Right off the bat, I have issues with this list. Not so much for the fact that almost all of the films are sci-fi horror/thrillers, but because they left off a film with such a depressing ending that it still haunts me to this day. But first off, Den of Geek has compiled a list of what they feel are the 10 most depressing movie endings ever. Before you click over and check them out, be warned that massive amounts of spoilers await you. Here's their top ten: Soylent Green, The Elephant Man, The Descent, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Spider, Nineteen-Eighty Four, A.I. and -- drum roll please for number one -- The Mist.

Yes, valid points are made on all of them. Yes, they are depressing. But what about The Last American Virgin? Now there's a film with the most depressing ending I've ever seen (and if you've watched that film, you know exactly what I'm talking about). Off the top of my head, No Country for Old Men had a pretty depressing ending -- as did Goodfellas. There's Untamed Heart, Venus, Requiem for a Dream -- pretty much any film where someone is dying of an illness, but gets one last chance at love. Though it served as a bridge film, I thought Empire Strikes Back had a pretty depressing ending. Check out their list, then tell us which films were left off.

In your opinion, which film has the most depressing ending of all time? (Dammit, now I have The Last American Virgin ending stuck in my head. Sigh.)

UPDATE: Here's another list from our friend Alex on the 15 Bleakest Film Endings of All Time. A lot of the films you folks talked about in the comments are on his list, so hop on over and check it out.

Half Nelson came and went through theatres quietly. If it weren't for living three blocks away from an independent movie house I would have never noticed it myself. Ryan Fleck's independent was filmmaking gold -- truly great filmmaking. The story is about a schoolteacher, young and inspiring who lives a double life as a crack addict once he leaves campus at night. Why did more than half the world not see, let alone not hear, about this film? Independent budgets simply do not have the kind of funding necessary to publicize their films.

It's sad but true. Most incredible independent features are never heard of before they hit DVD; where many have the chance at a more uplifting financial turn around. So, if the production doesn't have the money to publicize, if there aren't big names that will naturally draw people to the film (i.e. Babel, Notes on a Scandal or Venus) what do they do to get people to see their films? Miraculously a huge part of drawing an audience to Indies is word of mouth. I'm a firm believer that if the work is good that it will be seen. The work will be recognized, sooner or later, all based onon interested parties viewing the film.

IndieWire interviewed president of Picturehouse Bob Berney about generating success on independent projects. In his interview, Berney said something worth quoting again and again. "If films are good, audiences can expand almost without a ceiling." He's absolutely right and what a great picture to create, a film rising against absolutely no barriers. That film can and will trump any blockbuster film if it is -- good. Berney stated to IndieWire that good reviews also contribute to the success of indie films. Word of mouth, to me, is far more powerful. It's reviews that I often times let go in one ear and out the other -- I don't like people making decisions for me.

Independent films have generally had a good run in 2006. With awards season and a little patience, the Indies of 2006 may do even better ... we just have to keep talking about them.

Happy Holidays to all and to all a ... few good movies. I've been asked to step in and semi-resurrect our regular old Review Roundup feature, which works out pretty well considering I usually spend most Fridays (and some Wednesdays) poring through all my favorite critics, agreeing with some and questioning the basic sanity of others. But since the release date schedules get extra jumbly during the year-end holiday season, I figured I'd spend my first column covering, well, everything. Let's start with the ones that actually opened yesterday ...

The Good Shepherd

Pro: "It's not a tub-thumping anti-CIA screed, but at the same time it's not a gung-ho patriotic extravaganza about the moral certainty of our side." -- Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

Con: "This is featherweight entertainment, sans visual elation and moral consequence-like Munich for Beginners." -- Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

Pro: "The bottom line is that The Good Shepherd is engaging cinema. The length is a drawback, but not a big one since the movie earns the majority of its 165-minute running time." -- James Berardinelli, ReelViews.net

Con: "De Niro's vision seems unfocused and ill-executed. It seems as though he had a thousand good ideas about what a spy film should be that didn't quite coalesce into a singular product, but he crammed 'em all in there regardless and tossed the editing shears into the garbage." -- Phil Villareal, Arizona Daily Star

BONUS: "A truncated American tragedy, noticeably half-finished and undercooked, but often tantalizing for the promise that clearly lay buried in the material, like unbroken codes." -- Ryan Stewart, Cinematical

Night at the Museum

Pro: "Trying to get kids to go to a museum over their holiday vacations might be a little easier after seeing Night at the Museum, a family-friendly comedy that tries to entertain while educating - and often succeeds, at least with the former." -- Mack Bates, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Con: "A volley of contented cackles greeted the final third of Night at the Museum, a pea-brained fantasy-comedy with a riot of kid-pleasing special effects." -- Jan Stuart, Newsday Magazine

Pro: "What do you know, not only is this a delightful popcorn movie, Ben Stiller is actually really good in it." -- Kevin LaForest, Montreal Film Journal

Con: "The possibilities for building an intriguing and original story around this concept -- the Museum of freakin' Natural History comes alive every night! -- are endless, and they chose this. That is downright criminal." -- MaryAnn Johanson, The Flick Filosopher

BONUS: "Lots of pure imagination, with an extra helping of the most fun you might have at the theater all year." -- Erik Davis, Cinematical

We Are Marshall

Pro: "Warm and big-hearted, We Are Marshall succeeds as a tribute because it respects its subjects. It succeeds as a movie because it doesn't confuse respect with lifelessness." -- Jessica Reaves, Chicago Tribune

Con: "Director McG, known for the whiz-bang acrobatics of his Charlie's Angels movies, applies a warm, shiny veneer to everything here which prevents any emotion from getting through." -- Christy Lemire, San Francisco Gate

Pro: "The film is injected with a refreshing energy whenever McConaughey is on-screen, balancing some of the inherent sadness of the story." -- Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times

Con: "No matter how earnest the intentions are, however, the harsh truth is that We Are Marshall is shockingly empty, one-dimensionally written, and finally unconvincing." -- Dustin Putnam, TheMovieBoy.com

BONUS: "A film that walks a tightrope with tricky subject matter, and somehow makes it to the other side." -- Ryan Stewart, Cinematical

Now let's skip back over the past week or so and see how the other holiday break also-rans fared with the critics...

It's difficult to pull off May-December romances in movies, mainly because they're so creepy. As often as not, the movie doesn't even acknowledge the age difference, casting men in their fifties opposite girls in their twenties, with nothing in mind but the potential box office returns. If the movie does acknowledge the gap, it's usually to make some kind of wry statement, most famously in Nabokov's Lolita, adapted for the screen twice, by Stanley Kubrick in 1962 and Adrian Lyne in 1997.

The new movie Venus miraculously manages a deft balance of all this, and on top of it, the age difference is a staggering fifty years, between19 year-old Jessie (Jodie Whittaker) and 70-something Maurice (Peter O'Toole). Of course, this is no traditional romance, but more of an odd, tender friendship, not unlike that of Lost in Translation (2003).

A working London actor busy with plays and television, Maurice loves to spend time with his old colleague Ian (Leslie Phillips). Their dryly hilarious bickering sets the tone for the rest of the film. Ian anticipates a visit from his grand-niece, and expects that she will begin caring for his worldly needs, such as cooking and cleaning. Of course, the girl that actually arrives is more of a modern teenager, Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), with modern teenage ennui, cynicism and selfishness. While these qualities drive Ian into a fit of pique, they actually intrigue the more playful Maurice. He slowly engages her in conversation, and his way of bluntly telling the truth (there's no point in lying at his age) does not repulse her. Later, he impulsively offers to buy her a drink, and she discovers that, as an actor, he's "a little bit" famous.

I posted the other day about the panel discussion led by The Hollywood Reporter's Anne Thompson on "The New Media Future: The Impact of Broadband on the Creative Process and Content Distribution." The panel included Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, Josh Goldman from Akimbo Systems, Yair Landau, President of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, director Kevin MacDonald (Touching the Void) and Dan Scheinman, SVP of Corporate Development for Cisco Systems, which sponsored the event. Cisco has the entire panel discussion up in a podcast now, for your listening pleasure. This was a great discussion with lots of interesting points of view on the impact digital and broadband will have on the future of film. If you're a geek for that kind of stuff, or you were at Telluride and didn't make it to the panel, be sure to check it out.

Today was the last day of the festival, and I was lucky to be able to catch two films that had been eluding me all weekend: Jindabyne, starring Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne (both in top form) and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, with Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey, Jr. I'd heard lots of good buzz around Jindabyne all week that, well, I really wanted to see it. The film is about Claire and Stewart, a couple struggling to overcome the effect on their marriage of Claire's nervous breakdown following the birth of their son several years before. The couple's marriage, their friendships, and their relationships with everyone in their small community are challenged when Stewart and three friends find the body of a dead girl in the river on a fishing trip, and decide to leave her in the river until their boys' weekend is over.

Maurice (Peter O'Toole) and Ian (Leslie Phillips), veteran actors and lifelong friends, are getting on in years, so Ian is having his grand-niece come to live with him and help take care of him. When the young lady arrives, however, Ian finds himself in a state of shock. Far from the demure young woman of his imagination who would fawn over his every needs, Jessie (newcomer Jodie Whittaker) is a rude, sullen girl who never seems to stop eating junk food, pours milk into his lemon tea, and can't even cook a nice piece of halibut to save her life. Maurice, meanwhile, has just been diagnosed with prostrate cancer -- a fact he conceals from his friends -- and he views Jessie in an entirely different light. Maurice likes Jessie in spite of -- perhaps, one suspects, because of -- her rough edges, and takes her under his wing, escorting her to the theater and the museum and encouraging her to read classic literature.

Here we are at Day Three of Telluride already. Only one more day of fun and film at 10,000 feet to go before I'm off to Toronto. Today was beautiful in Telluride, absolutely perfect for sitting outside to interview Venus director Roger Michell during an afternoon screening of his film. Michell was every bit as delightful in person as he seems in his Q&As. He was due to take off right after the post-show Q&A to get his kids back to London in time for school tomorrow, before heading to Toronto himself to promote the film there. I'll have the interview up as soon as I have enough spare minutes to get it transcribed.

After the interview, I had a little time before I needed to queue up for the screening of Infamous at the Galaxy, so I headed down to Main Street (aka Colorado Street), the heart of Telluride, to score a sandwich to eat in line. On my way back to the Galaxy, I found a nice little coffee shop, where I got a lovely triple-shot latte -- just what I needed to boost me through the afternoon and evening. Finally got into the Galaxy after waiting in the queue forever. It's a neat theater: They convert the elementary school gymnasium into a full-fledged theater by covering everything in black velvet drapes and bringing in lots of cool neon galaxy-themed art. I enjoyed Infamous more than I expected to. I wasn't sure the world needed two films about Truman Capote in as many years, but the film was well-done and well-acted, with Sandra Bullock putting in a particularly strong performance as Capote's childhood friend, Pulitzer prize-winning author Nelle Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird). I love To Kill a Mockingbird, but I had no idea that Lee based the character of Dil on Capote. I know, I'm probably the only person on the planet who didn't know that. That's okay. You learn all kinds of unexpected things at film festivals.

Saturday was interesting. I was supposed to go to an early screening, but didn't sleep well (the altitude is getting to me a bit) and decided to stay in this morning to write reviews instead, while slurping down what passes for coffee here at the lodge. I'd pay serious cash for Seattle's 24/7 access to a latte right about now -- my blood-to-caffeine ratio has dipped dangerously low at this point.

Possibly because of that, I forgot to mention an interesting story in yesterday's report. On the gondola ride back to the lodge, I met a woman who had just been to the Emmys. She is a "seat filler" at the awards shows, primarily the Oscars and Emmys. She's done this for years -- she doesn't get paid for it, but she has a blast. What's a "seat filler," you ask? A seat filler sits in empty seats next to stars whose spouses or dates have gone off to the bathroom or to sneak a smoke, so that when the camera pans their way it doesn't look like they're alone.

Today was the first day of the Telluride Film Festival. I have lots of lovely pics sitting on my digital camera to show you; unfortunately, the cable I need to download the pics is in Seattle, and the closest place to buy a replacement is 40 miles from here. Telluride is beautiful, but very isolated. Never fear, though, for the charming and delightful Eugene Hernandez, one of Cinematical's pals from indieWIRE, has a cable with him that he's going to let me borrow. If we can work out the complexities of our respective viewing schedules long enough for me to download my images tomorrow, then tomorrow night's dispatch will be decidedly more visual.

So, Day One. I got in Thursday evening after a full day of travel that included a three-hour drive from Gunnison after several hours of plane travel. The drive was lovely, so it went quickly enough, but I was too tired Thursday night to do anything other than check in at the Press Office, mosey up the mountain to my lodgings, order dinner in and collapse for the night. Friday dawned bright and sunny after Thursday's menacing clouds and occasional rain, and I can honestly say I've never seen anywhere prettier than Telluride on a clear and sunny day, not even Seattle. It's just majestic. I took the gondola down to the Press Orientation, where I picked up the official bright yellow "press" lanyard that distinguishes press from everyone else with a bright yellow badge. Much like at Sundance, every is always eyeballing each other's badges to see if you're someone important -- especially the blue badges, which are for guests, many of whom are filmmakers.