OK, with a name like "Weinberg," I wouldn't blame you for questioning my expertise in the arena of "Christmas." But I've been a big fan of the holiday, the season and (yes) even the music since I was old enough to ask my parents "Why don't Jews believe in Santa Claus?" (I stumped her on that one, I think.) And one of my very favorite things about Christmas are the traditional movies. (In my house, "traditional" Christmas movies include Scrooged, A Christmas Story, Gremlins, Die Hard, Black Christmas, Bad Santa and Christmas Vacation.) So when the newest crop of Xmas flicks hits the scene each year, I try to keep an eye out for the solid ones -- and then yesterday I saw a trailer for something called Deck the Halls.

Now, obviously one cannot judge a film without having seen the thing, but -- holy moley does this thing look like a cinematic abortion of the loudest and most hellaciously obnoxious order. Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick play a pair of neighbors who'll stop at nothing to prevent each other from having the flashiest Xmas-house on the block. Expect 79 minutes of horrible slapstick schtick by hateful characters and 11 minutes of warmed-up seasonal "warmth" that fits into the movie about as well as a tongue-kiss fits in at the dentist's office.

So anyway, the Deck the Halls trailer reminded me -- hey, there's been a whole BUNCH of really rotten Christmas comedies over the past few decades! At least seven, anyway! Which brings us to the list; all naughty, no nice.

I love Westerns. They're such great stories full of symbolism and pathos, often with great performances and compelling characters facing life and death situations. Westerns explore what it means to face your fears, to carve out a life among the harsh wilderness -- to be an American. Cowboys, one of the most enduring and recognized symbols of America, are a part of our history and who we are as a nation.

I remember the first time I watched a Western. My father was a huge John Wayne fan (still is) and when I was pretty young, he took me to see "The Duke" in the movie The Shootist. Even as a young man I reacted to the story about the last days of a gunfighter who knows he's about to die from cancer but wants to go out on his feet, fighting, instead of on his back. After watching the movie, I was hooked. Of course, my experience was made even more special by the fact that The Shootist was John Wayne's last film. How fitting that it should be a Western.

From then on, I watched as many Westerns as I could. Over the years as I grew older, I came to appreciate Westerns not just for their stories, but because of what the stories, characters and situations represent. Over time, I made a list of the Westerns that typify the Western -- those films that would serve as an excellent introduction for anyone wishing to explore this genre. In truth, I could populate this list with films mostly from the same director -- John Ford. His westerns are among the best and most widely acclaimed of all time.

He's an icon of the genre whose best work featured the stalwart and similarly iconic John Wayne. But to be fair, there are many other Westerns that have come out in the history of Hollywood that deserve your attention. Even if you don't love the genre, these films are still an entertaining mix of action, suspense, drama, and romance. They also happen to have compelling characters, horses, fist fights and even the occasional gun fight. And yes, stuff even blows up once in awhile too.

So, settle in at the saloon, pour yourself a shot of rye, and let's take a look at some great Westerns.

We lost a giant this week when we lost Robert Altman, who was surely one of the greatest of all American film directors. In choosing seven representative works, I'm going to skip over M*A*S*H (1970) and Nashville (1975), given that everyone knows them. They're both fine films, but I've just never really been drawn to them. (I've also opted, painfully, to leave out the well-known classics The Player and Gosford Park.) Rather, I like his maverick works, the ones that people seemed to ignore or misunderstand. That's how I see Altman, anyhow -- always punching away at the envelope.

1. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
This revisionist Western is unquestionably Altman's masterpiece. Warren Beatty plays an entrepreneur in the Old West who tries to organize and build a brothel, but finds he can't do it without the help of a whorehouse madam (Julie Christie). It sounds like a silly, modern-day romantic comedy about the clashing of two opposing personalities, but Altman does it correctly, getting to the root of these psychologically flawed characters and using the chilly, grungy atmosphere as part of the plan. The climactic shootout is the textbook definitions of "anti-climactic," with Beatty's character stumbling around in the snow.

If you're like me, you eat way too much on Thanksgiving. And the last thing you want to do after eating so much is to watch a film about food or eating. Kevin made up a great list of food movies in honor of the holiday, and Kim wrote about "eating" films with a twist, but following your feast, you might get stomach pains just thinking about most of them. None of them could do too much harm, however, because they are all enjoyable fictional films. As a companion piece, I have come up with seven documentaries that you would definitely want to avoid in the wake of turkey day; A few of them you will want to avoid even after your digestive system has settled.

The term "turkey" was long ago coined to describe either bad movies or huge financial flops, and there is a long list of them. (Although Kevin Costner movies like Waterworld or The Postman could better be described as "ham.") I combed through the trash to find seven treasures that I would actually recommend; these are the Butterballs.

1. Ishtar (1987, Elaine May)
Today, it's actually fairly difficult to see Ishtar, that "musical comedy" starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, even if you wanted to. It hasn't yet been released on DVD (except in the UK), and I bet most of those old VHS tapes have been carefully disposed of. But Elaine May's famous flop deserves reconsideration, if only because recent years have shown that May's first three films, A New Leaf (1971), The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and Mikey and Nicky (1977), were masterworks way ahead of their time.

Ah, Turkey Day ... my house smells like roasted turkey (although my enthusiasm for eating turkey today has been dampened somewhat by my five-year-old demanding a detailed explanation about just how exactly two happy, alive turkeys with friends and families, dreams and goals, became turkey corpses sitting in buckets of brine in our lean-to laundry room). The pineapple is perfectly suspended in its lime-green gelatin home, the yams are ready to be immersed in butter and brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice -- and I'm slurping down my second coffee of the morning, and banging out this post for you before I get elbows deep in the dressing. I was pondering last night how many movies -- not just movies with Thanksgiving dinner as the centerpiece, but just in general -- have pivotal scenes or themes around eating.

Kevin posted his fave "films for foodies" earlier today, but in honor of a day set aside for stuffing ourselves silly, I thought I'd offer up a little round-up of some of my own favorite movies that focus on eating in slightly unexpected ways. When you're done eating Thanksgiving dinner, why not cozy up with one of these films? They're sure to keep you more awake than yet another football game.

Food has been an important part of films ever since Charlie Chaplin made his dinner rolls into dancing shoes in The Gold Rush (and don't forget the Thanksgiving shoe dinner from that same flick). Since then we've had scenes ranging from the classic turkey scene in A Christmas Story ("Sons of bitches! Bumpuses!"), to the extremely erotic (and messy) kitchen scene with Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in 9 1/2 Weeks.

We've also had films where the focus is on food exclusively, or the cooking. It's a bit strange watching a movie that features food as a central part of the plot, because you'll eventually find yourself wondering when the film will finally end so you can go chow. The day that a filmmaker shoots a movie that focuses on popcorn and sodas, watch out concession stands. It'll be on onslaught of ravenous people, marching like zombies towards the smell of fresh butter and the hiss of carbonation rushing through plastic tubes. They'll sell one hundred times more snacks than they will tickets -- a theater owner's delight.

These are my seven favorite movies that are either about food, or feature them in a way that is integral to the plot. In fact, if I can get through this entire post without my stomach growling, I'll be impressed. With Thanksgiving upon us, and everyone focused on eating, you might consider renting one of these movies to watch before your turkey dinner in order to get the juices flowing. By the time everything comes out of the oven, you should be well-prepared and ready to wolf down the goods.

Now that there's been a matter of, you know, 72 hours since the release of Casino Royale, enough time has passed for an assessment of the canon -- out of the James Bond films, which are the best? Well, it's easy to name the best seven -- and in doing so, draw our week of Bond pop-culture coverage here at Cinematical to an end. Bear in mind that this list is only worth noting as a source of minor-scale arguments -- which is exactly why it's fun. And now that my inner Rob Gordon is ready, let's talk about the best Bond films of all time ... In no particular order, except for number one.

7. Casino Royale

Yeah. It's in there. In the top third, most definitely. There's more in my review, but there's not a single part of this film I didn't enjoy -- or, if I wasn't enjoying it, I was at the very least respecting it as part of the plot, as an attempt to set mood or build character, to tackle the backbreaking stoop labor of thriller-style exposition. Craig is a great Bond, and it felt real -- like the sort of thing that may, in fact, happen in something like the real world. Well, not the kick-ass free-running sequence, but still. Oh, and also: There are computers and cell phones in Casino Royale, and only one piece of gadgetry was essential to the film. Everything else? Guns, knives, fists, phones. It's down-to-the-ground stuff, and it's amazing to watch.

One of the pleasures of anticipating a new James Bond film is considering which singer or band would be most appropriate to add themselves to the long and diverse list of James Bond themes. (Wouldn't a Radiohead theme song be just great? Or the Pixies?) It's almost like winning some kind of award. These songs will likely be revived and re-packaged for generations to come. Not all of the choices have been particularly timeless ("The Living Daylights" by A-ha), and many others are not without a cheeseball flavor (Tom Jones strutting through "Thunderball"). It's also obvious that a great song does not guarantee a good movie, and vice-versa. Hence, as terrific as the new Casino Royale is, the new song by Chris Cornell is only so-so.

In choosing my seven, I decided to omit Monty Norman's original, instrumental theme, written for Dr. No (1962), but used again in various forms throughout the series.

1. "Goldfinger," by Shirley Bassey
Bassey and the Sean Connery era go together like "martini" and "shaken, not stirred." She had that bold, brassy voice that sounded not unlike the wah-wah horns or the twangy guitar that accompany all that 1960s music. It's the most instantly recognizable song, and the most closely associated with its specific film. Plus how can you not love those bizarre rhymes, like "Midas touch" with "spider's touch" and "Goldfinger" with "cold finger"? Pure genius! Bassey returned to record "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971) and "Moonraker" (1979), the latter for an undeserving Roger Moore.

I won't keep it a secret from anyone: I couldn't care less about James Bond. Maybe I'm not a man's man. Maybe I'm not a proper film critic. Maybe I just don't have the time to watch all the 007 movies in order to convince myself that they're not all the same. Whatever the reason for my disinterest in the series, the painful truth is that I'm completely lost when it comes to discussing Bond. This could be why I don't hang out with a lot of movie geeks. Or, more likely, why they don't hang out with me.

It would make sense for my disinterest in Bond to extend to the films that parody the character and the series. Sure, I appreciate a good spoof, but there's not much enjoyment for me in a joke I don't get. So, just as I don't have a desire to watch the Scary Movie franchise because I don't watch the horror movies it makes fun of, I probably wouldn't like a concentrated spoof of the Bond franchise. Luckily for me, most Bond parodies aren't strictly a series of specific jokes and gags that I don't understand. They typically have something more to offer. And those that I can appreciate and enjoy are due to my having a general, pop-cultural knowledge of Bond films, a taste for simple satire and a preference for liberal, anarchic and random humor.

So, I've made a list of ways in which Bond has been spoofed that are accessible to the non-Bond-fan. There are others out there, from pornographic parodies to obscure foreign takes on the character, but I'll let the real 007 aficionados seek out every spoof out there. ...

Given the choice last week to attend either a preview screening of Casino Royale or Deja Vu, I picked the Tony Scott film. Admittedly I was influenced by the desire to see how Scott handled the post-Katrina New Orleans location, but I also had next to no interest in the Bond film. I like Daniel Craig well enough in other movies, and have no problem with the "blond Bond" thing. No, it's a deeper problem, one that I'm hesistant to confess, because my editor called me a Communist when I brought it up: I'm just not into Bond films.

I'll watch the occasional Bond film on vacation in a hotel room when we're flipping channels at night. (No, that's not a euphemism.) I believe I've watched all the pre-Brosnan films because some TNT used to run Bond marathons whenever I visited my parents, who have cable and go to bed at 10 pm. But I haven't been tempted to a theater to see 007 since college. My favorite Bond movie is On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and that's mainly because of Diana Rigg. But I'd rather see a spy-related movie from two years earlier -- James Coburn in The President's Analyst. I'll watch other action-adventure films or spy thrillers, so it's not the genre. Why don't I care much about James Bond? Let me count the ways, below.

The long and storied James Bond franchise contains several unique components that seem to pop up in practically every chapter: The catchy pop tunes, the amazing Bond-babes, the generally-stellar action prologues, the goofy gadgets, etc. And those are all great, I suppose, except when the tunes stink, the babes can't act, the action is blah and the gadgets are silly. Doesn't happen all the time, but I like a little more consistency in my regular Bond-bits -- which is why I chose the topic I did for the inaugural installment of our brand-new Cinematical Seven Marathon, which will run all week up until the release of Casino Royale -- which I hear is actually pretty good. (And considering how much I hate the last few Bond movies, I consider that very good news indeed.)

So join us for for a little sidekick silliness as we go through the Cinematical Seven: The Very Weirdest Bond Henchmen!

Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) in GoldenEye (1995) -- She's smart, she's sexy, she's got a silly accent -- and she's absolutely deadly ... provided, of course, that you happen to be located directly between her killer thighs. And I do mean killer. Ms. Janssen turned her Bond stint into quite the solid career; in addition to the X-Men trilogy, she can also be seen in House on Haunted Hill, Rounders, I Spy and (a personal favorite) Deep Rising.

Diamondface Zao (Rick Yune) in Die Another Day (2002) -- Frankly I can't even remember what this guy did, only that he somehow had a bunch of diamonds wedged into his face. And was mean. Honestly I think Die Another Day is (far and way) the lamest Bond movie ever -- and yes, I've seen The Man with the Golden Gun. Other than in The Fast and the Furious, Mr. Yune can sometimes be seen on Alias and CSI.

Election Day is not a federal holiday in America (yet), and it doesn't call for any exploitation by Hallmark. Each year it even results in a lot of unhappiness. But the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is a day for celebration, because it is a day to recognize the right to vote as much as it is a day to exercise that right. When I think of Election Day festivities, I envision the "Election Day bonfire" described by Harpo Marx in his autobiography "Harpo Speaks." This was a biennial tradition in the Tammany-era New York City that the Marx Brothers grew up in, and I can only imagine what a delight it was to have such an observance on this day. For me, festivities are as simple as renting a political-themed film, particularly one about democracy, such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or Manderlay. This year, I decided to choose a non-fiction title, but with so many political documentaries coming out these days, it was hard to pick just one.

This year alone has seen a number of election-related docs released, including one nominated for an Oscar (Street Fight). There is a yet-to-be-released film on the political career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is up for re-election today. There is a doc about voting machines called Hacking Democracy which premiered on HBO last Thursday and which will be airing again today (unfortunately, I don't have cable). And of course, An Inconvenient Truth will be released on DVD later this month. It isn't directly about an election or voting, but it is sort of marked by the reminder of Gore's loss in the 2000 election.

So, with all the choices out there for me and you for doc-watching on Election Day, I've narrowed down a list of seven that are worth checking out for different reasons. They aren't all great, they aren't all liked by me and there's one I haven't actually seen (I'll give you a hint: it just recently came out on DVD and isn't available yet from Netflix).

To make a horror movie today without color is probably inconceivable; how else could you possibly depict all that blood and gore without red? But there was once a time when horror depended on moods, on light and shadow, and black-and-white provided the perfect palette. Dracula's castle never gained much by adding color. So what if a couple of tapestries show up on the walls? The important things are the creaks and cobwebs and the darkness. Moreover, black-and-white movies play better on TV: On dark nights when the lights are all off; they're more like tingly campfire tales told with flashlights, cozy but creepy.

For my top seven, I decided to start at the sound era, since many silent-era films used color tinting and could not be called true black-and-white. I wish I could have spared room for Tod Browning's Freaks (1932), the anthology film Dead of Night (1945), Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby's original The Thing (1951), Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), 'Herk' Harvey's Carnival of Souls (1962), Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965), Abel Ferrara's The Addiction (1995) and many others.

Vampyr (1932, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
When scholars are forced to discuss horror films, they grudgingly mention this and F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) -- but don't hold that against the films. Vampyr is not only one of the greatest of all horror films, but one of the flat-out spookiest. It concerns a dreamy young man who reads occult books. During his travels, he checks into an inn, receives a warning from a ghost and finds himself in the middle of a mystery involving two sisters. Dreyer provides all kinds of chilling, startlingly simple effects using shadows and off-screen sounds. A climactic shot has had scholars buzzing for decades: A point-of-view shot from a corpse, shot through a little window in the lid of a coffin. Dreyer made this between two other masterpieces, The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and his witchcraft drama Day of Wrath (1943).

Halloween is almost upon us, and you know what that means: People like me are busy compiling their lists of horror films that did something or didn't do something or just plain suck. Not to be left out, I have worked diligently to produce the following list of the seven horror films that I deem the bad of the bad, the worst of the worst and the crap of the crap of all time.

When taking a look at this list, please try to bear in mind that this is my list and therefore reflects my delicate sensibilities (or lack thereof). Plus, as some of you may know, I have an intense dislike for directors who feel compelled to remake, or even worse "re-imagine," classic horror films. Almost without exception these bastard children tend to be pale imitations of their originals. In fact, can we just strike "re-imagine" from the lexicon of cinema right now and have it never be used again?

Also, as I'm sure will be made abundantly clear shortly, this list is by no means complete. Tastes vary as much as Ben Affleck's acting or Lindsey Lohan's choice of boyfriends, so many films that may deserve to appear on this list will not. I know there are more -- and I know you will have your own picks, so limber up those fingers, hit the comments and tell us your thoughts.

Now, come closer to your monitor and let's roll it.

Blood Sucking Freaks (aka The Incredible Torture Show) (1976) - Director (if you can call him that) Joel M. Reed's "film" (if you can call it that) does everything wrong that it possibly could. It's stupid, pointless and on top of that, patently offensive -- even to me and I'm a huge, huge horror fan. Blood and gore don't bother me either, especially if they are used in the right way. Of course "right way" and this piece of crap parted ways long, long ago.

Don't misunderstand me, It's not that I dislike this film, I hate it. Anyone associated with this movie should never be allowed to work in the business again. Plus, all copies of this piece o' shi-ite should be burned in a massive bonfire -- along with every copy of Paris Hilton's Paris. I know, Mr. Reed made one other film after this one -- the equally useless Night of the Zombies. But since then, thankfully, he has not been heard from again. Good riddance, I say, and please take uber-hack Uwe Boll with you. I think you guys would really hit it off.

More of my list after the jump.