Digital Popcorn

5. "Pet Sematary": I know, I know. It didn't exactly age well and yes, the book was much better. However, it's worthy to note that this may be the last horror movie where they not only kill a toddler in a visible and violent fashion, but kill the same toddler twice! Fred Gwynn puts up his second-best performance ever (first, of course, being "My Cousin Vinny") and I'm still haunted by Churchill the cat, Zelda the ghost sister and the returned monster/boy who burns his father's house down in Gwynn's flashback.

4. "House of a Thousand Corpses": Rob Zombie massacre flick that preceded "Hostel," "Saw," and all the other torture-for-the-sake-of-torture movies that modern the horror genre has embraced.

3. "Dawn of the Dead": While not necessarily scary, "Dawn" (the new one with Ving Rhames) is — without a reasonable argument to the contrary — the greatest zombie movie ever and arguably the greatest monster movie ever. Mixes comedy, shock, great special effects and, for once, quality acting in a horror movie.

2. "The Blair Witch Project": Shaky camera realism that captures the terrifying sensation of being lost in the woods with unreliable partners — all while being hunted by an unseen monster.

1. "The Shining": Korin got it right ... Stephen King's writing, Stanley Kubrick's directing, Jack Nicholson's acting. REDRUM!!!

— Andrew

In the spirit of Halloween, Moviefone has released its top 31 horror movies of all time.

Check out the five spookiest below — if you dare. Mwah ha ha ha! Ahem, OK:

5. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre": The original, not the remake (obviously).
4. "The Shining": Jack Nicholson scared the bejesus out of audiences in this Stanley Kubrick film
3. "Psycho": Even if you haven't seen this one, you know Janet Leigh's shower scene. (Shudder.)
2. "The Exorcist": Linda Blair's freaky, possessed antics resonate today. Hello, spider walk down the stairs! (Below, for your viewing pleasure.)
1. "Halloween": Ah, how appropriate!

— Korin

Village Halloween Parade not your thing? Go for Halloween screams on the big screen instead -- check these classic horror flicks around town tonight:

Night of the Living Dead: George A. Romero's quintessential zombie flick shows at the MoMA tonight at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Nosferatu: Showing at the Village East Cinema at 7:30 p.m. 9:30 p.m. with an original LIVE score operformed by the Devil Music Ensemble. $15

Rocky Horror Picture Show: Catch everyone's favorite campy, kitschy flick at the Clearview Chelsea at midnight.

-- Lauren

* Pierce Brosnan (allegedly) doesn't play nice.

* "Spider-Man 4" has found a writer.

* And, finally, the trailer for "Mad Money," Katie Holmes' first film since TomKat exploded on to the scene, has arrived. Check it out and tell us what you think!

— Korin

FX's Halloween screening of "The Blair Witch Project" this week brough back many memories.

"Blair Witch" is not only one of the smartest horror films in history, but one of the most smartly marketed — advertised not as a movie about three kids who get lost in the woods hunting a witch that winds up hunting them, but as a documentary gone awry.

I was a victim of that marketing.

In the summer of 1999, I found myself telling my friends that I had just seen the greatest horror movie ever, which was so great because it wasn't a movie at all. Instead, I told them, it was a screening of old tapes found in the woods that belonged to three kids who had gone missing while filming a documentary the year before.

The idea that I had seen actual footage — shaky camera and all — of actual people in the moments before their actual death was something that I couldn't stop thinking or talking about ...

Until one of the wiser among my friends asked a question: Did the movie have credits? Why would a best boy or a gaffer or a lighting tech or a post-production editor be needed if it was simply a compilation of previously recorded footage?

Refusing to admit I'd been had, I held my ground.

His next question was if you seem the people die. At the very end, I explained, yes.

It's illegal, he explained, to film people being killed and that no theater in America would ever play such a thing.

There's a sucker born every minute. I should know, I'm one of them.

— Andrew

* Brad Pitt, Unabomber?

* Rumor Willis talks about the responsibilities of fame. Um, what?

* Alanis Morissette is headed back to the big screen.

— Korin

Some of Hollywood's most plugged movies of the week have received early reviews. And they're not exactly what we'd call "good."

Check the 'em out here (we pulled the harshest quotes for you):

* "Bee Movie"
"Bees just aren't that funny" — The Hollywood Reporter.

* "Martian Child"
"Sentimental hogwash" — the Associated Press

Major bummer.

— Korin

* Corgis Poppy, Anna, Alice, Megan and Oliver took top honors at the first annual Fido Awards. Woof!

* Michelle Williams gets her "Mammoth" on.

* Heads up, comic book fans! The Green Lantern is bound for the big screen.

— Korin

"Saw IV" sliced its way to the top of the box office charts this weekend with $32.1 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates.

The franchise has been a surprise hit for Lionsgate, which first released the gory flick on a low budget.

"I would expect to see 'Saw V' next year, 'Saw VI' the year after that and 'Saw VII' the following year if they can keep it up," Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers told the Associated Press. "There's just something inherently gruesome and compelling about these movies. I don't know what that says about society in general, but it certainly works at the box office."

At this rate, our grandkids will have the pleasure of watching "Saw XXXVIII."

The horror!

— Korin

Ryan Gosling is out to tell the world that he's no diva. Seriously.

The "Lars and the Real Girl" star dropped out of the cast of "The Lovely Bones" a day before filming was supposed to take place. But, he says, the decision was supported by director Peter Jackson.

"The age of the character versus my real age was always a concern of mine," he told Parade magazine. "Peter and I tried to make it work and ultimately it just didn’t. I think the film is much better off with Mark Walhberg in that role. ... I’m going to be the first person in line to buy tickets."

Gosling was plagued by rumors that he was difficult to work with, but according to the actor, the media "always slant things in a negative direction."

Do not!

— Korin

Wondering which new release to check out this weekend? amNewYork movie critic Mina Hochberg is here to help:

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
'Devil' gets off to a hot start with a revealing prelude prominently featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman's fleshy rear and Marisa Tomei's naked and eternally youthful breasts, a yin and yang of visual pleasure that makes for a nicely raw lovemaking scene. Read more...

Dan in Real Life
With all its warm and fuzzy trappings, "Dan in Real Life" belongs in that category of home-for-the-holidays movies that offer a certain comfort in their well-scripted broadness. Read more...

Rails and Ties
The raison d'être of "Rails and Ties" is to tug at heartstrings. The tugging quickly becomes nagging, annoying and finally flat-out laughable. Read more...

Photo by Will Hart

* JK Rowling says Dumbledore's gay--seven clues that any astute movie-watcher (or book reader) should've spotted

* Do the Oscars have a thing for floozies?

* From Catwoman to Gaffewoman in 1 joke--Halle Berry apologizes for 'anti-Semitic' Tonight Show joke

Photo by Murray Close / Warner Bros

Marc Wahlberg just joined the cast of "The Lovely Bones" after Ryan Gosling dropped out of the project a day before filming was set to begin. Not cool, Ryan. Gosling, who gained 20 pounds and grew a beard for the role, told E! Online that he left due to "creative differences."

In other casting news, Julia Stiles has signed on to star opposite Paddy Considine ("The Bourne Ultimatum," "Cinderella Man") and Scott Speedman ("Underworld," "XXX: State of the Union") in "Cry of the Owl," according to the Hollywood Reporter. She'll play a woman who falls in love with her stalker (yikes!) in the thriller.

— Korin

* The Hamptons International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow.

* Whoa, Nelly! Ex-couple Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal were spotted K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

* Garcelle Beauvais-Nillon is seeing double.

— Korin

A friend recently loaned me this short documentary from HBO films , which was nominated for an Oscar in 2005. It's worth a watch and offers a window into the life of Kevin Carter -- who was so tormented by the ethical questions behind his success as a war photographer that he finally took his own life. ( And if you're interested in war photography, by the way, also see "War Photographer" the documentary on James Nachtwey.)

Carter was one of a band of four daring photojournalists who documented the violent ending of apartheid in South Africa. They were known as The Bang Bang Club.

Carter won a Pulitzer prize for this photo, which ran in The New York Times on March 26, 1993.

The image, called "Wanting a Meal," haunted Carter who was consumed with guilt that he hadn't helped the child, who died. "The Death of Kevin Carter" describes the events that led to his suicide on July 27, 1994.

"War Photographer" Clip:

-- Lauren

It was a sad, sad weekend at the box office for new movies with big hype.

Ben Affleck's highly-anticipated "Gone Baby Gone" debuted at No. 5 with $6 million in sales, while the Reese Witherspoon/Jake Gyllenhaal-starring "Rendition" landed at No. 9 with a measly $4.2 million in sales. Major bummer.

"30 Days of Night," the critically-panned gory vampire movie (you've seen the ad — weird-looking vampires hulk around while Josh Hartnett wears a ski cap and looks good), took top honors with $16 million.

Shows how much America listens to the critics.

— Korin

I don't really remember big boobs being part of the Beowulf I read in high school ... but this larger than life poster plastered to the side of Madison Square Garden tells a different story:

This is the Beowulf story I remember: It's a tenth century tale written in Old English that chorincles the adventures of a great Scandinavian warrior.

But it seems the folks at Paramount weren't convinced the storyline alone would drive people to the theaters for the latest CGI rendition (starring Angelina Jolie) of the story set to hit big screens Nov. 16 -- so instead, they're going with Angelina's super-digitally enhanced boobs.

See trailer -- and boobs -- here:

-- Lauren

* Jim Carrey will do another Christmas movie.

* "Superman Returns" writers aren't um, returning.

* Brangelina's taking over HBO, baby!

— Korin

Many devoted fans of Kurt Cobain obsessively followed the man and heard his music, but few had the chance to hear him speak. That changes now with the haunting and eloquent documentary "About a Son," released earlier this month.

The film strings together bits taken from 25 hours of interviews recorded by rock journalist Michael Azerrad, who collected the audio tapes for his biography on Nirvana, "Come as You are: The Story of Nirvana."

Cobain's voice plays under a series of artful scenes shot in the various towns and cities that shaped Cobain as he rose from struggling bar musician to rock icon. The effect drifting and beautiful as images northwestern highways meld with Cobain's descriptions of his dysfunctional family, his stomach pain, fatherhood, and finally -- his obession with suicide.

Check out this podcast interview with the director and Azerrad: CLICK FOR PODCAST, and see the trailer:

-- Lauren

Thinking of kicking back at home this weekend?

No sweat, we've got you covered with a few of this week's latest DVD releases:

* "A Mighty Heart": Angelina Jolie plays Mariane Pearl, the wife of kidnapped reporter Daniel Pearl, who tries to save her husband.
* "Transformers": More than meets the eye! Seemingly inanimate objects morph into robots and duke it out over Earth.
* "The Reaping": Hilary Swank faces a series of scary events that reflect the ten plagues of Exodus
* "Reign Over Me": Adam Sandler is a man whose world crumbled after Sept. 11. His old college roommate (Don Cheadle) helps him get his life back.
* "Surf's Up": A penguin enters his first professional surfing competition in this animated tail — oops, tale.

— Korin

Wondering which new release to check out this weekend? amNewYork movie critic Mina Hochberg is here to help:

Things We Lost in the Fire
For a movie that deals head-on with some pretty hardcore subjects -- murder, drugs, loneliness, addiction -- "Things We Lost in the Fire" is surprisingly buoyant, thanks to a flawless Oscar-worthy performance from Benicio Del Toro. Read more...

Reservation Road
In "Reservation Road," distraught parents played with paralyzing raw emotion by Joaquin Phoenix and especially Jennifer Connelly deal with the horror of losing a child. Read more...

Gone Baby Gone
Ben Affleck has taken a stab at directing. And it's not half bad--it's hardly perfect, but flaws and all, this gritty drama is admirable for its ardent grappling with the gray areas of the human conscience. Read more...

Rendition
It's a shame that "Rendition" felt the need to put such dramatic Hollywood touches on a story that required no embellishment, given today's political realities. Read more

You can read more of Mina's reviews at her archive.

* Ang Lee isn't getting any love from Taiwan.

* Attention, Trekkies! The cast of "Star Trek," the movie, is growing.

* Eva Mendes talks about sex (scenes), baby!

— Korin

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are officially dunzo, "The Lars and the Real Girl" star confirmed to GQ.

"Women are mad at me," Gosling told the mag in its latest issue. "A girl came up to me on the street and she almost smacked me. Like, 'How could you? How could you let a girl like that go?'"

The ex-couple met on the set of "The Notebook" and dated up until a few months ago, Gosling said. This is the first time he's talked about their split.

"God bless 'The Notebook,' " he added. "It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life. But people do Rachel and me a disservice by assuming we were anything like the people in that movie. Rachel and my love story is a hell of a lot more romantic than that."

— Korin

“Across the Universe” is described as a “Fantasia” set to Beatles’ songs with the leads named Jude and Lucy. The scene is a volatile decade that I didn’t live through but that nonetheless molded my existence (my mother emigrated from Vietnam during the ’70s). OK, duh, it molded everyone’s existence.

The trailers for this movie show it to have this trippy, Dali-like quality that may make me dizzy. But I’ll appreciate the love story and the music. Right?

— Emily

I’m no fan of Westerns, but “3:10 to Yuma” was thoroughly enjoyable. Christian Bale gave an amazing performance as the embattled crippled rancher father guy, but it was Ben Foster who stole the show.

Foster was just silly as Angel in “X-Men 3,” but “3:10 to Yuma” gives him a real role to play. He’s a faithful sidekick to infamous gunslinger Ben Wade, but Foster plays up his sadistic side, too. His chemistry with Russell Crowe is priceless.

This movie is my favorite for the fall. And hey, it’s got the redheaded guy who played the pirate in “Kickball.”

— Emily

* May the force be with you — and your TV.

* "Superbad" director Judd Apatow joins FunnyOrDie.

* Want to see your favorite L.A.-based movie star's mug shot? Too bad.

— Korin

It's (unofficially) sci/fi week on TNT. And in most cases, including this one, that makes it a bad week.

Of all the genres of film, science fiction probably has the worst bad-to-good ratio. The standards are just too high. Good dramas only have to be sort of good, good comedies can be just kind of funny and some of the greatest horror movies ever have been downright terrible (see: "Child's Play"; "Children of the Corn") But for sci/fi flicks to be even watchable, they have to be brilliant, perfect, flawless ...

This is not the case with "The Breed," "Blade II," "The Chronicles Of Riddick," "The Fifth Element" or "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" (all of which will air on TNT this week).

But one science fiction "thriller" that TNT will run this week stands out from them all: "Signs" — the Mel Gibson movie that was essentially the point of no return for the actor-turned-director.

"Signs" embodies both the final remnants of the old, cool jumping-off-an-exploding-toilet-with-Danny-Glover Mel Gibson and the new, bearded, wild-eyed, yelling-at-cops-about-why-Jews-are-evil Mel Gibson.

It was the final work of the old, happy-go-lucky Mel and the first work of the new, way-too-into-Jesus Mel ... and it's a movie about aliens that were smart enough to get to Earth, but so dumb that they overlooked the fact that the planet they invaded is comprised 80 percent of the only thing that can kill them — water.

All sci/fi, all week: The sign of a lousy lineup.

— Andrew

Some judge the people they meet by the color of their skin, their gender or their politics. When I size up a new personality, I have just one question — the answer to which tells me everything I'll ever need to know about you, your credibility and your worth as a human being: Do you like Nicholas Cage?

If the answer is anything other than you vomiting in disgust from the mere mention of his name, I can never, ever be your friend.

Last night, USA blessed us with "Face Off" — arguably the worst movie on the resume of the man who any sane person recognizes as the worst actor in the history of American cinema. Just this side of the so-bad-it's-good category, "Face Off" is watchable only as a goof.

Co-star John Travolta can be great or he can be terrible. Here, he's neither, he's just shooting guns and really bad one-liners at Nicholas Cage — who stole his face and his wife and his headlines — in a movie that reminds us that nepotism — people getting jobs because of their family members (Tell your nephew to get off my set, Coppola) — is bad.

— Andrew

** Editor's note: The views and opinion of Andrew Lisa are not necessarily shared by everyone at amNewYork **

TBS knows just what to offer on cable channels, which are the last and best movie hope for those of us who are too cheap for premium channels.

I don't need TBS to butcher "Saving Private Ryan" or bore me with "Hope Floats," but I don't need them to beat me over the head with guy-marketed action flops every night either.

This Friday, at 1:10am and 3:40 am, respectively, TBS brings us "Batman" and "The Running Man." I know, I know, it's a little late. But hey, I'm a morning person — and even if I weren't, I'd be willing to stay up for this.

In the only "Batman" installment I'm willing to recognize, we're treated to what are arguably the best performances of both Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton. OK, there is no argument — "Gung Ho" was obviously Michael Keaton's best performance.

But unlike Keaton, Arnold Schwarzenegger has no best role. They're all equally terrible. So why not pick the one that was written by Stephen King and throw it at us two hours before sunrise. Thanks, TBS!

— Andrew

"The Brave One" star Jodie Foster is coming clean about her issues with gadgets.

"I have a problem with electronics," she said at a press conference in Tokyo, according to Reuters. "I can't ever make them work. It drives me crazy."

The two-time Academy Award winner said she occassionally flies off the handle, like her "Brave One" character, Erica Bain, but "the only time where I lose my temper is on inanimate metal objects."

FYI - Jodie's 44 years old. Not 85.

— Korin

* Ben Affleck received an early rave review for "Gone Baby Gone."

* "Hellraiser" is back from '80s slasher flick oblivion.

* Angelina Jolie's new flick beefs up on casting.

Here's the endorsement: Go see Ryan Gosling in "Lars and the Real Girl." Don't make a mental note to 'Flix it later -- see it in the theater -- it's worth it. You'll leave feeling just a little bit better about humanity.

Ryan Gosling's character is awkward and withdrawn and in his journey to figure out what it means to be a man, he orders a life-size rubber sex doll and introduces her to the town as his girlfriend. Forget all the Farelly brothers slapstick you might conjure at the mention of the rubber sex doll -- just like he did with "Half Nelson," Gosling brings kindness and humanity to the role that he's described as a kind of modern-day "Velveteen Rabbit." And he does so much acting with eye blinks!

Check out the trailer — and I repeat, go see "Lars."

— Lauren

The CMJ music marathon kicks off on stages across New York tomorrow. And — who knew? — the festival features movies, too.

amNewYork's music guru, Emily Hulme, sorted through the submissions and selected her top picks here.

Check 'em out and let us know what you think!

— Korin

amNewYork's resident DVD expert Max Dickstein recaps his latest at-home showings:

1. "Hotel Rwanda": A tale of magnificence amid the previous decade's
genocide, but one that oddly sends viewers on their way with a too-tidy
ending.
2. "Manhattan": Woody Allen's sad, unredeemed story of Isaac Davis, a
creative and combative soul in the city whose clever humor inspires more
pity than laughs.
3. "In the Company of Men": Shooting in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 11 days
with a budget of $25,000, writer/director Neil LaBute presents his spare
story of egregious, misogynistic workplace wronging with shocking
neutrality.
4. "Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny": A worthless jumble of crappy
dialogue and images that would be only marginally improved through viewing
under the influence of the drugs its characters use. The songs are sort of
funny, though, and they're presumably the only reason this Jack Black movie
was made.
5. "The Untouchables": Twenty years later, this film's depiction of the
takedown of Al Capone in Prohibition-era Chicago appears overstyled and sort
of yielding, but Sean Connery and a top-notch cast on the villains' side
made "The Untouchables" a classic.
** Note: Director Brian De Palma is in pre-production on a prequel called "The
Untouchables: Capone Rising." Gerard Butler ("Sparta!") is attached to play
a younger version of the original film's Connery character, the gritty beat
cop Jimmy Malone. Nicolas Cage was slated to take over for Robert De Niro as
Al Capone, but he scampered and that title role is still unfilled to my
knowledge.

Lindsay Lohan is officially back in Los Angeles to shoot her new flick, "Dare to Love Me."

The recently-rehabbed starlet visited a tanning salon and was one of the very few people who took in a showing of "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" over the weekend, People magazine reports.

Lohan, 21, was expected to finally start shooting the movie today.

— Korin