Break of Hearts (Philip Moeller, 1935). Katherine Hepburn was a mere twenty-eight when this thin romance was released, just a few films into her storied career. She already had an Oscar and at least one solid hit to her credit, but doubters were plentiful. This was one of the string of flops that famously got her labeled “box office poison.” If nothing else, the film is evidence that Hollywood didn’t really know what to do with her yet, shoving the camera into her face to capture a dewy glisten that may have been the standard of the day for leading ladies, but had nothing to do with the headstrong personality that was the true marker of her star power. In this film, Hepburn plays a young composer who falls in love with and marries a storied, combative conductor played with surly certainty by Charles Boyer. The two experience the sort of ups and downs that are required in this sort of melodrama, and Moeller dispenses it with suitable efficiency. Aside from a few sequences that nicely capture the allure of music, it’s all fairly bland and disposable.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (John Krasinski, 2009). The star of the American version of The Office certainly didn’t settle for an easy assignment in his first outing as a writer-director, choosing to adapt a collection of themed short stories by David Foster Wallace. Almost inevitably, the resulting film is meandering and clumsy, like an easily distracted animal. Much of the dialogue–especially that in the interview sessions–is stilted and overly verbose, the sort of thing that may be dandy on the page, but will fell all but the craftiest actors. Despite the thematic unity, Krasinski’s film feels assembled by spare parts.

Transsiberian (Brad Anderson, 2008). Anderson’s thriller exploits the standard fear of stumbling into trouble on foreign terrain. Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer play a couple taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad home from a relief mission in China, unwittingly being caught in the middle of a drug smuggling operation that puts them afoul of a Russian police detective played by Ben Kingsley. Anderson uses his setting well, and assembles the film crisply, even if he falters in the vital task of building tension. The biggest problem is the script, which Anderson is credited for alongside Will Conroy. It filled with just enough moments that require unbelievable decision to propel the plot further. Characters get drawn deeper into problems when simple fixes are right in front of them. The other major misstep is giving Mortimer’s character a backstory as a bad girl, a history which is there to set up a couple key plot points, but otherwise doesn’t inform the demeanor or behavior of the character in the slightest. She should be one of the savviest people taking this ride. Instead, she’s one of the most naive.

Lonely Are the Brave (David Miller, 1962). This grim drama about the changing landscape of America casts Kirk Douglas as a devoted, old school cowboy disgruntled about the fences carving up the frontier and the highways he’s forced to guide his horse across. After a jailbreak, he’s pursued by a crew of lawmen led by Walter Matthau with rumpled, languid charm and rumpled impatience with the inept men under his command. Based on a novel by Edward Abbey, the film projects the expected dismay over the disappearing American West, but often feels like it doesn’t have enough to say leading to long stretches of leaden redundancy. The stark ending spells out the thesis too overtly, especially given the way its particulars have been baldly forecast the entire film in the presence of an otherwise inessential subplot.

Religulous (Larry Charles, 2008). Bill Maher is an avowed atheist and fiercely committed to his view that religion is the cause of a disproportionate amount of the world’s ills. He also someone who believes in spirited debate and connecting directly with his principled adversaries. So Maher takes his act on the road, journeying to different locales with some sort of religious connection, be they the epicenter of the Roman Catholic power structure or the fringes of exploitative, plasticized tourist traps. Fascinating encounters take place everywhere he goes. It’s too bad he didn’t recruit a documentarian to capture it. Instead, the film is directed by Larry Charles, a seasoned comic provocateur with Borat and Curb Your Enthusiasm under his belt. He can’t help but try to goose the material with old film clips and other dopey asides, completely undercutting the worthwhile material. It’s like having a serious conversation continually interrupted by an abrasive clown shooting seltzer from the flower on his lapel.