You might consider "The Road" as a zombie movie without zombies, which, like all zombie movies, takes to task the abuses and consequences of an out of control consumer culture while making a plea for basic family values. It also contains what might be the greatest product placement of all time; I regret now not asking Hillcoat about whether they got any deal with the Coca Cola people (yes, I know the scene is also in the book).

It's Thanksgiving Day, time to get the family together and see -- what?

Piss, shit and fart jokes in "Old Dogs?" A multiply addicted and deranged Nicolas Cage abusing people as he tries to solve the mass murder of an immigrant family in "Bad Lieutenant?" Ninjas severing limbs, lopping off heads, disemboweling bad guys and in general filling the screen with screams and gouts of blood in "Ninja Assassin?" The end of the world as a CGI spectacular in "2012?" Or the end of the world as a vast expanse of ash, ruins, and gnawed-on corpses in John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road?"

A comment on a colleague's MyFace page jumped out at me recently. The discussion was about John Hillcoat's upcoming (November 25) adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's end-of-the-world-with-cannibals-versus-family-values novel "The Road." One of the participants in the thread said, "If you don't include the baby on the spit what's the point of making the movie?"

I was watching the Patriot's game last Sunday, the culmination of an already lousy weekend [see previous post], and was diverted by some of the commercials. One was for "Avatar," the much-hyped, upcoming James Cameron movie, and I thought, "Wow, that looks like a really fancy video game." Then there was a commercial for the video game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," and I thought, "Wow, that looks like it would be make a better movie than ‘Avatar.

It's not always easy being a film critic. Okay, you're right -- it is. But some days are not as easy as others, like yesterday morning when I had to slosh through a Nor'easter, destroying my umbrella and soaking myself from head to foot, to join about 100 unamused children and their parents to watch "Planet 51," one of the worst movies of the year.

People in the Fenway, where I live, have gotten pretty blasé this fall about big movie crews shooting in the neighborhood. One weekend "The Zookeeper" was shooting late at night a couple of blocks away and it seems every week the helicopters, swat teams, police vehicles and light towers of Ben Affleck's "The Town" have taken over the streets around the ball park.

After writing about "Disney's A Christmas Carol" earlier this week, I fell into a cold sweat, a panic attack as if I was about to remember something I was trying to forget.

Details of that movie - the dim sense of hideous entities invading the bedroom, the flashing lights, the feeling of being lifted bodily from under the covers to some horrifying destination - touched on something repressed and dreadful.

Did you ever notice how all the classic Holiday movies are about capitalism? Not surprising given the fact that the season is the epitome of consumer culture, an annual shopping spree which, this year more than ever, sustains our economy.

And so we have It's a Wonderful Life (1946), the Frank Capra perennial which centers around a systemic financial failure, the distraught and suicidal owner of an insolvent building and loan company, and a conniving capitalist eager to reap profit from the misery of others.

The harried hero (Mohammed Bakri) of Rashid Masharawi's "Laila's Birthday" has a few simple rules when it comes to people using his cab. First, put on the seatbelt if you're in the front seat. Second, no smoking. Third, no checkpoints. And finally, absolutely no automatic weapons. "You're robbing yourself!" says one would-be customer toting an AK-47.

We suspect some of you may have missed the salient segment of Peter Keough's interview with Antichrist director Lars Von Trier this week, in which he revealed that Willem Dafoe required a stunt-cock for the film. And not, as in the case of Marky Wahlberg in Boogie Nights, because his member was insufficient for the part, but for the opposite reason: Dafoe's dick is just way too fucking huge:

After writing the onerous article on "Boston Noir" and attending the "Boston Noir" book launch/reading at the Boston Book Festival (Dennis Lehane should host a talk show; he's hilarious) I thought I'd fill in the gaps in my noir knowledge by checking out the Columbia Film Noir Classics I ($59.95) box set of five 50s B-ish films from that genre, to be released by Sony and the Film Foundation.

The ongoing Boston Palestine Film Festival (Oct. 16-Nov. 1) and the upcoming Boston Jewish Film Festival (Nov. 4-15) take place, presumably coincidentally, almost back to back. David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier's "American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein," which screens as part of the Palestine Festival tonight at 8:30 pm at the Museum of Fine Arts (the festival's other venues include The Coolidge Corner Theatre, the Harvard Film Archive and others), would be an appropriate selection for both.

In which Lars von Trier explains which fox to trust:

PK: The fox I heard came to you in a shamanistic journey? Is that true?

LV: (laughs) That's right. Yes I did from time to time these shamanistic things. It's a very long story, but it had to do with someone from my family being in the hospital, and was dying, and then I read somewhere that by means of these shamans in Brazilian tribes, you could kind of travel for another person.

A while ago we were wondering how Lars von Trier was doing because it had been reported that he was very depressed and felt like quitting movies. But now he's back with his most offensive movie to date and he's still depressed and so is everyone who watches it! But let him do the talking. Oh, and there are SPOILERS.

The other day I was astonished to find out that there was a video game for Lars von Trier's "Antichrist." So it doesn't come as such a big surprise that there is also one for Lehane's "Shutter Island." And why not, since even Lehane concedes that the novel might be a dying art form. Here's the conversation picking up at the point where Lehane responds to how some fans resented his turning to the historical epic genre for his most recent novel, "The Given Day."