Depending on how you feel about security guards, Lyme disease, Matthew McConaughey, claymation, Avatar and the French, this is either a very good week for DVDs or the worst week ever.

Here at MWoP, we've been taking a "wait-and-see-but-don't-hold-your-breath" approach to the G.I. Joe live-action movie. Early on, the visual disparities from the cartoon were pretty jarring, but then, so were the X-Men movie costumes, and that worked out okay. (I'll leave the Transformers movie designs aside, since A. I still don't like them and B. the movies were successful in spite of them, making my opinion moot.) But when the commercials and action scenes started showing up -- including performance-enhancing accelerator suits, which were never part of the G.I. Joe mythos until very recently -- we started to worry a bit more. And now they've declined to screen the movie for the press. But given the fact that negative buzz got so bad at one point that director Stephen Sommers (Van Helsing) was rumored to have been fired, that may be a wise choice. Regardless, it seems there may be nothing to worry about.

To describe Park Chan-wook's newest film, the vampire tale Thirst, to someone who has never seen one of his films is difficult. The movie is horribly violent, and features people doing terrible things to each other in between graphic sex scenes. But, like all of Mr. Park's films, the violence and sex are intercut -- and often interwoven -- with hysterical comedy, so you find yourself laughing at things that you might not normally find amusing.

Starting with 1960's The Magnificent Seven (a remake of The Seven Samurai) and culminating in the recent spate of adaptations of Japanese and Korean horror movies, Hollywood has often looked to Asia for new ideas. But rarely do we see it go the other way -- at least, not in any sort of official capacity. But Sony Pictures Classics will distribute the new film from acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), and it's a remake of the Coen Brothers' first film, Blood Simple.

Good news for Angels & Demons! The Tom Hanks sequel/prequel to The DaVinci Code may be officially boycotted by the Catholic church. Why is that good news for the movie? Since the Vatican issued a statement last Friday, newspapers and websites from Cleveland to India have already helped spread the word. You couldn't buy that kind of publicity. Well, maybe you could, but it'd be expensive. With the economy being what it is and budgets being pinched, perhaps other movies could benefit from being boycotted from various groups. Although it's unlikely any organization would have quite the opposite-effect clout as the Catholic church, here are 10 movie suggestions with their potential naysayers.

If the filmmakers behind the British thriller Donkey Punch were trying to get the world's attention when they came up with the title (and premise) of the film, they've succeeded. By taking a potentially lethal sexual maneuver and having it turn into a Dead Calm-like standoff between two women and four men on a yacht, they've earned themselves a U.S. release date (January 23rd), a tidy profit and a place in the sexual history books. And while some movies have unknowingly used sexual euphemisms as titles in the past (see: Shocker, The Glass-Bottom Boat), we think there's enough descriptive names out there to knowingly create a filth-based franchise. Here are some sexually-inspired thriller scenarios we're looking to, er, flesh out.

While some people were excited to see Titanic duo Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio teaming up again for Revolutionary Road, some of us were eagerly waiting for another big movie pair-up... for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, co-stars of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Not only will they buddy up again as comic book geeks for 2010's Paul (which the two also wrote) but they've also just been confirmed for Steven Spielberg's big-screen adaptation of Belgian artist Hergé's comic strips, The Adventures of Tintin. The two will play Thompson and Thompson, a pair of bumbling detectives who will be showing up earlier in than they did in Hergé's work, where they first stumbled onto the scene in Tintin's fourth adventure.

It's a good year to be Kate Winslet. At least, it is in the eyes of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. This morning, the nominees were announced for this year's Golden Globes, and the actress not only has a nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (drama category) for Revolutionary Road, but a Best Supporting Actress nod for The Reader, as well. Oh, and both films are also up for the Best Picture award. Kate Winslet is the fricking 2008 Midas with a Golden Globe touch. The awards show, known best around these parts for serving booze throughout the evening (thus making for slightly more colorful acceptance speeches, from which everyone benefits, really) and also for snarling traffic at Wilshire and Santa Monica on an otherwise Free Ride Sunday Night, passed out nominations -- at least, for the most esteemed award of the night, Best Motion Picture, Drama -- to a handful of movies that 99% of the population hasn't seen yet. Almost all of the films open in the theaters in the future, with the exception of two (Frost/Nixon and Slumdog Millionaire) that opened only recently and to very limited release. Rejoice, movie-lovers! At least it'll give you something to look forward to. A list of those noms, after the jump.

The International Press Academy announced its award nominees on Sunday, and no one bothered to notice. See, the few of you who thought I was talking about the Golden Globes would be wrong (that's the Hollywood Foreign Press, and they'll announce their nominees on Dec. 11. No, the International Press Academy gives out the Satellite Awards (and has for 12 years). If you haven't heard of them, there's a reason: Their awards show isn't televised, and if there's anything I've learned in life, it's that if it's not on TV, it didn't happen.

Australia starts out every bit as magical and powerful and lovely as any movie epic should be -- more so, even, since it's directed by that master of capturing magic on film, Baz Luhrmann (who already has breathed fresh life into Shakespeare and musicals). And for about half of its 2-hour-and-45-minute run time (!), it maintains that magic. But then it sort of falls flat. It rebounds some, with some lovely moments, breathtaking scenery, and terrific acting. But it can't ever regain what was lost in that first half.