This week, Rolling Stone's resident film critic is "depressed." Why? Because with all the Oscar-nominated films currently residing in theaters, you, America, have made "the dreadful and appalling" Paul Blart: Mall Cop the top-grossing film for two consecutive weekends. Instead of heading to Slumdog Millionaire, Milk or Frost/Nixon, the majority of Americans have proven they prefer to watch comedian Kevin James from cinematic masterpieces like I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and Hitch star as a shopping mall security guard. Shame on you, America.

It is late January, which is usually a dumping ground for movie studios to rid themselves of their most reviled films. Thus, Travers' Scum Bucket overflowth with Paul Blart, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Liam Neeson's Death Wish-esque Taken and the Renee Zellweger/Harry Connick Jr. rom-com New In Town, which Travers says is devoid of anything redeeming.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however:

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Here I am, just back from a way-better-than-OK Sundance Film Festival, to find that Paul Blart Mall Cop has topped the box office for the second week in a row. Somebody shoot me! This in a week when the Oscar nominees for Best Picture are in wide rotation. So much for the Sundance spirit of nurturing artful storytelling. The appeal of watching Kevin James' bumbling Bart save the mall from robbers (what a concept!) has shot this hackjob comedy to a 10-day box-office total of $64.8 million. All this puts me in denial. Or better yet in affirmation of a terrific movie I saw at Sundance that is the perfect antidote to the dumb cliches of Mall Cop.

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Look, it's early. We have a whole month till they hand out the Oscars on Feb. 22nd. And the Academy didn't do everything wrong. Slumdog Millionaire deserves it's 10 nominations. Milk totally deserves it's 8 nods. I'll have nastier things to say about the 13 nominations for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that put it in the top position on the leaderboard. But the fact that the Academy recognized two great performances in small movies—I'm talking Richard Jenkins in The Visitor and Melissa Leo in Frozen River—earns a salute even from an inveterate Academy hater like me. Now on to the idiot decisions:

--No nomination for The Dark Knight as Best Picture. Are you kidding me? Here's a smart, visionary movie that restored the good name to movie epics. And the Academy ignores it. And for what? The Reader, a well-intentioned but flawed movie about the repercussions of the Holocaust.

--Kate Winslet, who as far as I'm concerned should get a nomination for almost everything she does, gets nominated for the wrong movie—The Reader instead of Revolutionary Road. It reminds me of that episode of Extras where Ricky Gervais goes up to Winslet, playing a nun, and tells her she'll never win an Oscar till she does a Holocaust movie. Ah, truth in comedy. Did Adrien Brody (The Pianist) really deserve to beat Daniel Day Lewis (Gangs of New York)? Did Roberto Benigni's crying clown act in Life Is Beautiful really merit a win over Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan) and Edward Norton (American History X)?

--No Best Actor nomination for Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. WTF! Playing a Korean war vet living in Michigan, Eastwood gave a signature performance. It's the acting branch that makes these choices—the same dummies who gave Clint the Best Actor nomination for 2004's Million Dollar Baby that belonged to Paul Giamatti for Sideways. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Eastwood lost out to all that digital face painting Brad Pitt wore in Ben Button. Silly. If Clint had busted through the actors branch he might have given Sean Penn (Milk) and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) a race for the gold since all the 6000-plus Academy members vote on the awards themselves, not just the actors.

--And while I''m trashing the actors branch—do these idiots not understand how brilliant Kristin Scott Thomas is in I've Loved You So Long. Ditto Benicio Del Toro in Che. Double ditto Sally Hawkins in Happy Go Lucky. Come on.

--And what about the Best Song category. Not only does Eastwood compose a winner in the title track from Gran Torino, but Bruce Springsteen writes a stellar song for The Wrestler—a song that perfectly captures the spirit of the movie—and gets shafted. This category usually has five nominees. This year it's only three, which shows the shaft is intentional. That's how much the old farts in the songwriting branch know about music.

--Lastly, for now, the Academy had a chance in the Best Picture category to represent the artful best in animation. That would be Wall-E. No movie received better reviews last year. But the Academy has a ghetto category for Best Animation and quickly relegated Wall-E to limbo. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

OK, I've spoken, Now I want to hear from you. What are Oscars best and most boneheaded decisions in terms of this year's nominations?

Earlier today, this year's Oscar nominations were announced in Los Angeles. Was Peter Travers satisfied with the nods? Not exactly.

Does Brad Pitt give a Best Actor-worthy performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — the film that received the most nods, with 13? What happened to The Dark Knight's Best Picture nomination? Could it be that Ricky Gervais' advice to Kate Winslet was accurate (do a Holocaust movie, nab an Oscar nomination)?

So what were the Academy's biggest mistakes? Nominating Winslet for The Reader rather than Revolutionary Road. Denying Bruce Springsteen a nomination for his end-credits song from The Wrestler.

Why's Travers so worked up? Keep reading to check out the nominations for the major categories, and click above to watch his breakdown of the biggest films and the most crushing disappointments of nomination day:

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Photo: Countess/Wireimage
Had a chance yesterday to mix it up with my new favorite movie critic—Mike Tyson. The former boxing champion is in Sundance to present Tyson, director James Toback's punch to the gut disguised as a documentary about Iron Mike's hellraising life up till now. More on the doc later, it's elemental, essential viewing. Anyway, I asked the champ—dressed like a fashion icon in suit and knotted tie among the designer-label ski-resort wear sported by visiting Hollywood royality much to the mockery of the refreshingly untrendy locals—what movies he'd seen lately. Turns out Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino was on his mind. "That was a good one," said Tyson with a secret smile, as if reliving the spectacle in his head of Eastwood staring down his rifle at a few hoods who trespass on his front yard. To hear Tyson's trademark lisp as he repeated Eastwood's catchphrase, "Get. Off. My. Lawn," will probably stand as my favorite memory of Sundance '09. Tyson said he had only one reservation about Gran Torino. "I didn't like the ending. He's referring, without spoiling the twist, to Eastwood playing against his violent Dirty Harry image, as he's pretty much done since Unforgiven. "Look, said Tyson, "I'm not stupid and I know what Clint was doin'. I respect it. But there's something in me that wanted to see him just blow people away. Come on, I think a lot of people in the audience want to see that."

Well do ya, punks?

Photo: Carr/Getty
Put this item under the category of "Good New/Bad News." The upside is that a movie has just sold out of the Sundance Film Festival at a time when money is short and cries of doom for indie movies have infected Robert Redford's Utah film festival like a virus. And yet here is Senator Distribution shelling out a cool $5 million for the police drama Brooklyn's Finest. Yup, it's a gigunda deal and on the festival's opening weekend yet. So what's the downside? The movie is a steaming pile of inbred TV crap. No offense to the leading actors: Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle as cops and Wesley Snipes as the bad guy. They're above-the-call-of-duty actors. But all the flashy directing tricks trotted out by Training Day's Antoine Fuqua can't disguise that this is Cop Show 101 baloney decked out with intimations of Greek tragedy. Word is Fuqua will be asked to change the ending, which plays like Taxi Driver as directed by Michael Bay. I'd start the changes with the pretentious beginning and move on from there. The really depressing thing about the sale is that Sundance is supposed to be about fresh talent thinking outside the box. Brooklyn's Finest is so far inside the box you can smell the cardboard. Kill me now.

Photo: Harrison/Getty

It begins again. Here I am in Park Cty, Utah, where Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary by trying to bust through the gloom of a nation's economic crisis and the growing pissy impatience among audiences for any movies that don't have cute dogs or horror scenes in 3D. What does that mean for indie films of mind and heart? That's yet to be determined. All I know as I begin my trek through Sundance's movie menu, not to mention the parties and the temptations to chuck it all and go skiing in Deer Valley when the films suck, is that a really good movie—even a despairing one—can lift your spirits. So here are five of the movies I'm most looking forward to seeing as I begin my '09 Sundance journey:

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One of the most anticipated music biopics in years hits theaters tomorrow: Notorious, which portrays the story of murdered Brooklyn MC Biggie Smalls' youth and rise from drug dealer to one of the most influential rappers of his time. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers says the film's strongest link — aside from Big's own music, which is flowing throughout — is star Jamal "Gravy" Woolard's first-ever performance. RS spoke to Woolard about the role, and he admitted that making B.I.G.'s mother proud was his top priority. "I just wanted to read Ms. Wallace‚s face," Woolard said after B.I.G.‚s mother saw a screening. "She was taking her glasses off, with a tissue and wiping her eyes. I felt like I won my victory, because I wanted her to feel like her son was next to her. And we hugged. We didn't have to say anymore after that."

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Clint Eastwood wore a secret smile at last night's Golden Globe awards. Who cares if those schmucks from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association didn't nominate his career-capping performance in Gran Torino? Eastwood, 78, had the last laugh. Gran Torino, which opened nationwide this weekend after a month in limited release, scored $29 million at the box office. That's a record opening for an Eastwood movie, and way more than enough to trounce Bride Wars, the critically-decimated Kate Hudson-Anne Hathaway exercise in female self-loathing that was predicted to take the top spot. I guess the brides didn't count on Dirty Harry showing up and telling them to, "get off my lawn." Look out for Eastwood when the Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 22nd. All the talk is about Sean Penn (Milk) vs. Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler). Back in 1969 all the Oscar talk was about Dustin Hoffman duking it out for the gold with his Midnight Cowboy costar Jon Voight. But who rode off with the prize? John Wayne, then 62, delivering his career-capping performance in True Grit. It was a first acting Oscar for Wayne, just as a Torino win would be a first acting prize for Eastwood, who has a quartet of Oscars for directing and producing Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. So here's my question for today:

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Peter Travers is ready for a fresh start, but the first movie from a major studio in 2009 is ... Bride Wars, a film that makes 27 Dresses look like Citizen Kane. Could this horrific bomb actually hinder Anne Hathaway's chances of scoring an Oscar nod for her excellent performance in Rachel Getting Married? Don't we think it's just a bit insensitive to have two onscreen brides squabbling over an opulent wedding during a time of recession? And thus the Scumbucket has its first flick of 2009.

Fortunately, Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino is opening wide this weekend, as is Steven Soderbergh's Che. The nearly five-hour epic about Che Guevara starring Benicio del Toro focuses on the Cuban and Bolivian revolutions, and boasts del Toro's best performance since Traffic.

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.]

For Travers' complete reviews of these films, click here:

• Bride Wars (No Stars)
Starring: Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, Kristen Johnson, Bryan Greenberg, Candice Bergen; Directed by: Gary Winick
• Gran Torino (Three and a Half Stars)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang, Bee Vang, Brian Haley; Directed by: Clint Eastwood

To read all of Rolling Stone's current movie reviews, visit our Reviews Archive.