Neil Genzlinger

Free Samples is a modest but pleasant small-budget movie with two bits of laziness in the script, but one particularly sweet performance that makes up for them.

Rapture-Palooza has a promising setup and a cast with a good track record of bringing the funny, yet it never does live up to its potential.

The photography is often lovely, and Ms. Gedeck convincingly portrays a woman who as the ordeal stretches on month after month seems to be gradually losing her individuality and blending into the landscape.

It may not make much sense in a brief plot summary, but it makes perfect, daffy sense on the screen.

A satisfying thrill ride, at least on a par with the earlier installments.

This is one terrible movie.

The male characters here are too thinly developed for this to be a top-notch survival thriller, but Ms. Aselton knows how to get the pulse pounding.

[A] sweet if not very credible film.

The film, directed by Conor Allyn, is rarely more than a few minutes away from a gun battle or a tedious chase, and soon you cease to care who is shooting at, or running from, whom or why.

Despite the preachiness, however, they have still made a moderately enjoyable film, thanks to some engaging performances.

The film, a sleepy, low-budget affair, merely enacts a series of horror movie clichés, as if that were enough. Its bland actors and wit-free script do nothing with the familiar elements but present them.

Considerable care goes into establishing the premise, but the film eventually abandons psychological subtlety for hallucinatory garishness, which is too bad.

A sobering study in how individual human beings can become afterthoughts in the face of broad movements like nationalism, a phenomenon that is still much in evidence almost a century later.

The director, Harold Guskin, and writer, Sandra Jennings, show admirable patience in letting the story unspool, and the actors reward them.

It’s all kind of cute. Maybe a little too cute, but it does have a nice circle-of-life ending. And along the way, Mr. Byington shows a knack for observational humor, slipping in sly jokes that force you to keep paying attention despite the slim plot. Droll and interesting; just not very substantial.

The film’s director, Jon M. Chu, executes a pretty good high-altitude fight scene. Still, there should be a “Fans Only” sign at the door of every theater.

Sometimes a movie is so awful that the word awful is not up to the task of conveying its awfulness. The awful InAPPropriate Comedy is such a movie. It is memorably awful. It is stunningly awful. It is so awful that we are fortunate that “awful” has an adverbial use that means “very” or “extremely.” This movie is awfully awful.

The movie is at its most interesting and amusing when riffing on how cavemen might have reacted to new experiences and ideas, like fire and shoes. Whether the kiddies will appreciate that is unclear, but they’ll certainly like the voice work done by Emma Stone as Eep.

These days, when paranormal-themed shows are all over television, Mr. Lutz sounds like just another guy peddling an unverifiable spooky story.

The film grasps for credibility with scenes of a support group (featuring some real veterans) and cryptic voice-overs that strive for profundity but achieve only pretentiousness.

This is not an easy documentary to watch, in the sense that the filmmakers let the story tell itself, without narration or expert commentary. That ultimately makes it all the more touching.

Although Language of a Broken Heart, a romantic comedy written by and starring Juddy Talt, eventually drowns in clichés and predictability, it has a few decent moments of humor and some appealing performances that make it marginally better than most vanity projects.

This distillation of Philip Shabecoff’s book doesn’t really capture the urgency and militancy promised in the title.

Northeast is as tedious as the life of the film’s central character.

Escape From Planet Earth makes a tolerable diversion for a winter’s day or evening, just not a memorable one.

The whole affair has an artificial look reminiscent of a community theater production on a cardboard set. The vintage images don’t add enough to make up for the visual distraction. The story, though, is of moderate interest.

The samples of Mr. Abu-Jamal's writings aren't generous enough to establish whether his is a singular voice or just a prolific one, with Mr. Vittoria instead letting the film wander considerably.

[Grohl] shows a decent grasp of how to pace a documentary and how to push nostalgia buttons, avoiding the marsh of smarminess most - though not quite all - of the time.