Near the end of last week, Defamer spread the rumor that Picturehouse, once the indie arm of New Line Cinema and currently dangling from the edge of the hulking entity known as Warner Bros., has its days numbered. Now that New Line is history and Warners, like many studios, has faced increasing cutbacks, it may give short shrift to the shingles responsible for handling artier fare. Along with Picturehouse, this also includes Warner Independent Pictures, whose recent release slate includes David Gordon Green's magnificent Snow Angels.

Defamer suggested that Picturehouse president Bob Berney might wind up at WIP or head up a new, currently anonymous company. On Friday, Variety's Anne Thompson put it in more coherent terms: It appears quite likely that WIP and Picturehouse will merge together as a single company, with current WIP president Polly Cohen working alongside Berney. Whatever happens, let's just hope that the final result still leaves room for the sharp selection of independent and foreign titles that Picturehouse has handled since its birth three years ago. Defamer points out that Marion Cotillard's unexpected Oscar win for La Vie en Rose matters less than the flop of Run, Fatboy, Run, while the John Simpson-directed horror film Amusement might get dumped on DVD. It was just last year, however, that the company helped edgy fare like The Orphanage and Rocket Science get the sort of release most studios would never try. Let's hope that bravery lives on, somewhere.

A solid handful of indie titles vie for your attention on the DVD shelves this week. I've already written about the marketing for Joe Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs, my pick of the week, but that shouldn't overshadow the intrinsic quality of the film itself. The DVD from IFC includes Thanks for the Add!, a short film by Swanberg, an audio commentary by Swanberg and actors / co-writers Greta Gerwig and Kent Osborne, behind the scenes footage, and SXSW video production diary spots.

I watched Juan Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage (pictured) with expectations set perhaps too high. I thought it would be a thrilling Spanish ghost story; instead it's a rather pallid drama about a mother and a lost son with just a smidgen of suspense and supernatural overtones. Jette Kernion had a response similar to mine, but others liked it much more, including our own Scott Weinberg, who praised it as "entirely captivating from start to finish." The DVD from Picturehouse includes three featurettes and something on the somewhat misleading marketing campaign.

Family dysfunction and elder care may not sound like sexy subjects, but Tamara Jekins "simply takes us into the story of her fascinating characters, and the integrity with which she handles it makes it ring true throughout." That was the reaction of Kim Voynar to The Savages; she was especially impressed by the performances of Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The DVD from Fox Searchlight includes an extended scene, director's snapshots, and a featurette entitled "About the Savages."

Among my favorite film books is Michael J. Weldon's two-volume "Psychotronic" film guide. The first was published in 1983 and the second in 1996 (Michael hopes to publish a third at some point). Unlike Leonard Maltin's annual book, Weldon doesn't update an existing guide; each new guide is an entirely new volume. If you want to read about Halloween, you need Vol. 1 and if you want to read about Halloween 4, you need Vol. 2. A "Psychotronic" movie can be fairly easy to define. It's basically any of the "lower" film genres, dealing with the more questionable elements of society: horror, sci-fi, bikers, strippers, superheroes, zombies, kung-fu, vampires, comic books, drugs, sex, action heroes, rock 'n' roll, midnight movies, monsters, witches, cults, serial killers, magic, time travel, robberies, heists, contract killers, gladiators, Spaghetti Westerns, mad scientists, murder mysteries, pimps, voyeurs, etc.

Okay. It's time to get down to brass tacks. I'm going to get up on my soapbox and hope that the right Academy members read the column this week, because it's time to re-do the rules of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar category. Do you know how long it has been since a great film, a truly great film, won in this category? I'm talking about a film made by a genuinely great artist of the cinema, a film for the ages, and not just a perfectly good film, or a film about one of the great world wars. Here's your answer: twenty-five years ago. Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (1983) was the last great one. That leaves 25 years of pretty good, just OK, forgettable, or flat-out awful winners (mostly forgettable). This year's winner, The Counterfeiters (41 screens) had to be one of the worst movies I saw all year; at it's center is a perfectly good (true) WWII concentration camp story, but it's warped by an entirely inept director, responsible for one of the worst movies I've ever seen, All the Queen's Men (2001). How did it win? How did it get past all the truly great films of 2007?

When evaluating new movies, sometimes a critic will try to envision their staying power. It goes without saying that most movies have no shelf life; they're designed for one opening weekend, or perhaps a few months of buzz leading to an award, but that's it. A year from now, people will be ignoring them on airplanes and then they'll be on sale in the DVD bargain bin. Only a very few titles enter into the general zeitgeist forever, becoming a "cult film." A cult film can be a resurrected flop, something like The Wizard of Oz or Donnie Darko, or it can be a beloved hit, such as Casablanca or the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings films. The only constant is that it's impossible to predict. When I first reviewed Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski (1998), I thought it suffered in comparison to Fargo, but now it has become a cult classic even bigger than its predecessor. Regardless, I thought I'd look at some of the movies currently playing on less than 400 screens and guess their fates.

I'll start with an easy one: Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd (316 screens). This is Burton and Johnny Depp's sixth film together, and they bring out the very best instincts in one another. They remind me of no less than Tod Browning and Lon Chaney's sinister collaborations during the silent era. (Their 1927 film The Unknown needs to be seen by everyone.) Depp gets to indulge in his taste for disguise (and funny voices) while Burton taps into his childlike nightmares for new images and ideas. Sure, they will probably never really make a grown-up movie, but several of their collaborations have already stood the test of time, and at least two: Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Ed Wood (1994) have cracked the edges of cult status. In fact, I'd go so far as to add Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Depp's Dead Man and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to make a great cult film festival.

Call me an optimist, but I'm always hoping for Oscar reform. I've been rather excited about recent rumblings that the Academy is finally, finally considering changing its rules regarding foreign film consideration. I saw one of the new nominees last week, The Counterfeiters, and I have to say that there were at least 20 or 30 other, better foreign language films last year. In fact, I'd have to say that The Counterfeiters is a contender for my worst list of 2008; it takes on an interesting story, but cinematically it's sheer amateur hour. The only reason it got nominated is because it takes place in a concentration camp. I also need to mention that the director, Stefan Ruzowitzky, made one of the worst films I have ever seen, All the Queen's Men (2002), starring Matt LeBlanc and Eddie Izzard as soldiers who go undercover as drag queens in WWII.

Did anyone notice that though La vie en rose earned three nominations (Best Actress, Costume, Makeup) it didn't get nominated for Foreign Language Film? Likewise, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (205 screens) -- filmed almost entirely in French -- was nominated for four awards (Best Director, Editing, Screenplay, Cinematography), but not Best Foreign Film. Why? Diving Bell doesn't count as foreign because it has an American director. Not to mention that each country is only allowed to submit one film, and France's choice, Persepolis (100 screens) was not nominated either. Instead, it was nominated for Best Animated Film! This type of thing happens all the time. In 2002, the foreign film committee rejected the Brazilian film City of God. It was released in 2003 to great critical acclaim and success, and was nominated the following year for four Oscars in other categories. In 2000, Taiwan chose to submit the hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, rather than arguably the greatest film of the past decade, Edward Yang's Yi Yi. Why couldn't both be nominated?

Expanding to nearly 2,500 theaters, Juno slowed down only incrementally as it maintained its hold at the top of the indie box office chart, based on estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City Indie. Raking in $13.7 million over the weekend, good enough to place it #3 overall, the returns translated into $5,600 per screen. The weekly gross is down just 13% from the previous week; so far, the film has made $71 million for distributor Fox Searchlight and is galloping toward smashing the $100 million mark.

Period romantic drama (and perennial indie box office bridesmaid) Atonement continued its very nice performance, earning $4,410 per screen at 950 theaters for a weekend total of $4.2 million. Its cumulative total of $25.1 million for Focus Features would be making more noise were it not for the runaway mainstream success of Juno.

Distributor Freestyle Releasing opened Uwe Boll's fantasy action pic In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale wide on more than 1,600 screens and barely eked out $1,740 per screen. Frankly, Scott Weinberg's review is far more entertaining than the movie.

Likewise, Picturehouse moved Spanish-language The Orphanage out across America and the results were mixed. At $3,090 per screen at 638 locations, it out performed the other ghost story in the marketplace (the tepid One Missed Call in its second week), but doesn't appear to have caught fire yet. Word of mouth may help in the coming days.

Epic oil drama There Will Be Blood may be gaining traction; Paramount Vantage increased its theater count to 129 and, according to Box Office Mojo, its per-screen average ($15,038) was the highest of the weekend. I'm also seeing some TV advertising. Very quietly, the animated Persepolis is creeping out into the public consciousness; it earned an average of $10,833 per screen at 18 theaters for Sony Classics.

Teen pregnancy rules! At least, at the indie box office it does, as Juno expanded to 1,925 theaters, maintained a healthy per-screen average ($8,428, the second highest among wide releases) and swept easily into third place in the overall standings, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Grossing more than $16 million over the weekend, with a cumulative total of $52 million, Juno has benefited from an extensive marketing campaign by Fox Searchlight, very strong critical reaction, and, presumably, excellent word of mouth.

The highest per-screen average among wide releases belonged to Atonement. Expanding to 583 screens, the period drama from Focus Features drew $8,789 per engagement. Atonement is in its fifth week of release, as is Juno, and though the period drama continues to be outpaced by the teen comedy, it's performed very well overall.

Among more limited specialty releases, There Will Be Blood was the star, earning $26,215 per screen at 51 locations, which should please distributor Paramount Vantage. The film is due to expand into 125 screens on Friday. I think it's a tremendous, engaging film, but it's a demanding experience, which usually doesn't translate into big box office.

Even without any known stars (and in Spanish!), The Orphanage did quite nicely, pulling in $7,590 per screen at 66 theaters for Picturehouse. It will move onto 500 screens later this week, which will give me a chance to see it; I'd love to see more foreign-language genre pictures get this kind of release.

Animated French-language Persepolis expanded to five more screens and made $11,428 per location for distrib Sony Pictures Classics, which bodes well as it continues a platform release. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly appears to be benefiting from all the critical hosannas it has received, reaping $6,000 per screen in its sixth week of release by Miramax.

The Spanish film The Orphanage (El Orfanato) has been marketed in the U.S. as a movie that Guillermo del Toro worked on in some capacity: similar to Pan's Labyrinth, but with more elements of horror. I found this campaign to be terribly misleading, even disappointing in light of my expectations. (Misleading marketing for a movie? You could have knocked me over with a girder, to quote Dorothy Parker.) The Orphanage is instead more of a slow-paced suspense film with supernatural trimmings, centering around a mystery that the main characters cannot solve even though the audience may have figured out a few clues. Although del Toro is credited as a producer on the film, it's directed by J.A. Bayona and has very little in common with Pan's Labyrinth, except that both feature children with rich fantasy lives.

Laura (Belen Rueda) and Carlos (Fernando Cayo) move to an old country estate with their son, Simon (Roger Princep). The mansion used to be an orphanage where Laura lived as a girl, until she was adopted. Now the couple is renovating it as a home for special-needs children. Odd things start occurring, though, before they can finish the job. An old woman who says she's a social worker warns Laura that she's keeping an eye on them because of Simon's chronic illness, and knows information that the parents have not yet told their child. And Simon discovers a whole slew of new invisible friends, some of whom sound extremely spooky and even dangerous. They play a special game that you know isn't going to end well. On the day of the grand opening for the renovated orphanage, Simon disappears without a trace. Has he been kidnapped, and is he still alive? Laura is determined to root out the truth and find her son, and will try anything.

One of the most towering achievements in cinema this year, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, finally opened in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas Day and was rewarded with a per-screen average of $91,300 over the weekend, the best average of the year, according to Pamela McClintock of Variety. Of course, the film only played at two theaters, but still, that's mighty impressive. Nineteen cities across the country also hosted a midnight screening on Saturday; no word yet on how those screenings were received. I thought this was an astounding film when I saw it at Fantastic Fest and I can't wait to see it again.

Cinematical's Scott Weinberg has been raving about The Orphanage since he saw the Spanish ghost story at the Toronto film festival (check his Top 10 list), and the film grossed a very healthy $12,260 per screen at 19 engagements, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City News. That's just slightly more than the French-language Persepolis, the animated tale about a little girl coming of age during the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which earned $12,160 per screen at seven engagements. James Rocchi reviewed the film at Cannes, and Erik Davis recently posted his interview with directors Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud.

When it played at the Toronto festival, Monika Bartyzel called John Sayles' Honeydripper "a simple and plainly executed ode to the start of rock 'n' roll." Movie City News pointed to Stephen Holden's "withering notice" in The New York Times, which provoked Ira Deutschman of distributor Emerging Pictures to respond: "Do people show their own ignorance–and even racism–when they have a kneejerk reaction to a story that, while set in a certain time and place, is trying to get to something a little different from what is expected?" The picture made just $2,400 per screen at four locations in New York and Los Angeles.