(Photo: Phase 4 Films)Actor Dave Vescio, 42, specializes in bad guys. Just scan his past character names in the 40-plus horror and sci-fi movies he's made: lewd cab driver, Bruce the Killer, creepy pirate. Now, in "Hick," he's been a bad, bad boy again, playing a threatening character known only as "Stranger." In this literary adaptation about a Vegas-bound Nebraska teen starring Chloe Moretz and Blake Lively, Vescio embodies the unknown predator waiting in the shadows for Moretz's reckless runaway.

Vescio, an army brat whose longest stint in one place has been this past six years in Hollywood, spent two-and-a-half years in Leavenworth Federal Prison for drug trafficking from 1993—95. After jail, the army vet and former CBS journalist turned his life around, studying acting with David Mamet at New York's Atlantic Theater Company. Since then, Vescio ("Gemini Rising," "Virus X") has turned a liability into an asset, drawing on his experience behind bars to play villains on screen.

[Slideshow: Bad boys, bad

Photo: MarvelThere's no way on earth if your children watch TV that they are unaware of "Marvel's The Avengers" and even that it's opening this weekend. From Avengers toddler's slip-on canvas shoes to the Lego Marvel Superheroes Quinjet to Iron Man action figures, a simple trip to Target has already saturated your kid with Marvel marketing. So: Should you take the heirs to this PG-13 rated movie? That's going to be a "yes" — and I don't think you have to wait until they're thirteen despite the official rating (and one off-hand reference to "weed").

Sex: I don't know about your kids, but in my household (my kids are now 12 and 16 but we've been watching movies since they were nursing), overt sexuality is the tipping point for whether they should see a movie. Is there boobage? No. Cleavage? Yes. But I don't think that any child seeing Gwyneth Paltrow flirting with Robert Downey Jr. while wearing hot pants, or the voluptuous Scarlett Johansson tied to a chair by villains while wearing a skin-tight

Robert Downey Jr. at the Tribeca premiere of 'The Avengers' (Photo: Evan Agostini/AP Images)

Smash! The Eleventh Annual Tribeca Film Festival ended in the plus column with a star-studded international premiere of the highly-anticipated Marvel comic mosh pit "The Avengers." Heading the red carpet in New York, where most of the mayhem is set, were stars Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo and Chris Hemsworth, among others.

Beyond the glitz of that stellar premiere, the New York based Festival, which began on April 18^th with "The Five-Year Engagement," has emerged as a well-run panorama of films from around the world with many genuine premieres. It mixes high-profile studio films trailing A-list stars with lesser-known fiction and nonfiction debuts in a competitive event.

Photo by Millennium EntertainmentRarely has a convicted murderer been portrayed with such heart, humanity, and humor as one is in "Bernie," the ripped-from-the-headlines story of a popular small-town Texan undertaker (Jack Black) who snapped, shot a wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine), and was prosecuted by an ambitious D.A. (Matthew McConaughey). In the hands of director Richard Linklater ("The School of Rock"), it becomes a black comedy about court justice and common courtesy. I sat down in New York with the director and star to discuss life, death, and Broadway musicals.

Albert L. Ortega/Getty ImagesThe biggest star of "The Avengers" doesn't blow up like a Macy's balloon when he gets angry: It's Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee. The New York born comic book pioneer, age 90, has lived long enough to see the birth of comics, confront censorship by the Comics Code of America, and get rich from the box-office resurgence of his babies "Iron Man," "X-Men," and "Spider-Man." Lee's artistic trademark: He's always in touch with the flesh-and-blood man behind the hero. Could that also explain why he penned a pamphlet on how to avoid VD when he was an army playwright alongside Dr. Seuss and Frank Capra during WWII?

Lee is all about keeping it real in a fantastic universe. Think you haven't seen Lee before? Think again. He's had numerous movie cameos alongside Iron Man, the Hulk, and Spider-Man — just look for his sarcastic zinger in "The Avengers," premiering in theaters May 4. To get pumped for the summer's first surefire hit, check the documentary about Lee's life and mind — and bossy wife! — "With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story" on EPIX.

Photo by Magnolia PicturesPeople tend to remember Delpy as that French chick Celine opposite Ethan Hawke's Jesse in "Before Sunset" and "Before Sunrise," the funky Franco-American romantic bookends directed by Richard Linklater. But the Paris-born, L.A.-based, NYU-educated mother of a toddler also contributed to those screenplays. Then she went on to write and direct a parallel comedy, "2 Days in Paris," in which she brings her American boyfriend (Adam Goldberg) to meet her crazy French family. In "2 Days in New York," writer, director, and star Delpy continues the unsentimental journey, gaining maturity as a character and as an artist. She plays a French photographer named Marion, whose father (her real-life dad, Albert Delpy) and sister (Alexia Landeau) visit the Manhattan love nest she's set up with Mingus (Chris Rock) and their kids from previous marriages. It's one of those dysfunctional-family comedies where everything unfolds in two short days, and the preconceptions of Americans and the French, men and women, a father and a daughter, all get tossed in a cultural Cuisinart.

Photo by Mark TillieElizabeth McGovern has old-school class — which won't surprise anybody who's watched her play Cora, Countess of Grantham, on TV's addictive "Downton Abbey." She portrays yet another upper-crusty English mother trying to navigate the marriage of her independent-minded elder daughter in "A Cheerful Day for the Wedding," which premiered this week at the Tribeca Film Festival. Chatting about marriage, motherhood, and the dangers and delights of treating daughters as friends, McGovern struck me as thoroughly modern -- once she unlaces her corset.

Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images"Marriage is a three-ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, suffering," quipped writer-director Nicholas Stoller before a star-studded crowd last night at Manhattan's Ziegfeld Theatre premiere of "The Five-Year Engagement." Produced by comedy hitmaker Judd Apatow, it's a romantic comedy about the ups and downs of a meet-cute San Francisco couple (Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, both in attendance) confronted with commitment issues after she moves to University of Michigan for grad school. Before the film, Stoller applauded his cast and crew with a special shout-out to star and co-writer Jason Segel, "without whose penis none of us would be here tonight."

The invitation-only gala to launch the 11th Annual Tribeca Film Festival took place in glimmering Midtown Manhattan. Worth mentioning: