It's a list that keeps on giving: the 50 best movies of all time. With this global critics list at The One-Line Review, at least, the more things change, the more they stay the same. There's Citizen Kane at number one, and having shown the movie to my USC film criticism class, I get why the movie holds on to that top spot, decade after decade. The damn thing holds up. Pauline Kael said it was a comedy and she was right. It's entertaining, funny, unique, utterly timely and resonant today. Kids understand it perfectly. It doesn't age, even in black-and-white.

Much as I admire Vertigo, I prefer several other Hitchcocks: Notorious, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds among them. How telling that there are three Hitchcocks in the top thirteen and two Stanley Kubricks in the top ten.

The other top ten selections are fine, but I would want a Buster Keaton (The General, 33) or Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, 17) or John Ford (The Searchers, 12) or or Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby) in there. And Hawks is so out of favor that he didn't make the top 50 at all.

The full list is on the jump.

After a lazy holiday weekend, I herewith share with you my gleanings of what's been going on.

At the boxoffice, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs battled nasty reviews to virtually tie with holdover Transformers:ROTF over the five-day holiday weekend. UPDATE: Transformers 2 barely won the weekend with a preliminary $42.4 million over Ice Age's $41.6 million in slightly fewer runs.

Public Enemies proved that Depp as Dillinger is a solid b.o. draw. Sandra Bullock vehicle The Proposal dropped only 31% and has grossed $94.2 million. Kathryn Bigelow's intense Iraq thriller The Hurt Locker continued strong in limited release. So far agitprop Food Inc. is outperforming costume romance Cheri.

Here's the first eight minutes of The Hurt Locker.

Todd McCarthy favorably reviews the sixth Harry Potter installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The most grown-up and thrilling of the bunch, the film will be one of the highest-grossing of the year, he predicts.

Here's the trailer.

Cynthia Littleton tributes The Hollywood Reporter's late international reporter Steve Brennan.

Marc Andreessen is starting a venture capital fund. UPDATE: All Things Digital talks to him about going to the dark side..

Beleaguered The Weinstein Co. is pushing its animated feature Escape from Planet Earth back to 2011, reports the LAT.

Beatles and Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein died at age 77 after fighting Alzheimer's.

Never rest on your laurels. When something is working, something new and improved comes along. While many of my pals prefer critics' aggregator Metacritic, which is leaner, more elegant, pickier and more pure than the mighty but messier, more inclusive and more crowded Rotten Tomatoes, there's a new kid in town: Movie Review Intelligence. It claims to add more weight to powerful critics like Roger Ebert, and boasts cool search functions (studio, genre etc), but my initial read on this is that it's designed to be studio (read advertiser) friendly.

Both the NYT and LAT use the arrival of this new aggregator to assess the niche and function of critics' sites.

I've written about this a lot. Truth is, lots of people look at the consensus, not the individual critics who are necessary to build the consensus. But many people do read the critics on these aggregator sites.

Let's call it. The two greatest critics of American Cinema, bar none, are Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris. During the 60s and 70s they invented what we call film criticism, refined it, fiercely debated it, and lived it.

Historian Sarris, inspired by the French critics, defined auteurism and the pantheon of directors in The American Cinema, which became a Bible for generations of cinephiles. Meanwhile, Kael dismissed the auteurists, and dazzled New Yorker readers with her super-charged passionate prose--while defending her favorite directors.

Now, as newspapers and film critics of all ages are under siege, Andrew Sarris is out as a full-time staffer at The New York Observer, and UPDATE: joins ten years younger Rex Reed as a freelance contributor. To be fair, Sarris has had a great run. He's 80. And Reed represents what criticism has come to in this Darwinian Age. Entertainment.

Here's The Hot Blog. A collection of Sarris's ten best lists over the decades. And Kent Jones's 2005 assessment of Sarris in Film Comment.

Reel Talk co-hosts Jeffrey Lyons and Alison Bailes are kaput at NBC. I confess this is a show I never watched anyway. I also confess that I am still watching The Two Bens on At the Movies every Sunday night. Why? Well, it's a habit that's hard to break. The show still functions; while Ben Lyons is beyond shallow (he's a chip off the old block), Ben Mankiewicz is solid. They're actually getting better. Or am I just getting used to low expectations?

Reel Talk producer Michael Avila got the word Thursday: the last show is June 26, more than four years and 200 shows after their debut, he writes. They never had a repeat episode.

One of my correspondents fantasizes as follows:

Now if only ABC will get rid of "At the Movies," Dad and Junior can do a show together!!

Martin Scorsese rode into Cannes on Friday. He turned up at the American Pavilion to dedicate the Roger Ebert Conference Center. "Welcome back," fest delegate general Thierry Fremaux said to Ebert, who had been unable to attend for several years as he battled throat cancer. While he used a mechanical voice box at the ceremony, at the reception Ebert communicated with Scorsese, Fremaux, director Paul Cox, Sony Pictures Classics' Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, and critics Pierre Rissient and Kenneth Turan via writing pad. Ebert's blogging the fest and had seen just one film at Cannes so far, Bright Star.

In the evening, Scorsese introduced the ravishing new Technicolor print of Michael Powell's The Red Shoes, one of his favorite films of all time. And he also announced several new initiatives for the World Cinema Foundation, including deals with festival marketing site B-Side and the cinematheque website The Auteurs (which is hooked up with affiliate site Criterion). Here's Scorsese's statement:

“The World Cinema Foundation was created out of need. There are so many pictures in need of restoration and preservation, which, for many reasons, are not getting the attention they deserve. And restoring and preserving is only half the battle, because in order to be appreciated, they have to be seen. Now, they should be seen as they were intended to be seen, but audience awareness can build in surprising ways. Our new relationships with B-Side and The Auteurs are intended to build awareness on many different levels. These relationships will be crucial in drawing attention to the films and the people who made them, which are at the center of the Foundation's work. I'm very excited that Kent Jones, who I've known and worked with for years, has come aboard to lead the organization into the future.”

Earlier this week in Cannes, Mandalay added a movie about Frank Sinatra to Scorsese's list of upcoming projects. I find it hard to imagine any actor, whether or not it's Leonardo DiCaprio (who stars in Scorsese's fall release Shutter Island, based on Dennis Lehane's novel), being able to convincingly portray Sinatra and deliver songs with his voice. The guy's too big, too well-known, and his voice is too identified with his persona. As tough as it was for Will Smith to do Mohammed Ali, he wasn't a singer. Judy Davis did pull off Judy Garland, and Jamie Foxx and Joaquin Phoenix did Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. I don't know. It's Frank! UPDATE: Shawn Levy digs into the Sinatra casting issue.

You can look at tracking all you want, and listen to studio marketers downplaying expectations. But truth is, if a movie plays as well as Star Trek does, the word gets out. The movie opened to an estimated $31 million on Friday (including Thursday night numbers), and we know that the WOM will be strong. So it's going to do a lot better than those $50-65 million estimates. UPDATE: It grossed an estimated $76.5 million for the weekend but scored only 35% under 25. Of course the core demo skewed older. Paramount has been spending the big bucks on luring the younger demo--which will likely expand on upbeat WOM.

When I sat down with the writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci at their DreamWorks bungalow on opening day, they were grinning because the reviews are the best of the year so far, an 84 on Metacritic and 91 among the top critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's my take. There's even Oscar talk. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Here's my Flip Cam interview about how they reinvented the five key Star Trek characters, the bromance between Kirk and Spock, how they couldn't even start writing the script for producer/director J.J. Abrams without some kind of go ahead from Leonard Nimoy, why they left out William Shatner, how they approached writing Transformers 1 and 2 and Cowboys and Aliens, and how they came to exec produce the Sandra Bullock rom-com The Proposal. The Star Trek sequel is already starting to keep them up at night.

Thirteen things to know about Tilda Swinton.

West Slide Story is singing the economy blues.

Confessions of an Old Media Junkie: Ira Deutchman's approach is eerily close to mine. Except that I ingest more online media as well.

Another critic gets moved out of his primary role: "Phil Villarreal was reassigned to General Assignments for the AZ Daily Star's Metro desk today," reports David Poland, who has added posters to MovieCityNews. And Columbus, Ohio is also losing its critic, alas.

What is the role of film critic? To advise the studios on how to make movies? The NYT's Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott have written some memos to Hollywood about what they would like to see. If moviemakers followed their well-intentioned wish-list, they'd go out of business in short order.

While I have my issues with the MPAA ratings board, people tend to forget what the country would be like without it: we'd have lots of little local censors.

While many Hollywood romantic comedies are bland, silly and forgettable, more of them than usual are smart and funny (usually when they're from the schools of Judd Apatow or John Hamburg). While I applaud these critics' quest for authenticity and admiration of mumblecore, if Hollywood tried to ape that movement, it would be a disaster.

Interesting that the memo about killing the Oscars is left toward the end. It isn't the Academy's fault that so many filmmakers produce so many noble failures aimed right at them. The Oscars are designed to reward the best of the best and that they do. (What's right or wrong with the Oscar show itself is another question.) So many movies wouldn't get made if the Oscars didn't exist to help market them. That doesn't mean they all turn out well, or succeed, or even make it into awards contention. But the majority of the year's best films wouldn't get made, much less seen, without the Oscars.

Some Came Running critic Glenn Kenny has been enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame as one of the stars of Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, which just followed its Sundance work-in-progress debut with a proper premiere at Tribeca in advance of its Magnolia release May 22. Kenny posts on other critics who have acted in movies.

In a Time Q & A, Roger Ebert writes that he and fellow Chicago Sun-Times writer Richard Roeper, The Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips and A.P.'s Christy Lemire are hatching a new movie review show, to be announced shortly.

These days, many of the people who aren't interested in what's playing at the multiplex are checking out the new movie opening on HBO instead. Hollywood only has itself to blame. Ignore the adult audience and they'll get out of the moviegoing habit, rent DVDs and subscribe to HBO. This weekend many folks watched the opening of Grey Gardens, starring movie stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore (both strong Emmy contenders for Big and Little Edie) instead of going out to see new movie State of Play (which earned a barely respectable 63% on Metacritic to Grey Garden's 77). There was a time when Grey Gardens would have been a theatrical release. Now it's an HBO film--reviewed by the Two Bens on At the Movies:

State of Play, which opened soft to about $14 million, and the upcoming The Soloist, which is unlikely to drop 'em dead at the b.o. next week either, share the same weakness. (Here's Variety's Soloist review.) They're 'tweeners. You can see the problem. Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner want to make studio-level smart-audience movies with decent budgets and movie stars. With State of Play, they started out with Brad Pitt and a high-quality supporting cast and wound up with no Pitt on the eve of the Writers Strike, hastily replaced by Russell Crowe. He's wonderful as a stocky long-haired Saab-driving muckraker of the old school, pitted against his old college chum, an ambitious Congressman (Ben Affleck), his editor (Helen Mirren), contending with the forces fighting against the survival of newspapers, and a young blogger (Rachel McAdams).

For its part, The Soloist boasts Robert Downey, Jr. and Jamie Foxx—-who are not guaranteed marquee draws. (Nobody is, anymore.) Both movies remind us of why we need to pay for good journalism. State of Play works as a Washington corporate intrigue thriller, while The Soloist was designed as a high-minded topical headline drama, its Oscar hopes dashed by Paramount when it was pushed back to spring release. But this movie is creakier, less steady on its feet, through no fault of the actors. It might have worked better on HBO, where it could have had the courage of its convictions. It's simultaneously too dark and too light. It's overwrought to such a degree that even though it's based on a true story, the homeless man is too disturbing, and the drama, too uplifting.

Finally, both films are based on old models that just don’t work anymore. But it’s not the adult drama that should be blamed here. It’s studio execs willing to lavish spending on movies--State of Play's $60 million budget was partly funded by Relativity Media--that are unlikely to recoup.

Instead of trying to inflate these movies by pumping them up with mainstream commerciality, the studios should hand them over to indie subsidiaries able to produce them on more a modest scale. At which point, Crowe and Affleck and Downey and Foxx would get paid a lot less. And their movies might make their money back.

Here's the Grey Gardens trailer:

Boston Phoenix critic Gerald Peary's long-gestating doc For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is finally done. Appropriately, for a film hatched nine years ago at the Toronto Film Festival, Peary is taking his self-financed labor of love, produced with wife Amy Geller with foundation grants and funds from friends, on the film fest circuit, first to SXSW, and next, this month's San Francisco International Film Fest.

Peary conducted the first interviews in 2001, strangely enough, at the World Trade Center at a meeting of the New York Film Critics Association, a few months before 9/11. "Now the movie is filled with people without jobs," says Peary, whose primary income comes from running the film department at Boston's Suffolk University. He keeps having to go back into the film and change titles to "ex-critic." His subjects, including a plumper, talking Roger Ebert, will also see themselves captured at a younger age.

Thus the film, which offers an excellent history of American film criticism, also serves as a valentine to a vanishing profession, something Peary could never have foreseen. He interviewed the critics he could catch, at Toronto right after 9/11, in Cannes, and in New York. He asked them to answer the personal question: "Why am I a film critic?" And he got them to talk about their earliest film memories. "The stupidest view is that film critics don't like anything," says Peary. "Most critics are smitten at an early age, you can see the shine in their eyes."

As Peary fashioned his 100-year-narrative of criticism, he leaned on the likes of Richard Schickel to share his fave critics such as obscure early writers Frank Woods and Robert Sherwood, and filmmaker John Waters, who reveres Parker Tyler. Peary goes back to the days when Andrew Sarris first espoused the auteur theory and the merits of Budd Boetticher and Douglas Sirk in the pages of Film Culture, which led to the wars between the auteurists led by Sarris and Pauline Kael and her Paulettes. "A good doc teaches you something," says Peary.

Even the late Kael and Manny Farber made it into the movie, via talk-show appearances and filmed interviews. Ex-critic Jami Bernard offered up her home movie of being unemployed. Peary wanted to find the tape of Farber interviewing James Stewart at the Telluride Film festival, "but nobody knows where that is." Next up: finding a distributor and clearing his film clips, which if they are not deemed fair use, could cost a fortune.

It's hard not to feel sad at the end of this movie, about a world that no longer exists, a profession that seems to be dying in front of our eyes. Spoutblog's Karina Longworth speaks for the younger generation plying the craft online, but the old culture of literate lengthy debates when movies seemed to really mean something are long gone. "It's a stop the bleeding movie," says Peary. "I hope that those who watch the movie value criticism and will read it and demand it in their newspapers. It's tough though. There are so many factors. What's the effect on people who Twitter all day? That's not good for film criticism."

Here's a transcript of Peary's SXSW critics panel, a Q & A with Peary in Filmmaker, and the trailer:

After a video montage in which directors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, and Oliver Stone paid tribute to Roger Ebert, Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker presented ShoWest's Career Achievement in Film Journalism Award to the Pulitzer-Prize winning critic of the Chicago Sun-Times. "Roger Ebert is the most popular, most respected, most honored, and most eclectic film critic in American history," Barker said, citing Ebert as "one of the few saviors of independent film--films of all shapes and sizes--American independent features, foreign films, documentaries, and animated films. Ask any independent filmmakers who Roger has championed. Errol Morris will tell you Roger gave him his career. Louis Malle used to tell everyone Roger Ebert saved My Dinner With Andre and Atlantic City from disaster, Robert Altman the same with several of his films. Pan's Labyrinth, Memento, Monster, Hoop Dreams, Roger and Me--we would not know these movies in the way we know them if it were not for Roger Ebert. This is fact."

Most journalists are in awe of Ebert's prolific output. But since he lost the ability to speak due to surgery for throat cancer, he has increased his writing, as if to compensate. And it has never been better. At ShoWest, Ebert's wife Chaz read his acceptance speech as he stood next to her. He mentioned his early and recent discoveries of directors Martin Scorsese, Mike Leigh and Ramin Bahrani. And he begged the exhibitors to please not only pay attention to number one b.o. performers but dedicate a screen or two to the independents as well. "Let's ask ourselves," he said, "how many of us would choose Fast & Furious for a night out at the movies over other indie films? They motivate adults to attend movies." He wound up: "At times like these, we all need to see a good movie."

[Photo: Ethan Miller, Getty Images North America]

Careful what you wish for. Snarky blogger Nikki Finke has won a huge following. Now her targets are fighting back. Rod Lurie has his say at The Wrap, which is reporting healthy initial traffic after two months.

Freelance critic Elvis Mitchell talks about the state of film criticism.

Life Magazine is reincarnated online as a photo archive.

Pristine Wolverine is leaked to film pirates.

NYT critic A.O. Scott responds to New Yorker blogger Richard Brody’s assault on his NYT Magazine tome on Neo Neo-realism. This is what blogs are for. What better way for Scott to draw attention to his piece, and for the less known Brody (who is an editor at the NYorker) to draw readers to his new movie blog?

The L.A. media ranks continue to be winnowed. The Media News Group is turning long-time Daily News critic Bob Strauss into an entertainment editor, leaving colleague Sean Means in Salt Lake City (who is keeping track of the declining numbers of film critics) as one of the chain's surviving movie reviewers. At least Strauss has a job. For the moment. The Daily News' film critic Glenn Whipp and TV critic David Kronke are gone. And Media News' Denver Post, which asked its employees to take a week off without pay before March 1, is now the surviving paper in Denver: The Rocky Mountain News published its last edition last week.

It strikes me that many of the surviving critics at metropolitan dailies are bloggers. It may be coincidence, but critic/bloggers are able to make claims for their readership numbers. Bloggers can build measurable fan bases, interact with readers in a more personal way, and demonstrate their strength with online traffic stats. Among the more robust critic/bloggers: Means, The Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Rickey, The Oregonian's Shawn Levy and The Boston Globe's Ty Burr. And let's not forget the most aggressive blogger of all: The Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert, who also pays close heed to what's happening in film journalism.

The week before the Oscars, producer Joe Pichirallo threw a book party for his old boss from The Washington Post, former executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., who talked about his Washington-intrigue novel, The Rules of the Game. It was heady indeed to hear the man who took over from Ben Bradley discuss supervising reporting on Watergate, Iran Contra and Oliver North, negotiating with several presidents about national security, and the dire future of the newspaper business. But sadly, he was describing a bygone era. As editors of newspapers worry about covering their overhead with less-lucrative online ads and obsess over traffic, sober news-gathering is losing stature against quick spikes from celebrity gossip.

Recently a number of writers have taken on the thorny subject of where newspapers are heading; Walter Isaacson in Time brings back the suggestion that if ads aren't going to subsidize expensive newsrooms, than readers should pay for high-quality news content, as many Wall Street Journal subscribers do. But firewalls on the internet prevent Google searching and finally, piss people off. This article sums up the subject and points out the pitfalls of charging customers. UPDATE: The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz takes on the failure of newspaper managers to adjust to reality:

"Years ago," says Jeff Jarvis, a blogger who has worked for the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Daily News, "why didn't we take more aggressive action and use the power of our megaphone to promote the product and change the organization?" The answer is that newspapers were "a cash cow," he says. "We thought too much about trying to preserve what we had."

KCET addresses the future of newspapers by finding a ray of sunshine in the success of a non-profit online journalism venture, The Voice of San Diego, which has no print edition to publish and distribute and thus uses 70% of its earnings to pay for staff:

On the other hand, it's easier to grow something small from the ground up than it is to downsize a massive organization that has always been in the business of making money from the delivery of newsprint. (The Christian Science Monitor, with less emphasis on advertising, is making the switch to online, although it will still print a weekly edition.) It's very hard to reconfigure a big business into a lean and mean one. For one thing, the people who manage that business are looking to protect themselves. Seattle critic Tim Appelo reminded me of this quote from H.L. Mencken:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Meanwhile, some online niche sites that are able to keep costs low are succeeding, partly by feeding content to bigger sites in exchange for traffic.

In a web-related move, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker sold their racy streaming content to Netflix.

Even folks with plenty of moolah are struggling, it seems, to make ends meet. In case you missed this one, even though she earns some $2 million a year, Vanity Fair photographer Annie Leibovitz has turned to pawning her photos to maintain her luxurious lifestyle. If you want to help her out, her book Annie Leibovitz At Work is on sale at a substantial discount at Amazon.com. UPDATE: The photog's latest VF assignment: the comedians:

Phil Gallo, another Variety staffer set free from full-time employment, bids farewell to his music blog The Set List. I wish him well wherever he takes it.

Meanwhile, still-employed crickets the Two Bens praise Watchmen on At the Movies, while Anthony Lane buries Zack Snyder's take on the Alan Moore graphic novel in The New Yorker. I'm with Lane:

The problem is that Snyder, following Moore, is so insanely aroused by the look of vengeance, and by the stylized application of physical power, that the film ends up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon. The result is perfectly calibrated for its target group: nobody over twenty-five could take any joy from the savagery that is fleshed out onscreen, just as nobody under eighteen should be allowed to witness it.

The New Yorker critic David Denby and the New York Times' A.O. "Tony" Scott don't necessarily know how to call the Oscar race--leave that to professional Oscar watchers, please---but they do know how to talk about movies. I always love to hear them gab with Charlie Rose.

Denby also has other things on his mind, like the deterioration of the quality of our cultural discourse as "civilized" newspaper and magazine journalists go the way of the dinosaur. He talks about his new book Snark with the LAT. Of course he's right to be concerned about the loss of long-form journalism and many of these issues but the notion that print carries more "authority" than online isn't going to hold much longer.

First, the younger generation doesn't grant print more authority, because they don't read newspapers or magazines--not one person in my new film criticism class at USC reads Entertainment Weekly, for example. Online, the NYT and Washington Post and Variety may carry more authority than less trusted brands. And with Perez Hilton, what you see is what you get. In the online world order, each individual searches for as much "authority" as they wish for. 

My flight from LAX to Salt Lake City was delayed. Every seat was taken, many of them by industry folks heading to Park City for the Fest which launched Thursday night. I enjoyed a pleasant sunset drive up the mountain with Robin Schorr, who recently left River Road to put together a new development company with funding from a private investor. She told me to see Big Fan, from writer-turned-director Robert Siegel (The Wrestler). The voice behind Ratatouille, Patton Oswalt, breaks out in this one, I hear.

I missed the opening press conference and the opening night movie, Mary and Max, an Australian claymation feature that Variety's Justin Chang did not like:

Maudlin sentiment, miserablist humor and scatological sight gags are affectionately but awkwardly molded together in the Australian claymation feature "Mary and Max." A glum tale of friendship between two very unlikely pen pals, writer-director-designer Adam Elliot's follow-up to his Oscar-winning 2003 short "Harvie Krumpet" has its share of deadpan amusements, but its combo of mordant whimsy and tearjerker moments winds up curdling in an unappetizing fashion. A strong voice cast headed by Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman could buoy the toon's otherwise uncertain prospects beyond Oz.

At a civilized dinner at Black Dog with a bunch of film critics, we talked, naturally, about newspapers and mags slashing salaries and/or jobs. The New Times chain is down to two critics: Scott Foundas in LA and Jim Hoberman in New York will service the entire chain, with freelancers, now including ex-LA Weekly film critic Ella Taylor. Andy Klein was let go from L.A. CityBeat. Time Out New York lost its lead film critic, Melissa Anderson. The gloomy drumroll drones on.

And we talked hot fest titles:

I had been tipped on Burma VJ, which HBO scooped up before the fest. John Anderson has seen it and raved.

He also liked We Live in Public, the doc about New York dotcom millionaire Josh Harris in the early 90s that bears some resemblance to The Truman Show. A bunch of CAA agents raved about this. And Jeff Wells also liked it.

UPDATE: Word is, The Greatest is a four-hankie breakout for writer-director Shana Feste and Brit actress Carey Mulligan, who stars in another hot fest title, Lone Scherfig's An Education. Producer Lynette Howell (Half Nelson) has high hopes.

Here's the Variety special Sundance section with list of Hot Titles. Ken Turan runs down all the films he's seen in advance of the fest. The NYT is running a Sundance page. And check out the revamped IndieWire, which is running a constant feed of Sundance stories along with its own reporting.

Here's the We Live in Public trailer:

RottenTomatoes has posted winners of its Golden Tomato Awards for 2008 for the best and worst-reviewed movies on the critics aggregation site.

No surprise on the winner of the best-reviewed wide release-- Wall-E: 96%. More than any other company, Pixar has won this honor five times.

Man on Wire grabbed best-reviewed limited release: 100%. Only one other film has earned this score: Pixar's Toy Story 2.

Worst-reviewed film is One Missed Call at 0%, the lowest-ever Tomatoes score.

At this stage, Man on Wire is the film to beat for the best feature documentary Oscar. And Wall-E will likely score best animated feature, plus some nominations for writing, sound editing, sound and score, the same ones earned by last year's animated winner, Ratatouille. Will Andrew Stanton add director to the list? That is the burning question.

A lot of people think that Slumdog Millionaire, which won five Critics' Choice awards Thursday night, is on its way to the best picture Oscar. Critics awards push Academy Award voters to look at screeners, and help build a sense of momentum for frequent winners. (Like Milk's Sean Penn.) But that's about it. They're not predictive. The Guilds are more indicative of the way Academy voters are leaning, because many Oscar voters are in the guilds, too.

Stu Van Airsdale--AKA The Reeler, now writing for Defamer--continues his long tradition of trashing ten best lists. We all enjoy seeing someone take the wind out of Anthony Lane's sails. And it was strange that MCN's Michael Wilmington liked Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stone doc Shine A Light as much as he did.

Here's Jon Weisman's latest update on critics group voting:

Top battle: Sean Penn vs. Mickey Rourke; quietly building up kudos: Marisa Tomei

PICTURE
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
St. Louis Film Critics

“The Dark Knight”
Austin Film Critics

“Frost/Nixon”
Las Vegas Film Critics

“Happy-Go-Lucky”
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

“Milk”
New York Film Critics
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Southeastern Film Critics

“Slumdog Millionaire”
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Boston Society of Film Critics
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
Florida Film Critics Circle
National Board of Review
New York Film Critics Online
Phoenix Film Critics Society
San Diego Critics Society
Satellite Awards (drama)
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

“Wall-E”
Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
Chicago Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics

“Waltz With Bashir”
National Society of Film Critics

“Wendy and Lucy”
Toronto Film Critics

In a sign of the journalistic times, the best recent stories in the LAT seem to come from the Washington Post, like this one about the worst films of 2008. The biggest loser, One Missed Call, was green-lit by Warner Bros., a Japanese horror remake starring low-rent thesps Edward Burns and Shannyn Sossamon. It earned a zero Rotten Tomatoes ranking, quite an accomplishment.

There is a silver lining for 2009, as Hollywood faces grim times. If the studios, God forbid, are forced by the credit crunch to make fewer, less expensive films and spend their own money producing them (as the LAT suggests in this grim forecast written before the SAG strike looked less likely), yes, they will take less risks, but they will also pay more attention to making strong commercial films with a defined market niche. In short, they will make better films. And fewer ones like One Missed Call.

Billy Wilder is one of those tough unsentimental directors whose films get better with time. Years later, they still feel contemporary. And the Oscar-winning The Apartment, reviewed here on video by the NYT's A.O. Scott, is on my All-Time Top Ten List.

Scott picked up some video performance skills while guest-reviewing on Ebert & Roeper; he also recognizes that video reviews are where online criticism is heading. He should do more of these; it works.

I have been a frequent critic of the new At the Movies movie reviewing team, Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. In fact, at a screening of Tropic Thunder at Comic-Con, I was sounding off on Lyons to my colleagues when a man turned around from the seat in front of me and said, "Hello, I am Ben Lyons." Was my face red. Later, Lyons approached me in one of the convention hallways as I was sitting on the floor juicing up my laptop, and I snapped the picture above.

Clearly, he's a genial telegenic young fellow who loves movies and film fests (he was all over Toronto, getting his picture taken with celebs he was interviewing, like Keira Knightley). But these qualities do not necessarily a good film critic make. I couldn't help wondering, when Lyons recommended that audiences see Valkyrie (I also liked the movie, btw), if he wasn't keeping future E! access to Tom Cruise in mind.

The LAT went after Lyons last week, as others happily piled on. (UPDATE: here's Kim Voynar.) Does he have any supporters, as ratings plummet? Well, the one demo that seems to like him is 20ish young men like him. And I confess that when I visited Charles Fleming's USC entertainment journalism class, a few of the kids admitted to watching the show.

But how long can Lyons last against this barrage of naysayers? The other Ben, Mankiewicz, would be so much better if he had someone sharper to play against. I'd take even youngsters Matt Singer or Karina Longworth over Lyons any day. They are capable of a little depth of discourse, at least.

The movie my family and I went to see on Christmas Day was chosen by many others over the holiday: Marley & Me, a cannily crafted family film starring a restrained Owen Wilson, a charming Jennifer Aniston and a series of delightful rambunctious Labrador retrievers as the titular dog, Marley. My family made fun of me for crying so hard.

Written by Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex) and Scott Frank (Get Shorty) and directed by David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada), this movie delivers both a romance between a handsome couple plus their relationship with their dog. This well-calibrated studio tear-jerker doesn't go overboard on the sentimentality, hews close to the original material (the bestselling memoir by newspaper columnist John Grogan) and keeps the performances natural. Both stars are well-matched to their roles and each other; Wilson gives his most mature performance to date. (Here are diametrically opposed reviews by Todd McCarthy and Stephen Holden.)

Also doing well over the holiday, after Marley & Me, was The Curious Life of Benjamin Button, which also drew opposite reviews from Scott (a rave) and the LAT's Turan (a dismissive pan). Its Metacritic average was 70%. That's just ok, but it should score with Oscar voters for its sheer technological virtuosity in any case.

EW's Dave Karger reviews the post-Christmas Oscar landscape. Needing a serious boost from critics was Revolutionary Road, reviewed Friday. The LAT's Turan loved it. Rotten Tomatoes' top critics give it 80%, which is good, but Metacritic is at 71%. I'm not feeling the Academy love for this movie, except for Kate Winslet, who could win the best actress Oscar for the double whammy of Road and The Reader. And Michael Shannon has a shot at a supporting actor nom.

It hasn't been a good year for film criticism. Here's a round-table interview with established film critics. And here's David Poland's plaint about the LAT hiring former L.A Times entertainment editor Betsy Sharkey as film critic. With so many unemployed professional critics out there, it seems a shame to deny one a prime slot. But that's not what's going on. The LAT doesn't want to let one of their good people go, and gave her an available gig.

Going forward, film criticism is going to be in the hands of folks like Defamer's Stu Van Airsdale, who doesn't like what he's seeing at year's end, and Reel Geezers, who prove that it's not so much a question of age as format: the future is free video. Here's their review of Milk:

Wendy and Lucy tops Film Comment's annual critics poll of 20 best films of 2008:

1. Wendy and Lucy Kelly Reichardt, U.S. 580
2. Flight of the Red Balloon Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan/France 564
3. A Christmas Tale Arnaud Desplechin, France 557
4. Happy-Go-Lucky Mike Leigh, U.K. 538
5. WALL·E Andrew Stanton, U.S. 534
6. Still Life Jia Zhang-ke, Hong Kong/China 521
7. Paranoid Park Gus Van Sant, France/U.S. 465
8. Waltz with Bashir Ari Folman, Israel/France/Germany 424
9. My Winnipeg Guy Maddin, Canada 406
10. Milk Gus Van Sant, U.S. 356
11. Let the Right One In Tomas Alfredson, Sweden 351
12. The Duchess of Langeais Jacques Rivette, France/Italy 335
13. The Class Laurence Cantet, France 334
14. Synecdoche, New York Charlie Kaufman, U.S. 297
15. Hunger Steve McQueen, U.K. 289
16. Silent Light Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Netherlands 286
17. Ballast Lance Hammer, U.S. 283
18. Man on Wire James Marsh, U.K. 282
19. The Exiles Kent Mackenzie, U.S. 257
20. Gomorrah Matteo Garrone, Italy 253

I do love Wendy and Lucy, which made the AFI Top Ten American movies of last year, and did well with the Alliance of Women Film Journalists as well.

Here's my Top Ten:

1. Wall-E
2. Slumdog Millionaire
3. Milk
4. Everlasting Moments
5. Happy-Go-Lucky
6. A Christmas Tale
7. Man on Wire
8. Waltz with Bashir
9. Wendy and Lucy
10. Appaloosa

Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington wants to end review embargoes. Not sure this would work in our Hollywood world.

Here's the latest internal Variety memo from Jon Weisman updating critics' group awards:

Surging: Heath Ledger and "Let the Right One In"

Honorors of the Day: Toronto Film Critics
Honorees of the Day: "Wendy (You had the dogfood money in your pocket!) and Lucy" and Jonathan (Twenty Minutes of Wedding Toasts) Demme

- Jon

PICTURE
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
St. Louis Film Critics

“The Dark Knight”
Austin Film Critics

“Happy-Go-Lucky”
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

"Milk"
New York Film Critics
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Southeastern Film Critics

"Slumdog Millionaire"
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Boston Society of Film Critics
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
National Board of Review
New York Film Critics Online
Phoenix Film Critics Society
San Diego Critics SocietySatellite Awards (drama)
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

"Wall-E"
Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
Los Angeles Film Critics

“Wendy and Lucy”
Toronto Film Critics

ACTOR
Clint Eastwood
National Board of Review

Ricky Gervais
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

Richard Jenkins
Satellite Awards (drama)

Sean Penn
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Austin Film Critics Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
Phoenix Film Critics SocietySt. Louis Film Critics
San Francisco Film Critics Circle (tie)
Southeastern Film Critics

Mickey Rourke
Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
San Diego Critics SocietySan Francisco Film Critics Circle (tie)
Toronto Film Critics
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway
Austin Film Critics Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
National Board of Review
Southeastern Film Critics

Sally Hawkins
Alliance of Women Film Journalists (tie)
Boston Society of Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

Angelina Jolie
Satellite Awards (drama)

Meryl Streep
Phoenix Film Critics SocietyWashington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Michelle Williams
Toronto Film Critics

Kate Winslet
Alliance of Women Film Journalists (tie)
St. Louis Film Critics
San Diego Critics Society

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin
New York Film Critics
National Board of Review

Heath Ledger
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Austin Film Critics Boston Society of Film Critics
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
Phoenix Film Critics SocietySt. Louis Film Critics
San Diego Critics SocietySan Francisco Film Critics Circle
Southeastern Film Critics Toronto Film Critics
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Michael Shannon
Satellite Awards

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz
Boston Society of Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
National Board of Review
Southeastern Film Critics

Viola Davis
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
St. Louis Film Critics

Rosemarie DeWitt
Satellite Awards
Toronto Film Critics
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Taraji P. Henson
Austin Film Critics

Marisa Tomei
Phoenix Film Critics SocietySan Diego Critics SocietySan Francisco Film Critics Circle

DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online (with Loveleen Tandan)
Phoenix Film Critics SocietySt. Louis Film Critics
San Diego Critics SocietySatellite Awards
Southeastern Film Critics Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Jonathan Demme
Toronto Film Critics

David Fincher
National Board of Review

Mike Leigh
New York Film Critics

Christopher Nolan
Austin Film Critics

Gus Van Sant
Boston Society of Film Critics
San Francisco Film Critics Circle

Variety's Jon Weisman assembled these revealing lists of critics group awards. Remember that while these wins help to build momentum and throw attention on films and talent, boosting the possibility that Academy members will check out a film, critics and Academy voters do not always think alike. I don't think Slumdog Millionaire, Dark Knight, Wall-E or Milk have anything to worry about. But thanks to critics, more people will look at Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Rachel Getting Married, The Wrestler, Man on Wire, The Visitor and Happy-Go-Lucky.

PICTURE
“Happy-Go-Lucky”
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

"Milk"
New York Film Critics

"Slumdog Millionaire"
Boston Society of Film Critics
National Board of Review
New York Film Critics Online
Satellite Awards (drama)
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

"Wall-E"
Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
Los Angeles Film Critics

ACTOR
Clint Eastwood
National Board of Review

Ricky Gervais
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

Richard Jenkins
Satellite Awards (drama)

Sean Penn
Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online

Mickey Rourke
Boston Society of Film Critics (tie)
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway
National Board of Review

Sally Hawkins
Boston Society of Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
Satellite Awards (comedy/musical)

Angelina Jolie
Satellite Awards (drama)

Meryl Streep
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin
New York Film Critics
National Board of Review

Heath Ledger
Boston Society of Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

Michael Shannon
Satellite Awards

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz
Boston Society of Film Critics
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online
National Board of Review

Rosemarie DeWitt
Satellite Awards
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle
Los Angeles Film Critics
New York Film Critics Online (with Loveleen Tandan)
Satellite Awards
Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics

David Fincher
National Board of Review

Mike Leigh
New York Film Critics

Gus Van Sant
Boston Society of Film Critics

I'm not a big fan of live-blogging, but it does work occasionally, as NY Post critic-blogger Lou Lumenick demonstrates with his play-by-play reporting of the New York Film Critics's divisive voting this morning.

Thus, Rachel Getting Married led the first two ballots and Milk pulled ahead on the third, followed by Happy-Go-Lucky and Slumdog Millionaire; Milk star Sean Penn handily beat The Wrestler's Mickey Rourke; Milk's Josh Brolin beat out The Dark Knight's Heath Ledger; and documentary Oscar front-runner Man on Wire beat out Waltz with Bashir and Trouble the Water. Vicky Cristina Barcelona's Penelope Cruz easily defeated Viola Davis of Doubt; third place was a tie between Rachel Getting Married's Rosemary DeWitt and Debra Winger. Happy-Go-Lucky writer-director Mike Leigh narrowly edged out Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle. Wall-E took best animated feature over Waltz with Bashir.

Here's Lumenick on how the best actress vote went down, which helps explain the ballot process:

Sally Hawkins of "Happy-Go-Lucky'' won the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress as voting got under way this morning at the Time-Life Building. Hawkins won on the second weighted ballot, receiving 39 points to 32 points for Melissa Leo of "Frozen River,'' with Kate Winslet ("Revolutionary Road'') and Anne Hathaway ("Rachel Getting Married'') with 22 apiece. In the NYFCC's convoluted voting system, the critics make one choice apiece n the first round. If nothing captures a majority, there follows one or more weighted ballots, each critic ranks choices with 3, 2, and 1 points; the winner also has to appear on the majority of ballots until the fouth ballot (if there is one) -- in Hawkins' case, 18 ballots.

OSCAR ANALYSIS
Finally, the critics voting solidifies my thinking re: the Oscar race. The Golden Globes may add some fuel tomorrow, but for now I see Milk as the front-runner for best picture, followed by Slumdog Millionaire and The Dark Knight, with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Doubt and Revolutionary Road fighting it out for last two slots. Penn may be the front-runner now, but the man he has to beat is Clint Eastwood, who gives a devastating performance in Gran Torino. The Academy will be moved to tears by him. Mickey Rourke looks solid for a nom. The Visitor's Richard Jenkins could have used more help here.

Thanks to critics, Sally Hawkins and Melissa Leo are moving into best actress contention, while I've Loved You So Long's Kristin Scott Thomas may not. Changeling's Angelina Jolie is fading fast. Milk's Josh Brolin and James Franco could both win supporting slots.

Revolutionary Road will be in the hunt for picture, director, adapted screenplay, actress, actor and supporting actor. But the grim, serious drama needs some love at this point, especially from critics. And may get it.

The Reader, which may have a shot for Kate Winslet in supporting and David Hare for adapted screenplay, has a long way to go. It got slammed by critics today, earning an initial 54 % on Metacritic. That is not good enough. It needs all the help it can get.

Doubt has the support of the dominant actors branch and likely the writers (if not directors); it will be vying for actress, supporting actress, supporting actor and adapted screenplay.

Much as I admire Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days, it strikes me as oddly perverse for the NYFCC to throw their foreign vote away on a movie that is only available on DVD at this point, rather than trying to boost the theatrical and Oscar fortunes of a new upcoming release. But it's a free country.

The full list of winners is on the jump:

What's great about the L.A. Film Critics and Time Magazine's Richard Corliss voting Wall-E as best film is that not only is it among the best-reviewed movies of the year (93 % on Metacritic), which means that most critics adore it, but it's an underdog. I've gotten into trouble for suggesting that critics groups ever vote with an eye on other upcoming awards votes. But perhaps the critics' desire to help Wall-E helped knock out its stiffest competitor, The Dark Knight, which doesn't need any help at this point. Wall-E was also a huge boxoffice success, but what it needs is respect. This is the first time the critics' group has awarded its top prize to an animated film.

I like the way the LA critics reveal their runner-ups. Slumdog Millionaire continues to do well, with prizes for director and score, and Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky snagged major wins for screenplay and actress Sally Hawkins. Frozen River's Melissa Leo was the runner-up in that category, which makes me wonder about Kristin Scott Thomas's chances to break into the Oscar Top Five; maybe not everyone has seen I've Loved You So Long. She needs some wins to get there.

In the best actor race, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke solidified their front-runner status, leaving Frank Langella as an also-ran; Frost/Nixon was shut out by the critics, as was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which had to settle for runner-up for Alexandre Desplat's score. For supporting actor, Heath Ledger will be tough to beat. The critics awarded Penelope Cruz supporting actress for her perfs in two films, Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Elegy, leavng Viola Davis in the runner-up spot for Doubt. Israeli Waltz with Bashir won not only best animated film but runner-up for best documentary, a category for which it is ineligible for the Oscars.

Here's the full list:

Picture: "Wall-E" Runner-up: "The Dark Knight"

Director: Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Runner-up: Christopher Nolan, "The Dark Knight"

Actor: Sean Penn, "Milk"
Runner-up: Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"

Actress: Sally Hawkins, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Runner-up: Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"

Supporting actor: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Runner-up: Eddie Marsan, "Happy-Go-Lucky"

Supporting actress: Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Elegy"
Runner-up: Viola Davis, "Doubt"

Screenplay: Mike Leigh, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Runner-up: Charlie Kaufman, "Synecdoche, New York"

Ex-Premiere film critic Glenn Kenny sheds some light on why Premiere.com is pissing on what's left of the brand. Don't get me started on what Premiere.com could have been.

The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics have added more heat to the Slumdog Millionaire awards juggernaut, awarding four prizes to the film including Best Film and Best Director.

Here are the winners:

Best Film: Slumdog Millionaire/Fox Searchlight
Best Director: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Actor: Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
Best Actress: Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Best Supporting Actress: Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Original Screenplay: Jenny Lumet (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Animated: Wall∙E/Disney&Pixar
Best Documentary: Man on Wire/Magnolia Pictures
Best Foreign Film: Let the Right One In/Magnolia Pictures and Magnet Releasing
Best Ensemble: Doubt/Miramax
Best Breakthrough: Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button/Paramount

First there was the story of the Landmark Cinema digital screening of the Spanish-language Che without any subtitles at all. Critics prepared to screen the movie were sent home when the projectionist couldn't solve the problem. Then there was a Aidikoff Wilshire Screening Room digital screening of English-language Doubt, which started off with Che's Spanish subtitles. (There had been a Che screening prior.) The projectionist stopped the film and after about three minutes started over again without the offending subtitles.

UPDATE: Thursday night Paramount screened The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at two venues. The SAG screening at the Arclight went smoothly. The "print" at the DGA, which the studio had spent eight hours testing on Thursday afternoon, was missing a color. Magenta. The film was green. And eventually, after about 20 minutes, because the cinematographer and sound mixer called producer Frank Marshall, the projection was shut down. Paramount technicians tried to reboot the hard drive, but couldn't fix the problem. Those of us who sat in the room saw them come close to a full-color projection, but something was wrong with the projector, a Paramount publicist said server, according to Marshall. "On the right setting it was wrong, and on the wrong setting it was right," he wrote in an email. "Welcome to digital."

David Fincher, the original perfectionist, must not have been happy. Marshall and partner Kathleen Kennedy, who had been working on this movie for some 18 years, were distressed; the screening was packed with key critics, press and industry Academy members. Other screenings are scheduled for Saturday. "This would not have happened to Stanley Kubrick," said one wag.

Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert keeps in touch with his fans via his well-read blog. Here's a recent memoirish entry.

Baz Luhrmann loves drama, spectacle, scenery, westerns, war movies, romance, adventure, and over-the-top emotion. That's what you get in Australia, which is well done for what it is, assuming that you like old-fashioned Hollywood movies of the sort they do not make anymore. Luhrmann's camera careens around the rugged dusty outback, its desert crags recalling Monument Valley. The director artfully blends landscape and pounding horses and cattle with VFX. The end of the movie, when the Japanese bomb Darwin, calls up Pearl Harbor, and not necessarily in a good way. The movie's cattle baron villains might as well be called Snidely Whiplash.

The heart of Australia is less the stylized big movie romance between Lady Ashley and the Drover (well played by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman) than their love affair with a magical aborigine boy (non-pro Brandon Walters). Like Dances with Wolves, this epic western seeks to heal old wounds between a continent's dominant white culture and its older, indigenous one. Whether the film will prove to be as commercial as the Kevin Costner Oscar-winner is another question. Critics are likely to be mixed on Australia, which could hurt its Oscar chances. Green Cine collects the first round of Australia reviews, from Down Under. Here's Todd McCarthy.

Gurus 'O Gold and Buzzmeter are tracking various Oscar watchers. Slumdog Millionaire is rising up the charts, partly because it has been well-publicized and reviewed and is doing well in theaters. How can anyone say that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the front runner if they haven't seen it yet? I will see it Thursday. Remember, most of these movies haven't yet opened or been widely reviewed, much less put in front of paying audiences. UPDATE: Fox News' Roger Friedman, who tends to be friendly toward Weinstein Co. releases, advance reviews The Reader.

My Sunday night At the Movies habit is so deeply ingrained that I keep watching, even when it's a train wreck. The film discourse between the two new young hosts, Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz, is dismayingly shallow. A new website has launched devoted to getting rid of Lyons. And one of the show's co-founders, Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, who had to leave the telecast because he lost his voice, has posted a list of dos and don'ts for would-be critics. It's not a stretch to figure out one target for this critics' primer. UPDATE: efilmcritic's Erik Childress is running a Lyons quote of the week on his CriticWatch blog.

E! Entertainment's Lyons, for one, loves running photos in his blog of himself posing at the Toronto Film fest with stars like Keira Knightley. He once came up with this sage line: "I love women in real life, but I hated 'The Women.'" And he chose as one of his picks-of-the-week--usually saved for pointing viewers at things they should not fail to miss-- the trailer for the upcoming vampire flick Twilight. The now-you-see-it-now-you-don't critics' corner, which has been disparaged in many quarters, has not yet been killed off entirely, it seems. One of its stronger participants, IFC's Matt Singer, says he has been scheduled to shoot another one.

Ratings have plummeted, by as much as 20 %, depending on the demo. But the show's producer, David Plummer, denies that At the Movies ever approached former host Richard Roeper to return. For one thing, it was Roeper's choice not to renew his contract. (Roeper could not be reached for comment.) He's been working on setting up his own syndicated show. As to rumors about replacing Lyons or Mankiewicz, "that story has no merit," said Disney ABC.

Meanwhile Ebert remains a powerful print and internet presence, and has added his trademark thumbs up and down (which Disney ABC failed to retain for the show) to his blog.

The long tail prevails. My daughter Nora, 19, is more interested in renting old Kevin Smith comedies and Good Will Hunting than she is in going out to new movies. The perfect book for any cinephile is Biographical Dictionary of Film author David Thomson's latest blue and red tome: "Have You Seen…?” , 1000 one-page reviews (of about 500 words each) of must-see movies, from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein to Z. Here's my review.

Based in San Francisco, Thomson considers himself to be an historian more than a film critic, although he's done reviews for Film Comment and Esquire and other publications over the years. He's idiosyncratic, entertaining, erudite and fun to read. Early on, he says, he persuaded Knopf to forgo both illustrations and a rating system. Photos would have made the book too weighty, not to mention expensive. "If I couldn't get what I thought about a film into 500 words..." he says. "This book is all about the text."

Thomson's thinking about changes for the revised version, he says: "I already have second thoughts." He might drop some titles and add new ones, like the 1945 Michael Redgrave horror film Dead At Night or Bette Davis in Dangerous. He admits that he erred on the side of older films rather than more contemporary ones because people need reminding, he says. "There's a tremendous amount of valuable old stuff."

Friends are indignant, he says, that he omitted Danny Boyle's Trainspotting. He left out plenty of Best Picture Oscar winners because "the Oscars serve their purpose, but they are an extremely unreliable reflection of what actually happened. The people awarding the Oscars do not have a laudable record. They've been wrong on more of them than they've been right."

“Have you Seen…?” is a book for anyone with a Netflix queue who seeks more depth than a Rotten Tomatoes score. And it's also available on Kindle.

Let the fur fly. In the first review of Doubt, Todd McCarthy is casting seeds of doubt on Meryl Streep's performance.

Like Frost/Nixon, this play-to-screen adaptation is a small-scale period two-hander. The movie enjoyably pits Streep as a tough nun at a Bronx Catholic school against powerful priest Philip Seymour Hoffman. She thinks he's up to no good with a young black student. He thinks she has no basis to prove him wrong. Amy Adams is caught in the middle as a young, trusting nun. The great thing about the play--and the movie--is that we never know for sure who's right. Does the nun have the moral right to act on her instincts that the priest could do the child harm? John Patrick Shanley (who won an Oscar for writing Moonstruck) does a beautiful job of translating his play to the screen.

Oscar-wise, despite McCarthy's concerns about Streep--who definitely adds more nuance and character details to the role as written---the Academy actors should reward Streep for this, and Viola Davis in supporting, for just one bravura scene. With the actors behind it and impeccable production credits the movie is a strong contender, even though it's small, for best picture, adapted screenplay, actress, supporting actress, and music. Here's Pete Hammond.

Doubt's greatest strength is that it invites debate and discussion. I haven't had this much fun arguing about a movie since No Country for Old Men. Almost a year later, my post about that film's pesky ending is still generating comments.

Oscar season is under way. How do I know? Well, Paramount Vantage has published its Academy screening schedule and is pushing hard for The Duchess, Defiance and Revolutionary Road. You'd never know that the label had been slashed within an inch of its life. That's because Paramount marketing co-head Megan Colligan is still on the Vantage case.

Another bellwether: LAT blogger Geoff Boucher's "three-part exclusive" interview with Christopher Nolan. Yes, Warner Bros. wants to sell The Dark Knight DVDs, but no director submits to a long interview in the LAT in advance of a DVD release unless Oscar is at stake.

The Dark Knight (which is sneaking up on Titanic's all-time worldwide boxoffice gross, as James Cameron well knows) should nab some Oscar noms and might even win some awards, for the late Heath Ledger, as well as various tech contributors. But director, screenplay, best picture---that's another kettle of fish for a comic book blockbuster.

While Dark Knight scored 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, and many critics will put it on their ten best lists, it's not going to win year-end critics' group prizes, because they tend to spotlight smaller pics that need help, such as Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York or Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, two films that were summarily dismissed this weekend by at least one of At the Movies' Two Twerps. (Why do I keep watching? The habit is ingrained but painful.)

Iron Man is another example of a deserving film that nabbed better reviews than most films this year (93% on Rotten Tomatoes) and may be overlooked in major categories at Oscar time. On the other hand, Jonathan Demme's horrific thriller Silence of the Lambs and Peter Jackson's fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings weren't supposed to be Oscar bait either. Justin Chang examines the superhero Oscar phenom.

Also climbing up a high Oscar wall is the year's best-reviewed movie---as of late October, unlikely to be unseated--Disney/Pixar's Wall-E, from Andrew Stanton. It earned 97% when it first opened June 27. Here's my story about why it's tough going for an animated film to earn a best picture slot. Again, critics groups will likely stick the film in their animated category and focus on rewarding smaller fare.

But bowing to pressure from the community, Disney and Pixar are going for it. I've got insider info: Variety's running a Disney ad on Thursday that not only asks for Academy members' consideration for Wall-E for best animated feature but for best picture as well. (Here's the LAT's look at the new Disney animation under John Lasseter, who cracked the whip on Disney's upcoming Bolt, UPDATE and the NYT on big movies going for Oscar.) Disney's going to put on a concerted marketing effort to push Wall-E with AMPAS, the guilds, critics, producers, the works.

Wall-E deserves a shot at best picture. And it couldn't be more timely, in terms of nailing the zeitgeist. It won't take long, the way things are going, for us all to wind up in Wall-E's world.

When the going gets tough....the LAT has set loose film critic Carina Chocano, among the expected 75 staff cuts announced today.

Manohla Dargis was a hard act to follow. When the critic was lured to the NY Times in 2004, the LAT saw fit to move TV critic Chocano over to film, in a classic "anyone can do this" move. Suddenly someone perfectly suited to the TV beat was out of her league and never managed to catch hold on the film side. She did better at feature essays than daily criticism, and was always a strong voice on women's issues. One of her best pieces, not surprisingly, was her Sex and the City review. Here's her LAT gallery of reviews.

Now, to quote from reality-TV jargon, she's out. It's all a game of Survivor in journalism these days.

Here's LAT editor Russ Stanton's letter to the troops:

Colleagues, The growing economic downturn is forcing us to undergo another round of job reductions and cost cuts. I deeply regret to report that today, 75 of our friends, colleagues and capable staff members in Editorial will be told that they are losing their jobs. This is about 10% of our total staff and these cuts are comparable in scale to those made on the business side of The Times last week. The severance terms being offered to our colleagues are similar to those offered in the other reductions we've faced this year. I appreciate your patience, understanding and cooperation during this difficult period. Your department heads and the senior editing team, including John, Davan, Meredith and I, are available to hear your concerns and answer any questions. Russ Stanton Editor Los Angeles Times

I saw Changeling for the second time Thursday night. It's as good as I remember it from last May at Cannes. And it's just the kind of movie that Academy members will appreciate--it played well at the Academy premiere.

Clint Eastwood beautifully evokes Los Angeles in 1928, when women were passive creatures bossed around by men, when the LAPD was corrupt and lawless, and when the real Christine Collins made news headlines when the police tried to return to her a son who wasn't hers. When she refuses to submit to their version of the truth, they clap her in an insane asylum.

Angelina Jolie is more than fine as Collins. She says she modeled the role on her mother; she seems dead-on for the period. She's sympathetic; we care about her and root for her, and get very angry on her behalf. That may be what the movie has going for it the most, given our lack of trust in authority right now. The movie will play strictly for adults, who may come out in droves, starved for material as they are. And Jolie should easily grab an Oscar nom.

John Malkovich and Jeffrey Donovan are both strong, as her advocate and nemesis, respectively. And Michael Kelly, one of Variety's ten actors to watch, also pops.

I admire Eastwood's ethic of working fast and hard on multiple projects. I also applaud each film's organic shape and size, and the director's resistance to formulaic three-act structures. But there's something wrong with the trajectory of Changeling's last half hour. As long as the film hangs on Jolie, it works, but it takes a detour in its last third to focus on a serial killer mystery before returning to Collins' search for closure. Some Eastwood movies such as Flags of Our Fathers and Changeling seem to be missing that last final polish.

Peter Bart reflects on how Clint Eastwood has changed over the decades: for the better.

It sccored a not-so-great 51% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes (1979's The Changeling scored 77%). Here are reviews from Michael Wilmington and Todd McCarthy.

Read Steve Gaydos's report on his October 22 Q & A with Changeling screenwriter J. Michael "Joe" Straczynski on the jump.

Here's the trailer:

Needless to say, the AFI Film Fest freaked when Paramount pushed back The Soloist from 2008 release. They figured---rightly--that the movie would be pulled from their opening night. That's not what Paramount wanted, though. The studio thought they could still screen the movie, and hoped that CAA and the filmmakers would see it their way over last weekend. But finally, it's too great a risk to show a movie like The Soloist on October 30 when the movie won't open until March 13. What if, God forbid, it doesn't play? That would be tough to recover from.

So the AFI had a big gaping hole to fill: with celebrity guests. Would Paramount supply one of its movies, moving Defiance up from closing night (would Daniel Craig be here?) or putting up Revolutionary Road or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Would Scott Rudin supply Doubt in place of Revolutionary Road? Would the trades review the movie, whatever it was? AFI promised to alert the media Thursday.

UPDATE: Finally, at 6:30 PM, AFI artistic director Rose Kuo announced the replacement film: Rudin and Miramax came through, with Meryl Streep-starrer Doubt. Happy ending.

Perhaps remembering last year's Oscar campaign for Atonement, which some Oscar-watchers felt peaked too early, Universal is holding back on Frost/Nixon, which is perceived by many to be 2008's Oscar front-runner. But suddenly Universal's slow-burn Oscar campaign is at the mercy of the London film critics. Spread at click-speed, the first London Film Festival review by The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw happened to be negative. Stateside trade reviews proved more positive. And many bloggers were pissed that they hadn't yet been invited to see the movie.

Here's a sampling of LFF reviews:

The London Times

Empire

This is London

The Independent.

The James Bond movie Quantum of Solace is reviewed in London as well:

The Independent's Geoffrey McNab wants more "humour."
The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw says it's "a crash-bang Bond."
The Times' James Christopher says villain Mathieu Amalric has a "wormy arrogance"

The weekend boxoffice will probably be lead by Max Payne, a welcome commercial entry for Fox, which has suffered a long slow stretch. Here's Variety's forecast. Videogame adaptation Max Payne is a test of Mark Wahlberg's stardom--will audiences turn out to see him in a badly reviewed movie? He can be hit or miss. Shooter, for example, didn't play at the b.o., but did score well in DVD sales.

Second place will likely be held by Oliver Stone's timely political biography of the president, W, which is so far nabbing 61% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sex Drive, which I have not seen, earned 57%. I am not the target demo for this or Max Payne.

I hope that people who liked the Sue Monk Kidd book will go see The Secret Life of Bees, which is 1) a women's picture and 2) exactly the sort of conventional sincere heartwarming period ensemble movie that (male) critics do not like. It's earning 46% on Rotten Tomatoes. UPDATE: Here's Richard Corliss in Time.

According to Fandango, 18% of some 3,000 surveyed moviegoers who were planning to see W on opening day classified themselves as “conservative,” and 6% thought the film might have an impact on how they would eventually vote in the presidential election.

The results, as of 2 p.m. PT Thursday:

* 51% are male; 58% are 25-49;

* 23% classify themselves as liberal; 18% as conservative; 22% as moderate;

* 34% say they voted for George W. Bush in a previous election;

* 27% say they will vote for McCain; 53% say they will vote for Obama;

* 67% want to see it because of Oliver Stone’s reputation as a controversial filmmaker;

* 10% say the presidential and vice presidential debates have made them more interested in seeing the movie;

* 6% say the film might impact how they vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Fandango Five – Ticket Sales (as of 10/16/08 2:00 p.m. PT)

Movie Fandango User Rating % Fandango Sales

High School Musical 3: Senior Year “So-So” 56%

W. “So-So” 12%

Max Payne “Go” 9%

The Secret Life of Bees “So-So” 8%

Beverly Hills Chihuahua “Go” 4%

Ron Howard and Peter Morgan's film version of Morgan's play Frost/Nixon screened at the London Film fest at 10 AM Wednesday morning. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw has a mixed review. Like Peter Bart, he gives Frank Langella's Richard Nixon the upper hand over The Queen star Michael Sheen as David Frost. Guy Lodge, who is covering the London Film Fest for In Contention, posts his review.

Stateside trades were planning to post at 4 PM PST today, Wednesday, but look for them to go up sooner.

UPDATE: Here's Todd McCarthy:

"Frost/Nixon" is an effective, straightforward bigscreen version of Peter Morgan's shrewd stage drama about the historic 1977 TV interview in which Richard Nixon brought himself down once again. Like the other election year release about a modern Republican president, "W.," this one isn't out to "get" its much vilified subject as much as it tries to cast him as something of a tragic victim of his own limitations and foibles--tragic for the perpetrator and his country alike. Frank Langella's meticulous performance will generate the sort of attention that will attract serious filmgoers, assuring good biz in upscale markets, but luring the under-40 public will pose a significant marketing challenge. Universal release preemed Wednesday night as the opener of the London Film Festival in advance of Dec. 5 Stateside bow.

Here's an interview with David Frost.

Reel Geezers Marcia Nasatir and Lorenzo Semple, Jr. were interviewed on NPR yesterday about their favorite DVDs to rent.

Nasatir's Must-See Picks

Yankee Doodle Dandy
Talk of the Town
Hail the Conquering Hero
The Third Man
Some Like It Hot
Heat of the Night

Semple's Must-See Picks

Gattopardo, Il (The Leopard)
Sweet Smell of Success
The Harder They Come
The Third Man
Once
Dr. Strangelove
A Clockwork Orange

Here's a clip from Jimmy Cliff's reggae musical The Harder They Come.

Here's the latest Reel Geezers post about their fave political films: