What's worse that Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd? Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd in 3D, of course!

Although he made his first scary movie in 2005, writer/director Ti West didn't register on the radars of most horror fans until his retro-'80s shocker The House of the Devil premiered in 2009. Although it wasn't a Paranormal Activity-style box office smash, Devil quickly gained a strong cult following and made the 31-year-old filmmaker a person of interest in genre circles. On Friday, West's new film The Innkeepers -- a small-scale ghost story set in an old (and possibly haunted) hotel -- arrives in theaters after premiering on VOD last month. TWoP spoke with West during the New York leg of his nationwide press tour about stealing content, the ridiculousness of ghost hunting TV shows and his theory about Gus Van Sant's controversial Psycho remake.

Hey girl, Ryan Gosling wants to drive your car.

The Oscar nominations released their picks for the year's best supporting performances last week. Tell us whether you think they were right by registering your vote in Week 4 of the Movie Without Pity Awards, which leads off with Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. But why stop there? You can also tell us who you though was the year's Worst Supporting Actor and Actress. For example, we would have placed My Week with Marilyn's Kenneth Branagh in the latter category, as opposed to what Academy voters wound up going with.

Two great actresses, but only one good movie

Early on in Joe Carnahan's gritty survival tale The Grey, there's a moment that's so serenely peaceful, I almost didn't want it to end, especially knowing what was to come. The scene in question takes place aboard a chartered plane that's flying a crew of oil company grunts to a drilling station in the far reaches of Alaska. Before the aircraft lifted off into the friendly skies, the guys were laughing, talking and busting each other's chops, as if they were in a locker room instead of a mid-size jet. Now that the plane's at cruising altitude though, they're all nabbing some much-needed shuteye. The cabin lights are dimmed, tray tables are up and in a locked position and the passengers are quietly slumbering, their breath misting in the chilled air. It's a beautifully evocative moment -- perhaps the best single scene Carnahan has ever staged -- one that immediately establishes an aura of calm and safety.

If you only know Joe Carnahan as the director of high-octane action movies like Smokin' Aces and The A-Team, his latest film The Grey, which opens in theaters on Friday, may come as a surprise. This spare, stripped-down survival tale follows a small band of men whose plane crashes deep in the Alaskan wilderness and are forced to battle the elements -- from the harsh weather to hungry wolves -- in order to make it back to civilization. Liam Neeson plays the crew's self-appointed leader, Ottway, who is still carrying the emotional scars caused by the recent passing of his beloved wife. More in the spirit of Grizzly Man than an uplifting man vs. nature story like Alive, The Grey was Carnahan's most challenging shoot, but it resulted in one of his most fully-realized movies. The director spoke with TWoP during a recent trip to New York.

In which The Chronicles of Sundance comes to an end.

The continuing adventure of one critic's first trip to the Sundance Film Festival....

Like most movie lovers of a certain age (i.e. the '90s generation), the name "Sundance" first popped up on my radar in 1992 when a little movie called Reservoir Dogs blew the doors off Robert Redford's quiet little independent film festival nestled in the mountain town of Park City, Utah. (Yes, sex, lies and videotape was technically the film that put Sundance on the map in 1989, but Dogs was my personal gateway into indie film.) Reading all the hype about Quentin Tarantino's debut feature made me want to do two things: 1.) Watch Reservoir Dogs as soon as possible, and 2.) Go to Sundance myself. Accomplishing the first task was relatively easy once the movie hit VHS (remember that?); the second took another two decades. But 20 years after Reservoir Dogs first screened, I finally made the trek to Park City, Utah for a whirlwind three day Sundance experience. In those 72 hours, I managed to see 12 movies, spoke with a number of great people and experienced both extremes of Park City's weather, from blinding snowstorms to beautiful big blue skies. Here's how things went down: