REEL CRITICS:

In 2007, Gregg Mottola directed the funny but very crass teen-comedy hit “Superbad.” He now takes this theme to a higher level with another coming-of-age movie that focuses on a slightly older crowd. The excellent but relatively unknown acting ensemble plays a diverse group of recent college grads living around Pittsburgh in the 1980s.

They’re old enough to drink and have adult affairs. But they are still living with their parents and looking to take the next step in their lives. Adventureland is a low-rent amusement park near all their homes.

Lacking major employment opportunities, they all take summer jobs at the park running rides and carnival games while planning their futures.

Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart are the main love interests of the group, searching for purpose and meaning in their lives. Their performances provide many moments that will ring true and touch familiar romantic notes for audience members of all ages. Set to the pop music soundtrack by Yo La Tengo, this smart and touching film is a cut above the usual fare for this genre.

Delve into baseball’s immigrant world

“Sugar” is a great way to start out the baseball season.

Writing-directing team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have created a terrific follow up to their 2006 indie flick “Half Nelson” and get a winning performance by non-actor Algenis Pérez Soto in the title role.

We follow Miguel “Sugar” Santos from his days in an American baseball training camp in his native Dominican Republic to a minor league club in Iowa and beyond.

Sugar has a killer curveball, and we watch his rising career and root with him for a shot at playing the majors some day in legendary Yankee Stadium.

“Sugar” gives you a look inside baseball from the immigrant’s perspective, from locker room to English classes (“I got it, I got it”) to the intensity of a game itself.

Things we take for granted, such as ordering breakfast in a diner, can be as daunting as a trip to the moon when you don’t know the language.

You understand better the enormity of the odds these men overcome just to get to play on a field in Iowa; how success or obscurity, pride or shame can all hinge on a little ball and a bat.

Right around the seventh-inning stretch, the audience is thrown a genuine curveball and both we and Sugar are given a big dose of reality.

There are no epic heroes in “Sugar,” yet it’s loaded with triumphs of the spirit.

JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office. SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a financial services company.