The Gurus are back in business, delivering the weekly take on where the horses in Hollywood's ultimate race. There are not a lot of surprises in this week's Top Ten, but there are new faces in Best Actor and Best Actress, plus a surprising choice in the #3 slot for Animation Gurus: November 4

Film Reviews MCN Critics Roundup Box Office Hell Interviews DVD Reviews Zemeckis’ Christmas Carol, like most of his other movies, is a good show, gloriously, as he says, “full of stuff.“ More>

Our Players	Coming Soon	Box Office Prophets	Box Office Guru	Ent Weekly
Disney's A Christmas Carol	37.4	n/a	41	41
The Fourth Kind	13.5	n/a	11	8
The Men Who Stare at Goats	12.2	n/a	7	9

Wilmington on Movies
Disney's A Christmas Carol, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Fourth Kind, Paranormal Activity and 35 Shots of Rum ...
by Michael Wilmington

The movie is certainly a visual stunner. And, despite the bizarre excesses of the action sequences, it’s also a fairly faithful and even loving adaptation, mostly well written and very well acted. Does that endorsement include Carrey as Scrooge (and also all three Christmas Ghosts)? Yes it does.

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Wilmington on DVD
Food, Inc., North by Northwest, Forrest Gump, It's a Wonderful Life, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and more ...
by Michael Wilmington

Do you know that the post-modern world of corporate farming is often run by corporate bullies who put smaller farms and agriculture workers through Hell (like a hapless seed-separator persecuted by Monsanto whom we see here)? That the old bucolic world of farms and farms we will remember and idealize is largely gone and has often been replaced by the usual greed-crazed creeps
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MCN DVD Wrap
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Having to cope with the noise, grime, pervs and hooligans can be a daily nightmare, without also having to deal with a gun-toting terrorist (a pre-“Jaws” Robert Shaw) or former employee with an ax to grind (a thoroughly menacing John Travolta). Denzel Washington and Walter Matthau may not look as if they’d belong in the same movie, even 35 years apart, but they both created perfectly believable negotiators. 

Also ... The Shield: Complete Series, I Love You, Beth Cooper, Forrest Gump: Chocolate Box Giftset .. and more...

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The Ultimate DVD Geek
Paul Blart: Mall Cop and
Observe and Report
by Doug Pratt

2009 turned out to be the year of the 'shopping mall security person' comedy, and it shows you how fast trends turn over these days that there were only three months between the theatrical release dates separating the point where the genre was established, with Paul Blart: Mall Cop, a Sony Pictures Home Entertainment release, and was then undercut in cynicism, with Observe and Report, a Warner Home Video release.

 

Voynaristic
The Vampire as Moral Compass
by Kim Voynar

Back in the day, it was more, well, black-and-white. Vampires were the devourers of humans, the seducers of innocent, pale-skinned virgins ... they were Bad Guys, plain and simple. For most of their literary and cinematic history, it made sense that this was so; the world back then was a simpler place, a place with clear-cut perceptions of right and wrong.
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Frenzy on the Wall
Why Do They Keep Making Them Like They Used To?
by Noah Forrest

A lot of modern films care little about entertaining an experienced filmgoing audience; many filmmakers simply recycle past ideas without even bothering to repackage them as something different. Although this phenomena crosses all genres, it seems especially prevalent in horror films.

Confessions of a Festival Junkie: AFI
by Leonard Klady

One can only hope that what the organizers demonstrate is a flexibility to adapt as the festival proceeds. If the crowd demands, add second screenings because the one thing no one wants is a patron that feels shut out from the experience. Much better to have someone walk away from such superior offerings as The White Ribbon, Bad Lieutenant, City of Love and Death or Looking for Eric with a feeling of having seen something unique and edifying.

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20 Weeks To Oscar
The Rules Of Ten
by David Poland

The most often considered issue of this year’s Oscar race is, “How will having ten nominees change the game?”

And the definitive answer is, “Ask me next April.”

Well, even that may be a little blurry.

And - A New Best Picture Chart

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Updated: 8:49 pm