. We all should consider how much space and stuff we really need, but there’s something in the design movement referenced here that feels vaguely sad, like a tacit admission that any living space that’s bigger than “tiny” has become simply out of reach for most of us.

The Nicki Minaj meme: If you’ve been on the Internet in last week, you’ve probably run across the many efforts to repurpose this ex-”American Idol” judge’s remarkably lewd (and still-unreleased) album art using some judicious Photoshop skills. While the semi-mocking subtext here is laudable, this is another example of “art” being released with the sole expectation of being talked about — for good or for bad, it doesn’t matter. Are we sure meme isn’t short for marketing?

— Chris Barton