Following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival way back in January -- where it barely attracted an iota of buzz, despite the presence of its extremely photogenic cast -- the indie-ish bookworm drama The Words is dumped into theaters on an exceptionally slow post-Labor Day weekend. You might think this indicates a lack of confidence on the studio's part... and you'd almost certainly be right. Although it's production values positively ooze class and a handful of scenes actually prove somewhat compelling, the overall experience of watching Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal's directorial debut is the cinematic equivalent of staring at a blank page for roughly 90 minutes. Here are seven words that perhaps best encapsulate The Words.

When the movie you're going to see is called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, you don't exactly head into the theater expecting great art. But you do hope for a rollicking genre mash-up that delivers on the goofy fun promised by the title. I'm sorry to say that, in this case, the finished product is plenty goofy, but not a lot of fun.

Every summer there's that wild card big-budget studio picture that catches you off guard by being better than you could have predicted. Last year, that film was the Hail Mary franchise reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which made up for the terrible performances of its human cast with a compelling simian hero (Andy Serkis's Caesar) and some entertaining ape-driven action sequences. And while 2012's summer movie season is just getting started, Snow White and the Huntsman is the current favorite to be its most unexpected surprise. That's not to say it's perfect, by the way; first-time director Rupert Sanders and screenwriters Evan Draugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini make a number of major and minor mistakes in the process of bringing the age-old fairy tale back to the big screen. But the movie ultimately gets more right than wrong, finding the proper balance between spectacle and storytelling -- a trick that certain other recent blockbusters (looking at you Men in Black 3 and Battleship) failed to achieve.

Based on the best-selling life manual, What to Expect What You're Expecting is exactly what you'd expect it to be... provided what you're expecting is a glossy, obnoxious and thoroughly underwhelming ensemble comedy about the joys and terrors of impending parenthood. For a subtle, nuanced and genuinely funny depiction of this major life change, give the movie a miss and spend your time catching up on NBC's Parenthood instead, especially since the show has been renewed for another year of Braverman hijinks. But if you do decide to test your tolerance for cheesy sitcom-level writing, slumming stars and extremely forced heart-tugging moments, here are the ten most annoying things you can expect to see onscreen.

If there's a single takeaway from The Hunger Games, the first of four planned movies based on the omnipresent YA book franchise by Suzanne Collins, it's that Jennifer Lawrence is a genuine, true blue, big time movie star. Coming off a deservedly acclaimed breakout performance in the indie drama Winter's Bone and a strong supporting turn in last summer's comic book blockbuster X-Men: First Class, the actress picks up the archer's bow wielded by Katniss Everdeen, the girl revolutionary at the center of the novels. On the page, Katniss functions as a kind of wish-fulfillment character for every teen reader -- girls and boys alike -- that has ever felt alienated and aggrieved by an unjust society. (And that's pretty much every teenager from the dawn of time.) The great accomplishment of Lawrence's performance is that she takes a person that every fan of the book has imagined themselves being and makes her completely her own. From the opening scenes, she's completely locked in to Katniss's headspace and vividly portrays her transformation from amateur hunter to battle-tested fighter. So yes, Lawrence is terrific. The movie itself, unfortunately, is a disappointment.

On principle, when a movie ends I always stay 'til after the credits roll and the theater turns the lights back on. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised more people don't and that this is something I even need to address. More often than not, I've seen snippets of bonus features that give me some sense that I didn't totally waste my time -- the stinger at the end of Rise of the Planet of the Apes was well worth the wait.

When I told my mother I had seen this movie, she groaned and asked me if I fell asleep during it. I explained that I loved Jane Eyre in all its incarnations (well, excepting the mediocre musical) and then started rambling about The Wide Sargasso Sea and The Eyre Affair and wondering how my mother could think a story that had fire and a crazy person living in an attic could possibly be boring. Then we decided to agree to disagree. If you are siding with my mother? Don't bother with this movie. In fact, stay far away, because it is beautiful, but slowly and methodically paced (I think in quite an effective way) and that will likely put you to sleep as soon as you watch a scene with limited talking for a good five minutes. If you, like me, are a fan of the Charlotte Bronte work, I think this film, while arguably not the most necessary thing in the entire world, is a well-done adaptation of the source material.

I love how inaccurate the definitions "comedy" and "drama" can be. Most films have both, and usually more of one than another, but a good number of them are essentially dramedies, either due to a calculated balance or an inability to commit. (For instance, The Tourist, ostensibly an action thriller, was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical, presumably due to Depp's lackadaisical commitment to the laughably clichéd storyline.) So when I saw that Paul Giamatti had been nominated for a Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for Barney's Version, I just knew that this wouldn't be a pure comedy -- despite the trailer's focus on a Heartbreak Kid-style plot point, it also showed some sadly romantic longing. But I had no idea how depressing things would get, since the movie pretty much abandons comedy halfway through, and the romance never lasts.

Depending on which commercials you've seen for this movie, you may not realize that Anne Hathaway's character has early-onset Parkinson's disease. It's not a secret, except in the sense that the studio apparently didn't want to scare away audiences -- she mentions it the first time we meet her, and it's a constant talking point throughout the film. But that's only one of three different movies going on here. The second movie is an insider's look at the drug industry, specifically the tactics used by drug reps to get their drugs into doctors' hands, or at least their eyeline. And the third movie is a raunchy Judd Apatow comedy. Any two of those movies would have been plenty, but three causes way too many tonal shifts, and it gets a little hard to figure out how you're supposed to be feeling at any given time.

Now that director Guillermo Del Toro is no longer directing The Hobbit, a mad search is on to find the new director, both by the studio and by the press, who have thrown out the names of every geek-friendly genre director from Abrams to Raimi. But why does the director have to be known for the fantasy and sci-fi genre? After all, the last three directors of the Harry Potter franchise were virtual strangers to the fantasy film world before they signed on to their installments, and they've been incredibly successful, each with their own distinctive voice. While we aren't going to scour the film festivals to find the next Peter Jackson, there are plenty of established directors who aren't known for swords and sorcery, but might be willing to tackle such an important work of literature.