It's no secret that the movie industry wants your soul and, my friends, this is the time of year when that soul is ripest for picking. There will be Halloween movies to make you scream, Thanksgiving movies that make you miss your Ma, Christmas movies that will cause you to weep all over your yule log.

In between is everything else, with shoot-outs, spies, end-of-the-world scenarios, all manner of love that is lost, found, salvaged and rediscovered.

If there is one thing you can say about the moviemakers, it's that they offer something for everybody. Some of it will be fantastic, win awards, go directly to the classic wall at the video store. More of it will stink like the theater lobby after another showing of "Rocky Horror."

I claim no special ability to forecast the success of movies, yet here I am doing it. You should pay no special attention to my prognostications because when it comes to movies, I am notoriously unpredictable. I will turn my nose up at a movie simply because the title reminds me of something airing on The Lifetime Channel - something horrible starring Valerie Bertinelli and that sellout Gerald McRaney. I will go see another movie just because I heard there is a maggot scene or a lot of side boob.

But see which movies you want, people. It's your souls, after all.

And now on to our feature presentations.

A privileged, bumbling alcoholic overcomes early aimlessness to soar high into the sky of American politics and become a man who still cannot correctly pronounce "nuclear."

A movie about the life of George W. Bush alone is not enough to get me to the theater because you can pretty much get that on YouTube. But "W" is the latest biopic from Oliver Stone and lord knows Stone is not one to go gently into his examination of an American president.

I might race to the theater for this one. After all, how can it be anything but fascinating to watch Stone dissect the life of a president whose term began with a terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and ended with an historic economic collapse?

Watching "W" should be a lot like watching "Faces of Death." Uncomfortable and often disgusting, but you just can't look away.

There are two ... No, three solid reasons why I might be willing to break my tradition of avoiding movie theaters to see this flick. The first is that it's directed by Mark Abraham, who produced the hilarious "Let's go to Prison," ("prepare to be woo-ed") which shouldn't have been funny but was.

The second is Greg Kinnear who - call me a thespian rube if you want to - is brilliant at playing complex men with gigantic angst, like he did in "As Good As It Gets," for which he probably won an award of some kind, I don't know, I'm not looking it up.

The third and most important reason I might go out to see this one is the plot. Kinnear plays Robert Kearns, the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper but who got no love from the automobile industry. No, really. The intermittent windshield wiper. Kearns invented it, the auto men ripped him off. I expect to become enraged at the corporate screwing and then drive home in the rain refusing to use the wipers as an expression of protest.

Typically, I would rather get a flea dunk than watch a movie with talking animals. There are three reasons I'd sit through this one at a drive-in (no way I'm going to the theater for it) if it were still drive-in season. Namely, Drew Barrymore, Jamie Lee Curtis and George Lopez.

Barrymore is the only actress I know of who will still be girl-next-door sexy even if she happens to be a pooch. Jamie Lee has only to scream once like that long-ago Laurie Strode and the movie will have been worth it.

George Lopez is probably the most underrated comic in the business. Hulking and critical sportswriter Randy Whitehouse hates the guy and that alone tells you Lopez is great. Lopez was hysterical in his television sitcom of the same name. I have a feeling he'll nail the role of Chihuahua and not just because he's Mexican. OK, it's because he's Mexican.

"Michael Cera and Kat Dennings star as two lonesome teens who make a love connection as they prowl the streets of New York looking for their favorite band's secret show." That's the synopsis. The theme tags are listed as "teen angst, obsessive quest, intersecting lives."

In other words, I would rather eat hairy gum from the underside of a theater seat than see this movie. If I were single and desperate to score, I might sit through it to impress a date all the way to the hotel. But since those days are gone, brother count me out.

I understand that Michael Cera (he's the son of Jason Bateman, you know) is a talented young actor. I don't care. He starred in "Juno," a movie with nauseating promos that could not be avoided even by complex life forms living under the sea. And thus, I am entitled to hate him, the way I hate Billy Crystal for starring in "When Harry Met Sally," which still makes me gag up popcorn from 1989.

Go see NNIP if you want to, sap. I hope she's worth it.

Sweet, an action flick. And sweet, it's got the broodingly brilliant Leonardo DiCaprio as its star. It's a timely thriller that promises terrorist plots, undercover operatives, betrayal, lies and no end of intrigue. With William Monahan, screenwriter from "The Departed," I don't see how this one can fail.

But oh, look. Russell Crowe is in it. That's how it can fail.

Call me crazy, but I don't like Crowe. To me, he is never a character in a movie, he is always Russell Crowe and he can distract from a good plot like a walking, talking commercial for himself.

I'd see this one, but I'd boo during the Crowe scenes and risk drawing the wrath of the ladies in the audience, who might beat me about the head and kick me in the Milk Duds.

A bumbling British journalist joins a snotty upscale magazine in New York and, presumably, hilarity ensues. If this flick sets out to ridicule snobby publications like The New Yorker, I might be tempted.

But I have my doubts. It's got a weird cast, for one thing. Jeff Bridges (who is apparently still alive) Kirstin Dunst (cringe) and Gillian Anderson.

Really? Gillian Anderson? How very random, Mulder. I dig her Scullyness of course, but I don't see her doing comedy.

I won't see this one, but you should. Mainly because I want to know if there is any frontal nudity on the part of Anderson or Megan "inflate lips to 35 psi" Fox.

A documentary about world religion, starring Bill Maher. Yeah, I don't think so. Religious topics make me uneasy and Bill Maher makes me want to punch Bill Maher in his weird nose.

If you enjoyed "Borat" you should probably see this one. And it wouldn't hurt you to get some religion after that thing you did with your date after "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist."

It's directed by David Zucker of "Airplane" fame. It stars Leslie Nielsen of "Airplane" fame and it's a spoof in the tradition of "Airplane."

I only had to say "Airplane" once and you'd go see it, but this one has more. In what may prove to be overkill, the movie also stars James Woods, Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammer. And Jon Voight, meaning somebody probably squeals like a pig and dies in a canoe.

If there wasn't drinking, fighting and rampant drug use on the set of this one, I'll snort an entire package of gummy worms.

The plot is a simple take on Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Kevin Farley plays a Michael Moore-ish documentary filmmaker who is visited by three ghosts intent on instilling the American spirit in him.

If the cast and director doesn't draw you in, maybe this attached warning will: "rude and irreverent content, language and brief drug material."

Remember the novel of the same name? A soldier in WWI becomes a quadruple amputee and lives the remainder of his life largely inside his mind. The novel is told through a series of recollections rolling through this disabled soldier's head and it is brilliant. So is the 1971 movie based on the book. And now a remake?

I'm skeptical.

I'll go see this one only because the story is so powerful and I'm curious. I really can't lose in a situation like this. If the movie is solid, I can rave about it and say "I told you so." If it blows like a car heater, I can whine and moan about it incessantly.

If your girlfriend lets you see movies with Angelina Jolie, this might be worth checking out. It's not a remake of the classic horror movie of the same name, but it does star John Malkovich, who would be creepy if he did nothing but butter toast in all his scenes. It also stars Colm Feore, who will forever be the infinitely sinister Andre Linoge from Stephen King's "Storm of the Century."

The plot: Jolie and her heaving bosoms become elated upon the return of her kidnapped son before she realizes, as Michael Jackson put it, "the kid is not my son." Corrupt police and a skeptical public stand as obstacles as Jolie and her heaving bosoms seek the truth and hunt for her still-missing boy.

Directed by Clint Eastwood and his heaving bosoms.

Yes, I'm very narrow-minded and judgmental, but I will almost never go see a movie with a title that involves "the" and "musical instrument." A movie titled thusly will almost always involve a woman with some sort of struggle to overcome and she does so only with the aid of "the" and "instrument," with said instrument becoming some sort of talisman to guide her through her travails.

This one involves - well, will you look at that - a woman diagnosed with lung cancer who confronts her doom by going on a reckless spending spree. I have no idea where "the" and "guitar" come in. The blurb for the movie itself has caused me to break out in hives: "Overflowing with an energy and vitality that belies the initial darkness of its narrative, 'The Guitar' is a transcendent respite from the turmoil of our troubled times."

Ah, Sean Penn. One day he's beating up cameramen and bumping uglies with Madonna, now he's starring in this film with such a wholesome title.

He plays Harvey Milk, considered the first openly gay American to be elected to public office. I happen to know how this one ends because the story of Harvey Milk is chronicled in the Concrete Blonde song "God is a Bullet." Because you don't listen to Concrete Blonde, you will have to see the movie to find out for yourself.

I might watch this one if it came on HBO at the hotel in Sante Fe in the middle of the night, but I probably won't be in line behind you at the theater. Love Sean Penn, but just not quite enough. Maybe when he stars in a movie titled "Beer."

Wow, a remake of a classic 1951 sci-fi shocker starring John Cleese, Kathy Bates and Will Smith's kid! An extraterrestrial visits Earth to warn of impending peril and tries to steer mankind away from doom. Frankly, I don't see how a classic like this with so much star power could possibly fail. I don't see how ...

Oh. Keanu Reeves. Yeah, that'll do it.