A few years ago, I wrote a Cinematical Seven on my favorite dysfunctional families in films. Everyone has a crazy messed-up movie family they love, whether it's the Hoovers in Little Miss Sunshine or the Bullocks in My Man Godfrey or the Corleones in the Godfather saga. I thought that this year, it would be fun to make a list of families that got along, worked together, and supported one another. You know, happy families ... but not dull, one-dimensional bundles of endless cheer.

It's a lot more difficult to find seven movies with happy-but-not-sappy families than it is to find the screwed-up kind, especially if you are looking for something more interesting than the Cleavers. Since I'm visiting my relatives for the Thanksgiving holidays, I asked them for suggestions. They were all very helpful, and I'm sorry I couldn't include all the suggestions, which ranged from The Thin Man to The Sound of Music to The Hills Have Eyes. Let me know what else we missed in the comments.

How do I love The Curse of the Cat People (1944)? Let me count the ways. I love it because of the deceptive, dime-store title; the movie is really a clever and resounding study of child psychology. In the original film, Oliver (Kent Smith) marries the strange and alluring Irena (Simone Simon) before realizing that she's actually, sort of, a creature who turns into a cat and tears people to ribbons. In this sequel, Oliver is re-married, to Alice (Jane Randolph), and they have a little girl, Amy (Ann Carter). Amy has a very active imagination, and despite the best efforts of parents and teachers to get her to come back to reality, she likes the company of her imaginary friend, Irena! Yes, the ghost of Amy's father's first wife comes back to visit, and protect, the child.

Despite the title, there's no horror here, and just a bit of fantasy, but it's enough to chase unwanted relatives out of the room during crowded holiday weekends. It's also a Christmas movie, complete with decorations and a Christmas carol. I love it because it was one of Val Lewton's masterful B-movie productions of the 1940s (all of them are amazing), and I love it because it's only 70 minutes long, but unbelievably rich. And I love it because I once had the pleasure of interviewing the director Robert Wise -- who took over for the slow-moving Gunther von Fritsch -- and he was such a delightful old guy, that it makes me happy to remember him.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

I'm thankful for Rachel Getting Married (300 screens), for making me feel as if I were at an excruciating wedding without actually having to be there, and for making me feel as if I knew the extraordinarily wounded lead character, Kym (Anne Hathaway), no matter how monstrous she acts sometimes. But most of all for making me feel something.

I'm thankful for The Dark Knight (345 screens), for being like a 1940s film noir, reflecting the utter despair we feel about the world in 2008, but for making it entertaining and making us feel as if there's still a tiny scrap of hope left. Mainly, I'm thankful for movies that took on despair as a theme, but didn't show it.

I'm thankful for smart villains, like Heath Ledger's Joker. But I'm also thankful for quiet villains, like Ralph Fiennes in The Duchess (154 screens), who does all those terrible things for what he thinks are pretty good reasons, not simply because he's hateful or evil. I'm especially thankful for no moustache-twisting (and no moustaches).

With his previous feature film Australian director Baz Luhrmann came within tasting distance of a Best Picture Oscar, as well as several other awards. Moulin Rouge! (2001) did win two, for Costume Design and Art Direction, but all the glory that year went to other things. He must have taken notes; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring cleaned up in the technical categories with four Oscars, and Black Hawk Down took two more. Two serious, disease-of-the-week dramas won in the "upper" categories: A Beautiful Mind and Iris. The following year, Luhrmann must have watched while the jaunty Chicago won Best Picture, and Roman Polanski won Best Director for his lengthy Holocaust drama, The Pianist.

So Luhrmann set out to work on his fourth film, Australia. Maybe it started out once, many years ago, as a 90-minute pop-Western about driving cattle and saving the farm. This entire section is bright and quick and exciting -- and lots of fun. But then perhaps he decided that that just wasn't enough, or at least it's not enough for anyone who wants to win a great big Best Director trophy. So at the 90-minute mark, Australia more or less stops, transforms itself into a giant-sized World War II drama, complete with grayness, dropping bombs and angel choruses, and keeps going for another interminable hour. But is it enough to fool Academy voters?

I'm trying to muster up some enthusiasm for Disney's latest animated film, Bolt. It's cute. It has funny pigeons. My eight-year-old niece is going to like it, especially since Miley Cyrus is involved. It's the first non-Pixar Disney feature produced by John Lasseter, who directed the Toy Story movies and Cars. It's got Hollywood jokes in it, including a director voiced by James Lipton, and a comically pushy agent. And yet I never thrilled to the story or the characters; I wasn't half as amused as I'd been by Kung Fu Panda, a film for kids I saw earlier this year.

The story should sound familiar to anyone who grew up with Lassie movies or other animal-road-trip films, but with a Hollywood twist. The title character, a cute dog called Bolt (John Travolta), is fiercely attached to "his person," teenage Penny (Miley Cyrus). Bolt saves Penny's life on a regular basis as she and her dad are pursued by the evil Dr. Calico and his nasty cats ... or so he thinks. The truth is that Bolt is the star of a TV series, but the cast and crew are very careful not to let him know that he's not in real-life situations. So he believes he's a genetically engineered dog with laser eyes and amazing strength and a supersonic bark. When Bolt is separated from Penny and ends up halfway across the country on his own, for the first time he's in a world that isn't a soundstage or his trailer. Now, how will he get back to Penny?

The upcoming release of Australia -- directed by Australian Baz Luhrmann, shot in Australia and starring Australian-born actor Hugh Jackman, and Australian-raised Nicole Kidman -- inspired me to take a look at the Australian film industry, thinking I could easily pick out seven highlights. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for everyone else, Australian films are a much richer and more daunting prospect. I decided to stick to films shot in Australia by directors born there, thus eliminating things like Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout (1971). I also eliminated New Zealanders like Jane Campion and Peter Jackson, who deserve their own list. At the 11th hour, I had to eliminate such an obviously great film as Babe (1995); though it qualifies under my rule, the Hoggett's farm could actually be just about anywhere (it's more of a fairy tale world, and Australia is never mentioned). And no, Crocodile Dundee (1986) didn't make the cutoff, but here's what did:

The Road Warrior (1981, George Miller)
This movie represents everything that's badass about Australia. It opened there in 1981 as Mad Max 2, mainly because everyone had seen Mad Max (1979). Here, it opened a year later, in the summer of 1982, with the changed title, hoping that Americans could be tricked into thinking it wasn't a sequel. It didn't matter; this film is far starker, funnier and all-around better than the original. Rarely have the roar of engines mixed so well with the wide, empty, sun-baked dust of the outback. Miller was -- and still is -- one of the most interesting Down Under directors, but he works slowly and sporadically and stays out of the limelight. (In the thirty years since Mad Max, he has directed only seven feature films.) And Mel Gibson may have gone a little nuts lately, but we'll always love him for this.

I usually don't do this. Once I post or publish my year's ten best list, I try not to tamper with it. But 2006 has been gnawing at me. At the time, it didn't seem like such a good movie year, but the more I think about it, the more I realize there were gems right there in front of my nose. (It certainly seemed like a better bet than 2008.) Some of the films had to blossom a bit, to age a little. Some I had to see again. But now that a couple of years have gone by I feel the need to re-visit 2006 and once again sort through the best films of the year.

If I'm honest with myself, my favorite film from 2006 was Rian Johnson's Brick, which I included all the way down at #10 on my list. I've since seen it three times, and I'm continually astounded by just how delightfully perfect it is, from its language to its tone and plot. It even includes some emotionally devastating performances on top of its twisty crime story. Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential is another one I had to see three times, but it keeps getting better. Zwigoff is one of our singular American talents, absolutely incapable of making something impersonal. This was his darkest film, and I think it turned off most viewers upon initial viewings. But I've spoken with people lately who have been re-discovering it, and it may have a second life someday.

400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised at the reception to Clark Gregg's Choke (12 screens). It has pulled in nearly $3 million, which is fairly respectable, although it's apparently still shy of recouping its production budget. Critics have banded together to rate it a low 56% on Rotten Tomatoes (I contributed a "fresh" review), but fans have ranked it a high 7.3 out of 10 on IMDB. I guess this means that the film has its fans, but only a small group of them. And so it goes when filmmakers try to adapt cult novels.

Cult novels are a far more difficult prospect than a mere best-seller or Pulitzer Prize winner. These are novels that people love fiercely, oftentimes written by a novelist that they love fiercely. Many of these novels resist filmic adaptation for some reason or another (The Catcher in the Rye, On the Road, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Crying of Lot 49, Kitchen, Snow Crash, etc.). But when a movie of a cult novel hits, it hits big. It crawls under the public's skin and nestles there beside the novel itself. David Cronenberg made a classic out of William S. Burroughs' "unfilmable" novel Naked Lunch. Danny Boyle made an energetic, powerful, disturbing crazy-quilt out of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, and Ridley Scott made a flat-out masterpiece out of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (a.k.a. Blade Runner).

A love affair with the James Bond series is like a marriage; it's for life, and it's definitely a "richer or poorer, better or worse" proposition. Some days you get Casino Royale (2006) or Goldfinger (1964), where everything is bliss, but then other days you get Grace Jones or a cameo from Madonna or someone named "Christmas Jones." Some days are Connery and some are Lazenby. Some days your director is Guy Hamilton or Martin Campbell, and some days your director is John Glen or Marc Forster. But, like a diamond, the imperfections are what make it all worthwhile. From among the dregs, then, here are a few of my favorite things:

1. The entire supporting cast in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
I confess it's one of the weakest Roger Moore entries, but come on! Motherf---in' Christopher "Dracula/Dooku/Saruman" Lee is the bad guy! And Hervé Villechaize as his diminutive villainous sidekick! And sex-goddess Britt Ekland as the Bond girl! In a bikini! And Swedish model Maud Adams, who would return as "Octopussy"! And Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn! And Soon-Tek Oh as Lieutenant Hip. The only drawback is that the goldurn redneck sheriff returns (see #2)...

2. The Paul McCartney Theme Song in Live and Let Die (1973)
Some fans like this early Roger Moore entry, but Moore hadn't yet settled into the role yet, and I call it "the one with the redneck sheriff and the idiotic boat chase." But conversely, it has one of the best -- if not the best -- song of the series, with its slow build, peculiar tempo changes and odd lyrics ("in this ever changing world in which we live in.") This was McCartney at his crazy out-there best, and it brings much goodwill to the rest of the film.

Considering Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married (133 screens), Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky (60 screens), Penelope Cruz in Elegy (21 screens) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (52 screens), Kristin Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long (20 screens), Meryl Streep rising above the ineptitude of Mamma Mia! (178 screens), and several others, it has been an exceptionally good year for roles for women -- all except The Women (164 screens). To date, I've spent a good deal of time railing against that movie, without ever asking: what happened to some of those amazing actresses that they should end up here?

Meg Ryan, for example, was once a top star -- one of a trinity of "America's Sweethearts" (with Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock) -- and a sure thing. She was irresistibly adorable, and she mastered a kind of self-conscious, nervous eye-flick that won over audiences time and again. And she made her debut in the final film by George Cukor, for goodness sake! Her highest point was probably When Harry Met Sally... (1989), where her effortless performance was not as easy as it looked. She had a hard time branching out into serious films, mainly because her cute, sweet, funny quality made it seem as if she had a lack of depth, and she looked out of place in hardcore, delirious movies like The Doors (1991). Her last ten years has given us a string of flops. But I maintain that her best films are the ones that nobody understood.

No matter what else happens in Soul Men, it's hard not to be moved by the posthumous performances of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes, especially when they appear onscreen together, and more so when, in one scene, they leave a room together. At other times, however, Mac is at the top of his comedic game. He has the power to make us forget that anything is wrong in the world, including the fact that it has lost two of its best and brightest.

In Soul Men, Mac plays Floyd Henderson, one third of a legendary 1960s soul music trio. In the 1970s, the group's lead singer Marcus Hooks (played in flashbacks and photos by John Legend) embarked upon a solo career, leaving Floyd and his bandmate Louis Hinds (Samuel L. Jackson) in the lurch. They tried to continue alone, but quickly broke up due to "creative differences," i.e. they fought over a woman. Now Marcus has passed away and Floyd and Louis have been invited to perform in a tribute show at the Apollo. And since Louis doesn't fly, they must drive cross-country, which gives them plenty of time to fight and bicker. (Isaac Hayes appears relatively briefly, as himself, at the tribute.)

If you read my recent Cinematical Seven about my favorite Bruce Campbell moments, you know already how much I enjoy watching the actor/filmmaker onscreen. I was one of the people who refreshed her browser window continually in order to be able to score tickets to the Austin screening of My Name is Bruce, Campbell's latest film, which he directed and starred in. The first screening sold out in Austin in record time. (They added two more screenings as a result, which also sold out quickly.)

So you can well imagine my reaction when given the opportunity to interview Campbell while he was in Austin for the screening. I had fleeting nightmare visions of the interview sounding like Bridget Jones interviewing Colin Firth in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, or like one of those interviews Chris Farley used to do on Saturday Night Live ("You know that scene in Army of Darkness where you were fighting yourself? That was awesome."). Fortunately none of that happened, and the professional interviewer won out over the fangirl. After I saw My Name is Bruce and enjoyed a lively audience Q&A -- Alamo Drafthouse has posted video highlights on YouTube -- I met Campbell in a small office at the back of Alamo Ritz. We chatted about My Name is Bruce and the road tour Campbell's doing for the movie, other projects he's working on, and of course the whole Evil Dead 4 thing. Check it out after the jump.

For Halloween week, I thought I'd go back and challenge one of the biggest movie myths of recent years: that Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998) is the worst remake of all time. On the contrary... it's actually one of the most fascinating of all remakes, and a great deal more satisfying than almost any other horror remake. Let me explain. If we go back and look at the history of horror movies, we can divide up the last 100 years into sections. There were the Expressionist horrors of the silent era, then the Universal monsters, then Val Lewton's RKO films, the British Hammer films, the Italian horrors, the American Renaissance of the 1970s, the 1980s tongue-in-cheek films, the Asian horrors of the 1990s, and now -- remakes.

There were three factors that made Psycho different from other horror remakes. It was based on a high-quality, undisputed classic rather than some slapdash, B-level monster movie. It was shot-for-shot, and a respected art house director made it. Van Sant had earned some fame, acclaim and an Oscar nomination (for Good Will Hunting), and so by signing on to do the remake he unconsciously indicated that he was stepping into Hitchcock's shoes, which was unforgivable, and also impossible. If a fourth-rate hack had tried it, it would have been laughed at, or ignored, out of existence. But Van Sant's skill and reputation made it stick.

In researching this list, I made two realizations: most horror films don't bother with supporting casts; the supporters are often ghosts and monsters and supernatural forces (the other humans tend not to listen). And also, there are more great performances by women in horror films. Consider just the list of women who were nominated for -- or won -- Oscars for horror films: Patty McCormack, Janet Leigh, Ruth Gordon, Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Sigourney Weaver, Kathy Bates, Jodie Foster, Juliette Lewis, Toni Collette, etc. Perhaps women are more intuitively in touch with the supernatural. Either way, I think I came up with a pretty good list:

1. Maria Ouspenskaya in The Wolf Man (1941)
Her name's a mouthful, but once you learn to say it, you'll never forget it. She was born in 1876, which put her at about 65 when The Wolf Man was made. She was a theater actor, before the movies were invented, she became an acting teacher and she received two Oscar nominations prior to this role. She plays Maleva (what a great name!), the old gypsy woman, and mother to Bela (Bela Lugosi), who possesses the knowledge of all things werewolf. With eyes like obsidian, her line readings are quiet, mysterious, intelligent, and though she's practically half the size of star Lon Chaney Jr., she towers over him.

2. Christina Ricci in Addams Family Values (1993)
Every once in a while the movie gods smile down and create something wonderful, like the moment that young Ricci walked into the "Addams Family" auditions, hoping for the role of Wednesday. The resulting movie, released in 1991, wasn't very good, but the sequel was much improved and Ricci was so good in both that she clearly announced the beginning of a fascinating career full of brave, unusual choices. With her round, pale face, huge eyes and tiny mouth shaped like a talon, she was scary and funny and just a little bit odd, and when she grew older, she took on a dangerous kind of sexiness. She could be the direct genre descendant of Elsa Lanchester or Barbara Steele.

October in Austin might mean the Texas-Oklahoma game to some people, or the welcome end of triple-digit temperature hell to others, but for movie lovers it brings us a week of Austin Film Festival, which celebrated its 15th year last week. I can remember when the festival was limited to one hotel and a couple of movie theaters, and the films were just something to do at night after the screenwriters' conference. This year, the conference spread out over several venues and the film festival itself, which lasts a full week, screened films in nine different locations around town.

The Paramount Theatre, which seats about 1,200 people, was packed for the opening-night film, W., with actor James Cromwell in attendance. This was a specially apt venue for the Oliver Stone film because if you walk outside the Paramount and look down the street, there's the State Capitol. The Governor's Mansion -- well, what's left of it right now -- is in walking distance of the theater. If we could only have blocked off Congress Ave. (hah), we could have posed Cromwell with the Capitol prominent in the background. Cromwell not only stuck around after the film for a Q&A, but stayed for the screenwriters' conference the next day to lead a conversation-style session about acting.