This week, Peter Travers takes a look at this weekend's two biggest releases. Should you take in the Will Ferrell basketball comedy Semi-Pro or the costume romance The Other Boleyn Girl with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman? Click above to hear the Rolling Stone film critic's thoughts. Plus: Read Travers' reviews of Semi-Pro here and The Other Boleyn Girl here.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

Are you ready for a Will Ferrell argument? No, not the one about whether he'll bare his flabby ass. I'm talking about the debate that's bound to rage when Ferrell's latest sports comedy Semi-Pro opens this weekend and lands smack on top of the box-office charts. Ferrell haters will argue that he's just doing the same thing over and over again (go rent Stranger Than Fiction and Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda to kick that argument in the teeth). His fans will counter that Ferrell is mad funny even when his movies suck. I tend to side with the last group, though Kicking and Screaming, Bewitched and The Producers are difficult to defend on any level. My theory about most movie comedies, whether or not they star Ferrell, is that few of them reach perfection.

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I've been bitching relentlessly about the films of 2008. To ease off the doom boom, I'd like to pay tribute to actors who manage to be good or better than good in epically lousy movies. For example, there's Diane Lane in Untraceable, Ray Winstone in Fool's Gold, and Zoe Saldana in Vantage Point. Feel free to nominate your own candidates for Best Actor in a Bad Movie, but I'm going with:

Jamie Bell in Jumper

Who can blame Bell for trying to choke costar Hayden Christensen (see photo)? He was probably trying to get a recognizable human reaction out of him. The British Bell, 22, made his name eight years ago as the dancing mining-town kid in Billy Elliot. Now he breathes whatever life there is in Doug Liman's overamped sci-fi chase flick. As the rogue jumper who tires to save Christensen's character from teleporting around the world without watching who's following him, Bell laced his role with humor and heart, two qualities otherwise absent in this inexplicable box-office hit.

Yes, it's DVD Tuesday. And only two stand out:

PICK OF THE WEEK

No contest, it's The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson's lyrical comedy about three Manhattan brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman) on a healing journey through India by train. The movie limped at the box office, so take the trip on DVD. The transfer to disc is beauitifully done. And a major bonus is Hotel Chevalier, a thirteen-minute short that shows Schwartzman's character shacked up in Paris with his girlfriend, played by a harsh, never-hotter Natalie Portman (see photo). The short wasn't shown with the movie during its theatrical run. Big mistake. Watch it now and let it get inside your head.

VICE PICK IF YOU HAVE AN OSCAR HANGOVER

The Last Emperor, which won the Best Picture Academy Award twenty years ago, has looked like crap on DVD ever since.

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It's over! After months of hype and hooey, the Oscars are yesterday's news. Except of course for grading the telecast. The winners were mostly well chosen—in an enlightened world The Golden Compass would win nothing, even visual effects—but the dullness quotient increased as the show dragged on and on and on. Here then, teacher's grades for the best and worst moments, remembering of course that the best is often the worst. Feel free to chime in.

A
Best Supporting Actress winner Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton). What other actress would begin an acceptance speech with the words, "Oh noooo," and then proceed to give her statuette away to her American agent because his ass resembled Oscar's? Great, unexpected stuff on a night of dreary rectitude.

Big winners Joel and Ethan Coen (Best Picture, Screenplay and Direction for No Country for Old Men). They deserved every prize but looked like they'd been called to the principal's office to be chewed out each time they hit the massive stage of the Kodak theater.

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11:40 PM: BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese opens the envelope.
Joel and Ethan Coen drag their asses to the stage. Ethan looks like he'd like to drop through the floor. Joel comes through with a nice anecdote about how they've been making movies since he was 11. One, about shuttle diplomacy, is called Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go. I'd like to see that one. Nice to see Joel's wife, Frances McDormand, in the audience smiling for her husband and her brother-in-law.

11:45 PM: BEST PICTURE: Denzel Washington does the envelope opening.
It's No Country for Old Men, as I hoped it would be. Even Ethan Coen smiles. I saw it. You did too. Producer Scott Rudin makes a moving tribute to the ailing Sydney Pollack, to No Country author Cormac McCarthy, and to the love of his life without whom he says—holding up the Oscar—"this would be hardware." And so that's all the hardware for this year. Do you think most of the hardware was deserved. Or would you, paraphrasing Daniel Day Lewis, like to bludgeon someone with it?

11:35 PM: BEST ACTOR TIME. Helen Mirren, looking regal, steps up and says "cojones" with real punch.
Nominees all look nervous — Clooney fidgets, Depp pulls at his goatee, even Tommy Lee looks squiggly. If Daniel Day Lewis doesn't win, I'm going out to picket ... He does. Nice bow to Queen Mirren — "the closest I'll ever get to a knighthood," he says, as she taps him with the Oscar. And one of the great performances in modern cinema gets its due.

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In the last of his Oscar prediction videos, Peter Travers contemplates what movie should win the big prize and be called "Best Picture." Will it be the epic There Will Be Blood, the intense No Country for Old Men, the quirky Juno, the romantic Atonement or the thrilling Michael Clayton? Click above for the Rolling Stone film critic's take, and be sure to tune in to The Travers Take tomorrow for his live blog of the Oscar ceremony, starting at 8PM EST.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

Please join me Sunday night for my live Oscar blog, starting at 8pm EST, where I'll shoot poison darts at every major category from acting to acting stupid and invite you to do the same.

The Oscars are almost here, and Peter Travers is nearly done making his picks. Today, the Rolling Stone film critic weighs the Best Actress category. Will the Academy err on the side of Hollywood newcomers Ellen Page or Marion Cotillard, or will the experience of Julie Christie, Laura Linney or Cate Blanchett win out? Click above to hear Travers' complete argument, and tune in tomorrow for his pick for Best Picture.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

A pox on the Academy for giving The Bourne Ultimatum (see photo) no identity in the big-ticket categories. Below the star line, though, Bourne pops up three times for technical awards, the kind most people will snooze through during the Sunday Oscarcast. But there are a few technical awards that are essential to how a movie looks, sounds and feels. Take a peek, and see if you agree:

BEST EDITING

The Bourne Ultimatum—Christopher Rouse

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly—Juliette Welfling

Into the Wild—Jay Cassidy

No Country for Old Men—Roderick Jaynes

There Will Be Blood—Dylan Tichenor

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