Miriam Bale

This eager film piles on common fears: evil puppetry, haunted homes and overly generous hosts. So despite a sloppy and humorless execution, it is scary by association.

The documentary is not really about these older people but about this couple.

Poor computer-generated effects give the movie an unsettling, two-layered feel.

It’s amusing, and a refreshing change from the usual C.G.I.-heavy blockbusters.

At times it felt as if this film might challenge Pixar’s decade-long reign, but that promise wanes. Instead, the movie is sometimes so strange, colorful and wildly cute that it may end up becoming a “Yellow Submarine” for a new generation.

This well-intentioned “docu-comedy” (as the filmmakers label it in publicity notes) is not very funny.

The film feels meandering. Not only does it offer a jumble of ideas that aren’t followed through, but it’s also structured oddly.

The miracle of the new 3-D dance film Battle of the Year is how it can be so relentlessly boring while there is so much frenetic activity on screen.

It’s difficult to dislike a documentary with such noble, generous subjects, but the film is unfocused and repetitious, not sure whether it is a road trip, a story of a couple or an exploration of small art institutions.

The filmmaking has some of the wit and irreverence of its subject, but goes on meandering tangents rather than having a cohesive vision or tone.

Watching this movie feels like viewing a very long, expensive car commercial and waiting for the real film to begin.

This virtuous stance is not unusual for issue-based documentaries, but a film with such illuminating content deserves a more artful vehicle for its moving message.

Best Kept Secret is an exemplary documentary: It spotlights an important issue yet never seeks to squeeze the truth into an easily digestible narrative frame. Instead it expands its storytelling to the boundaries of messy, joyful and painful reality.

With a group so evidently versed in the visuals of rock history, it’s a shame that a filmmaker wasn’t hired who would pay homage to classic pop films instead of offering a satisfactory paid promotional.

The film is a thorough piece of reporting on the issues, characters and deeper cultural ramifications. But rather than present this impressive investigation as an objective reporter, Mr. Pamphilon makes the film, perhaps unnecessarily, a personal story.

The film is ridiculous and laugh-out-loud funny, though it’s sometimes hard to tell if this is intentional or not. Either way, it remains riveting because of its effective tropes.

The film’s strange mixture of primitive and poetic images becomes etched into memory. Weaving observation and a shared dream state, this is an intuitive and intricate exploration into the feeling of sound.

It is a film with nothing but delight — no major revelations, no gravity and no meaning. This superficiality is a problem only because of the pretense of being about great art.