Horror
Doug Bentin
You’ll have no one to blame but yourself if you become stupid because of “Red Riding Hood.”

Food and Drink Features
Greg Horton
I first had Cakebread Cabernet at Bin 73 in 2005.

Drama
Rod Lott
If John Hillcoat is setting out to build a directorial career on downbeat and depressing films, he's doing a fine job. From The Proposition and The Road — especially The Road — and now Lawless, bleakness is his bread and butter.

Action
Phil Bacharach
Due to the twisted savagery of a young man in a Colorado movie theater, The Dark Knight Rises will forever be a footnote in American history. Hopefully, that horrific massacre will not influence perceptions of this epic conclusion to writer-director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

Thriller
Rod Lott
From 1971, Wake in Fright is a lost film recently and literally rescued from near-oblivion. While I can’t say I was familiar with it before its Drafthouse Films re-release, I’m glad it was saved. To have lost a work this good would have been a blow.

Television series
Rod Lott
Ed Halligan, you bitter sonofabitch, how I’ve missed you.