To borrow the title of the opening number from March of the Falsettos, Roman Polanski's new film Carnage could also be entitled Four A-Holes in a Room Bitching. An adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, the film unfolds in a single location in real time with an exceptional quartet of actors (Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly) circling each other like hungry sharks, biding their time before going in for the kill. Thanks to the cast's nuanced performances and Polanski's fluid camerawork, the movie never tips its hand too strongly towards its stagebound origins. By the time Carnage's 80 minutes are over, the space these characters share -- a sizeable Brooklyn apartment -- has practically become their (and our) whole world. Life may exist beyond its walls, but all that matters is what's taking place in that room.

Originally published in 1974, John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is generally regarded as one of the author's finest books, as well as one of the most gripping and accurate depictions of the spy game ever committed to paper. It certainly serves as a striking contrast to the globe-trotting heroics of secret agents like James Bond and Jason Bourne. Le Carré's protagonist, veteran MI6 spook George Smiley, may not peel around corners in Aston Martins, challenge international criminals to heated games of baccarat or bed every woman in sight, but in his own quiet, methodical way, he always gets the job done.

So, I'll come out and admit it: I saw Valentine's Day on Valentine's Day, because A) My boyfriend has a sick sense of humor, and B) I love bad romantic comedies. Not bad in a What's Your Number? sense, where there's hope that the movie will actually be good. I mean flat-out horrible, you-know-what-you're-getting-yourself-into rom-coms. Even movies like Friends With Benefits have too much potential, which is why I hold out for Sex and the City films and anything that stars Jennifer Lopez as a sad single gal. Garry Marshall's pandering, celebrity-stuffed Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve naturally make this pristine list.

It wouldn't be accurate to describe Mavis Gary, the central character of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman's first post-Juno collaboration, as a grown-up version of Juno MacGuff. Rather, she's a grown-up version of the girl that probably made fun of Juno MacGuff. A former high school Queen Bee, Mavis (played by Charlize Theron) ditched her podunk Minnesota town Mercury immediately after graduation for the bright lights of Minneapolis, where she found fame and fortune as a writer of young adult fiction. Well okay, "fame and fortune" is probably overstating things a bit. Her writing gig brings in just enough to allow her to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment, plus amenities like cable television and a steady supply of Diet Coke (her own personal breakfast of champions). As for the fame part, although she's penned several installments in the popular YA franchise, Waverly Prep, her name doesn't actually appear anywhere on the cover of those books. Instead, she's relegated to one of the inside pages, while the series' original creator takes top-billing for novels she didn't write.

Considering Hollywood's current obsession with remaking every single movie released during the '80s, it's surprising that Adventures in Babysitting -- a nostalgic favorite for anyone that grew up in that decade -- hasn't already been updated into a star vehicle for some tween sensation like Selena Gomez or Miranda Cosgrove. (Word on the web is that Raven-Symoné was attached to a potential remake at one point, but that project is currently on hold.) Now those girls are going to have to find another Me Decade reboot to star in (the rights to Valley Girl and Flashdance may be available...) because the unlikely duo of director David Gordon Green and star Jonah Hill have gone ahead and made their version of Chris Columbus's 1987 after-hours comedy under the more generic title, The Sitter. Granted, this off-brand remake is a hard R-rated comedy whereas Adventures in Babysitting falls into kinder, gentler PG-13 territory, but otherwise the two movies have more in common than you might imagine, right down to the sequence in which the respective sitters drag the three tykes in their care to a potentially dangerous downtown nightclub where they're distinctly out of place.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your VOD viewing displeasure, here it is: 2011's worst movie.

Don't let the NC-17 rating scare you off -- Shame is one of 2011's very best movies.

Avoid the crowds at the multiplex by seeking out some of these independent films over the long holiday weekend:

Like every other kid that grew up watching The Muppets in their '70s and '80s prime, I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Kermit and the gang's big-screen reboot, The Muppets. It's no secret that Jim Henson's gaggle of colorful puppets lost their way somewhat in the wake of their creator's death, as classic features like The Muppet Movie giving way to embarrassments like Muppets From Space. Certainly, the creative team behind The Muppets -- which includes screenwriter and star Jason Segel, his co-writer Nicholas Stoller and director James Bobin (making his feature film debut after co-creating HBO's terrific Flight of the Conchords series) -- have been saying all the right things about their intentions with this movie, namely bringing back the same playful spirit and toe-tapping score that defined the first three Muppet features, The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper and, my personal favorite, The Muppets Take Manhattan. As an added bonus, it was exciting to think that my own kid's first big-screen encounter with the Muppets (he's already been introduced to the earlier films on DVD) would be a good movie in its own right and not a disappointing reminder of the characters' past glories.

The release of a Clint Eastwood-directed Oscar hopeful has come to be one of the hallmarks of the holiday season, right up there with Black Friday sales, Christmas decorations and yet another live-action Chipmunks sequel. Since 2003's Mystic River, the iconic actor/filmmaker has released at least one prestige picture (and sometimes two) almost every year at around this time looking for box-office success and awards love. Sometimes it works (Million Dollar Baby, Letters From Iwo Jima) and other times, it doesn't (Flags of our Fathers, Hereafter). Based on the underwhelming reviews and grosses of his latest film, J. Edgar, an expansive biopic of the legendary FBI director written by Oscar-winning Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover, this is shaping up to be one of his off years.