Among the perks of being a sought-after Oscar-winning screenwriter is, apparently, the ability to fourwall a movie theater for two weeks and play a bunch of your favorite films for an appreciative audience. That's exactly what Juno's Diablo Cody is doing at LA's New Beverly Cinema from today through July 24th, and it won't come as any surprise to Cody's admirers that the lady's got good taste. Her slate includes reliable classics (Stripes, Pretty in Pink), off the wall genre picks (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), some culty fun (Wet Hot American Summer) and the expected shout-out to Juno director Jason Reitman.

Previous guest programmers at the New Beverly have included Edgar Wright, Eli Roth and Joe Dante. Cody will introduce some of the films herself, and the theater's MySpace page promises "many guest appearances."

Kudos to Movie City News for coming across this. Check out the entire schedule after the jump -- it's really an inspired slate of picks. She's got a nose for filmmaking that's smart and unabashedly mainstream, as both Juno and this film festival proves.

The new website for the heist comedy Mad Money has gone live with its first full-length trailer. It is pretty much what you would expect from a harmless little comedy, so if you are looking for a hard-edged crime flick, you are definitely in the wrong place. Along with the trailer, the website has the usual photo galleries and downloads (you can check out Cinematical's exclusive gallery here). There is even the chance to win a little of your own 'mad money' in a sweepstakes. Directed by Callie Khouri, the film stars Katie (or Kate; I can never keep it straight) Holmes, Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton, and Ted Danson. The story centers on three employees of the Federal Reserve who pull together for a plot to steal the money that is going to be taken out of circulation.

Khouri is probably best known as the writer for another famous female 'buddy film'; Thelma and Louise. Money is a pretty light-hearted flick so I doubt we'll be seeing Keaton, Holmes, and Latifah going over a cliff in a protest of patriarchal control. Mad Money will be Holmes' first big-screen role since Batman Begins and Thank You for Smoking back in 2005. As we all know, Holmes wasn't invited back for The Dark Knight and there were even a few thinly veiled shots directed towards her in the press over the whole matter. Since all that Wonder Woman talk never panned out either, for the sake of her career I only hope that comedy vets like Keaton and Danson can help keep Mad Money afloat at the box-office. Maybe then, Holmes will get credit for being something other than Mrs Tom Cruise. Mad Money hits theaters on January 18th.

It's not every day that one gets to see a film that's charming, sweet, intelligent and also happens to be written by an erstwhile stripper/phone sex operator (who, incidentally, owns a cat named Douchepacker). I had that pleasure at the Toronto Film Festival, however, when I took in Juno, penned with surprising astuteness by first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody (the aforementioned former stripper), directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking), and starring Ellen Page (Hard Candy), Michael Cera (Superbad), Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner.

In the film, 16-year-old Juno MacGuff (Page) discovers that she's all knocked up after just one foray into sex with her best bud Paulie Bleeker (Cera), a sweet but clueless orange-Tic-Tac-addicted track star who seems perfectly content to let Juno have an abortion. She doesn't. Instead, she decides to keep the child and let a "perfect" young yuppie couple (Bateman and Garner), who can't have kids of their own, adopt her baby-to-be. The result is a hilarious, endearing and moving picture that explores family and friendship, loyalty and loss, and what it truly means to love someone, all while expertly avoiding turning into a gooey, steaming pile of melodrama.

I sat down with Jason Bateman and Ellen Page to talk about the film, and -- while the full interview won't be posted until the December release date nears -- I thought I'd give you a small yet delicious (some might say orange-Tic-Tac-like) taste of what I learned ...

Even if you consider Borat (full title not necessary) to be primarily a scripted work, it is still a film that works best in its unscripted sequences. This is debatable, sure, but I would like someone at the Writers Guild to tell me what was so great about the actual screenplay used. Personally, I think the scripted parts, as well as the adherence to the plot, are the weakest elements.

Nonetheless, Sacha Baron Cohen and his five collaborators are nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Adapted Screenplay. And despite my questioning of this recognition, I don't really prefer any of its competition. The other titles in the adapted category are Little Children, The Departed, The Devil Wears Prada and Thank You for Smoking. If I had to choose, I'd go with the last of these, but I think the prize will go to the overrated Little Children.

I also don't think the Original Screenplay category is that great, either. The nominees for that award are Little Miss Sunshine, Babel, United 93, Stranger Than Fiction and The Queen. Again, I'd have to go with the last of these, but predict the overrated first.

Hopefully, unlike with other guild awards, the WGA's honors will not reflect the Oscar nominations, which may recognize foreign films Volver and Pan's Labyrinth, which were ineligible here.

Well, another year is in the can folks, and what do we movie lovers have to show for it? Actually, we have a lot. 2006 has seen it's highs (Martin Scorsese gives us his best flick since 'Goodfellas'; a "racist" Kazakh reporter draws the fury of thousands, bags Pamela Anderson -- literally -- and scores box office gold) -- and its lows (Sidney Lumet's 'Find Me Guilty' is guilty ... of sucking; all couples who go see 'Date Movie' together break up within two weeks). I was lucky enough to see a whole lot of good flicks and only a moderate level of what we experts like to call crap. Below, I present my picks for the Top 10 Movies of 2006.* My fellow Moviefone editors will be posting their own lists later this week, so remember to check back for those. Happy Holidays!

10. Children of Men
Director Alfonso Cuaron follows up his masterful 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' adaptation with a film about a war-torn future world in which women no longer bear children. Not surprisingly, the flick is bleak and most certainly not for kids. But its hopeful message is more powerful than a hormonal teenaged wizard hopped up on gillyweed.

9. The Descent
This lean, mean thriller about six sexy female spelunkers battling bloodthirsty cave mutants avoids all the classic horror-film pitfalls: lame plot twists, gratuitous shower scenes (OK, I secretly approve of these) and a silly hook-wielding killer. Plus, it oozes with a certain quality lacking from so many horror pics these days: actual horror.

8. Stranger Than Fiction
Will Ferrell tones down his shtick and reaps the benefits in this funny and poignant tale about an IRS agent who awakes one day to find that his life is being narrated by an author bent on killing him. The cornerstone of the movie -- the budding romance between Ferrell and the baker (Maggie Gyllenhaal) he's auditing -- is so sweet you'll want to start dating a baker just so you can bring her "flours."

7. Apocalypto
Say what you will about Mel Gibson, but the guy took a cast of mostly Yucatec-speaking non-actors and a topic (the downfall of the Mayan civilization) that isn't exactly hot-button and made a two-and-a-half-hour film that's gorgeous, captivating, unique, supremely violent and, frankly, awesome.

6. Casino Royale
Finally, a James Bond flick where 007 is a real guy who bleeds when the bad guys cut him, scars when the love of his life hurts him and wins the day with brut force and smarts rather than gadgets. It sounds like blasphemy, but Daniel Craig might be the best Bond ever. Yes, even better than George Lazenby.

5. Thank You for Smoking
Writer-director Jason Reitman has done something awe-inspiring with his adaptation of Christopher Buckley's satiric novel: He's made the smug, self-righteous chief lobbyist for Big Tobacco into a -- wait for it -- sympathetic character. For this, he owes no small debt to Aaron Eckhart, who imbues said lobbyist with equal parts piss, vinegar and vulnerability. Sounds gross, but it goes down smooth.

4. Borat
Despite offending just about every ethnic, religious, political and gender group known to man, woman or goat, Sacha Baron Cohen's improvisational road-trip comedy was a runaway hit and hands-down the funniest flick of the year. By the time the credits roll, you'll want to make sexytime with this moviefilm. Niiice.

3. Little Miss Sunshine
Dysfunctional family dramedies have become something of a cliché these days (damn you, 'Family Stone,' for being the nail in the coffin!), but the yellow-VW-van-driving Hoovers somehow managed to weasel their way into my heart nonetheless. Every performance -- from Steve Carell's gay, suicidal Proust scholar to Alan Arkin's drug-snorting, curse-spewing grandpa with a heart of gold to Paul Dano's mute, Nietzsche-loving pilot wannabe -- deserves an award. And, more importantly, despite their Grand-Canyon-deep flaws, each character is, at his core, good and intensely likeable. You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll go wild for the film's finale, set to none other than Rick James' 'Superfreak' -- because they're the Hoovers, bitch!

2. Pan's Labyrinth
Fantasy and reality -- harsh reality, actually -- collide in director Guillermo del Toro's captivating yarn about a 10-year-old named Ophelia (the brilliant Ivana Baquero) who, at the behest of a faun named Pan, undertakes a harrowing quest to protect her family at the tail end of the Spanish Civil War. I'd say it's a fairy tale for adults, but not too many fairy tales feature a peasant being bludgeoned to death with a wine bottle. Still, it's beautiful, hopeful and more heartbreaking than anything I've seen in a long, long while. If you don't cry at the end, you have no heart in your hollow tin chest.

1. The Departed
Martin Scorsese's blood-soaked, cuss-filled urban morality tale about two undercover moles on opposite sides of the law (one a cop infiltrating the mob, the other a mobster posing as a cop) boasts a pitch-perfect script, some of the best actors in the biz (DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson, Wahlberg, Baldwin) at the very top of their game and an ending so powerful it'll knock the wind out of you like a Louisville Slugger to the nards.

Honorable Mentions
Babel
Brick
Half Nelson
The Illusionist
Inside Man
The Last Kiss
The Prestige
Slither
Superman Returns
United 93

*Note: A few films that might have made this list were left off because I was not able to see them in time. These include, but are not limited to, 'Dreamgirls,' 'Notes on a Scandal' and 'Letters From Iwo Jima.'

POST: Do you agree with these picks?

POST: What are your favorite movies of 2006?

It's not so unusual to see a feature film developed into a TV show, but when the film in question is an indie pic, grossed only $25 million at the box office (which, mind you, is pretty damn good) and revolved around a man whose job it was to do PR for big tobacco, well, that's pretty unusual. NBC, who recently brought Friday Night Lights to the small screen, will be doing the same for Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking -- however, Reitman himself does not appear to be involved.

Instead, Rick Cleveland (Six Feet Under, The West Wing) has come onbard to write and exec produce, and David O. Sacks (who produced the film version) will also exec produce. Pic, which was based on a novel by Christopher Buckley (who will serve as a consulting producer on the TV show), told the story of Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), a man desperately trying to balance his job as a spin-doctor for big tobacco and his responsibilities as a dad. The TV version will pick up where the film left off; Nick will be running his own firm where clients could include "fast food companies, environmental polluters or politicos caught with their pants down." Pretty much, when someone with deep pockets finds themselves wrapped up in a PR nightmare, Naylor is the guy you hire to make things right. No word yet on casting, but there's a good chance Eckhart will not reprise his role.

Man, there's so many ways they can go with this, but it really will depend on who they get to play Naylor. Any suggestions?

Of all the bad behavior we see on screen, is smoking really the one we need to worry about? Since the '90s, the tobacco industry claims to have denied requests from the movie industry to use their products, but most of the time they just went ahead and used them anyway.

The Guardian reports that tobacco giant Philip Morris will be putting ads in industry papers like Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter, asking studios to no longer use any of their brands in feature films. Media critics have often accused cigarette makers of using movies as free advertising, but lately most of the attention was unflattering; images of dying Marlboro Men and sinister corporate thugs in movies like The Insider and Thank You For Smoking. Since there has already been a policy in place for years about product placement with little effect, you have to wonder whether these ads will really do anything -- well, other than making Philip Morris look like good corporate citizens. You really can't take their complaint very seriously when they're unwilling to even sue studios for breach of copyright.

Other than a return to a "production code" style of policing the movies -- an idea that should make everyone just a little uncomfortable, I doubt a few half-hearted protests from Philip Morris will make the movies hang a "no smoking" sign.

Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking is a wickedly funny political satire that takes a long, smirking, sideways glance at the hypocrisy of spin, both corporate and political. The film, Reitman's feature film debut, was highly anticipated - Reitman, of course, is the son of director Ivan Reitman, and there's nothing like having a famous-director father to plop an ambitious young director squarely in the fishbowl, with everyone waiting for him to either live up to their lofty expectations, or fall flat on his face. No pressure, kid.

The script is based on a book by another famous "kid of", Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley. It's hard to know whether to give more credit to Buckley for the excellent source material or Reitman for the adaptation; taking a 272 page book and condensing it succinctly into a 92 minute film, while retaining both the heart at the center and the sharpness at the edges, is no easy task, but Thank You for Smoking is slick (in a good way) and well-packaged from beginning to end. It rather reminded me of another adaptation about the cigarette biz, 1993's Barbarians at the Gate, which starred James Garner in one of the best performances of his career as H. Ross Johnson.

Features
The Descent
Stay
Thank You For Smoking
Kinky Boots
Sherrybaby
Cinnamon
Lucky Number Slevin
Friends with Money - Karina's take
Friends with Money - James' take

Foreign
13 (Tzameti)
Little Red Flowers
Adam's Apples
Eve and the Firehorse
Man Push Cart

Documentary
TV Junkie
Wordplay
Wide Awake
Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!
The World According to Sesame Street
Thin
Angry Monk - Reflections on Tibet
Crossing Arizona
Everyone Stares, Police Documentary

Shorts
Flesh

Sundance is abuzz this morning over a sex scene, featuring Katie Holmes, that mysteriously disappeared from Jason Reitman's Thank You For Smoking in between its Toronto premiere and Sundance screening. Most people on the ground here don't believe, as various tabloids are reporting, that Tom Cruise had anything to do with the scene's excision, but it is odd that the director himself isn't taking any responsibility for it. Claiming he was "in shock" when he saw the sex scene-less version projected on Saturday night, Reitman told the LA Times that a projectionist had accidentally snipped off the scene whilst changing reels. As implausible as that sounds – even the shortest scene would live on several feet of film stock, making any kind of accidental snip both unweildy and conspicuous – there doesn't seem to be another credible explanation at this point. I did not see the film in Toronto, but my sources tell me that the original scene wasn't graphic in any way – certainly not as graphic as anything Nicole Kidman did whilst co-starring opposite then-husband Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut – and considering that Holmes herself appeared topless several years ago in the Gift, any squeamishness on the part of Holmes' fiancee would just be really, really crazy. When I saw Smoking here at Sundance, I actually sort of admired the lack of hardcore action in the innuendo-laden film – I thought Reitman was trying to be Preston Sturges. Guess not. But what do you think is going on here? If nothing else, isn't it a little funny that this not-inherently controversial film finds a way to cause some kind of silly hoopla everywhere it goes? Here's one more scrap of "evidence": when the film screened again on Sunday, the scene in question had not been replaced.