No, all there is to say (besides "You're wrong!") is that no matter what you think of the fun you can have with limited releases, in Fantasy Moguls, you will need them anyway. Either to find a possible dark horse in Box Office Moguls leagues or to grab the Golden Ticket for PTA power in Ultimate Movie Moguls leagues, sometimes for a very interesting price. Today, I'll be wrapping the Nov. 9 releases and chronicling all the Nov. 16 offerings. We'll see which pictures, out of those featuring toyboys, Iceland, apocalypse, Iraq, Nicole Kidman and cholera, will do your slate(s) any good. Hey, how about a project about Nicole Kidman fleeing the apocalypse in Iraq only to catch cholera in Iceland after dating a toyboy ? No, you're right, it sounds awful. Let's find something better ...

2007 will not just be remembered as the year John Travolta starred in two movies grossing more than $100 million at the U.S. box office, something that hadn't happened since ... since ... well, in fact, since ever. It's the first time in his career! Who would have thought Wild Hogs would ever look good on a resume?! Anyway, 2007 will also be remembered as the year Michelle Pfeiffer came back to the big screen, not once, not twice, but three times. First in Hairspray (yes, the other Travolta hit), then in Stardust (a box-office disappointment), and now in I Could Never Be Your Woman (Nov. 9). Which also happens to be Amy Heckerling's return to directing, seven years after the Jason Biggs comedy Loser (yeah, I know, comedy isn't the right word, but I've digressed too much already) (oh yes, funny that Heckerling also directed Travolta's family megahit Look Who's Talking back in the day), although we prefer to remember her as the woman who brought us Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (Remember the scene in which Phoebe Cates ... oh, forget it, my editor is gonna get mad if I don't get to the point now.)

So anyway, it's harsh to begin like this, but I Could Never Be Your Woman, well, it doesn't look too good for a Fantasy Moguls slate. The truth is this film has been in a drawer for waaaay too long to be appealing. And when I say "waaaay too long," I mean that it was shot more than two years ago (making it in fact the real comeback movie of Pfeiffer), and has since been handled by more than one distributor. (Each website names one, so it's hard to follow between MGM, Freestyle Releasing, Bauer Martinez, Blue Rider.) It's been placed on the release schedule every six months, before being pushed back each time ... until now.

When it was scheduled for last June, I Could Never Be Your Woman was available for $2 in Fantasy Moguls leagues. Now it's either $7 (October-December) or $6 (November-January) and, honestly, that's too much. I can't really picture it grabbing the three PTA points Fantasy Moguls is predicting, it won't grab much more than 6 in User Ratings, and it won't have much box-office mojo. So unless you're a fan of the one and only Catwoman, who here plays a 40-year-old falling for a twentysomething portrayed by Brian Fantana, er ... I mean, Paul Rudd, then you don't really want this one on your slate of films.

The one film I would most likely consider grabbing this week is the long, long awaited second directorial effort of cult screenwriter/director Richard Kelly. Like Heckerling's film, Southland Tales (Nov. 14) struggled to find its way to a theatrical release. One might have thought that after the more or less instant cult-classic status Donnie Darko attained in 2001, Kelly would not have had any trouble putting his next movie into theaters. Quite frankly, Darko, which revealed actor Jake Gyllenhaal, is one of the most impressive indie sci-fi films ever made (Shane Carruth's Primer is the only one to come close to it since).

Everything began smoothly for Southland Tales, more than two years ago now, when Kelly kept everything mysterious about it. He athered one of the most bizarre casts ever (with the likes of The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sean William Scott, Kevin Smith, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake and even Highlander star Christopher Lambert), and was rather amazingly selected to compete for perhaps the most prestigious film prize in the world of cinema, Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or ... which is when things started to skid for Southland Tales. Cannes may be far from Hollywood and from the weekend box-office report, but when a film gets trashed by press and festivalgoers the way Tales was, all of a sudden the cradle breaks and everyone turns away from you and your film. That's what happened to Kelly, who, even though he said that the version shown at Cannes was not the final one, had to start all over on finding a distrib willing to put his film into theaters once Universal Pictures, which had acquired it in the first place, simply dropped it.

It took a year-and-half for Richard Kelly to finish his work on Southland Tales, and now the movie finally opens under the aegis of Samuel Goldwyn Films, which specializes in arthouse movies. And, you see, that's where it gets interesting for Moguls players, because Southland Tales, a futuristic and complex imagination of an apocalytpic Los Angeles where The Rock is a movie star, Sarah Michelle Gellar is his porn star girlfriend, and Seann William Scott is a pair of twins, has fanboy appeal written all over it. Watch for the exact number of theaters that will open the film, but it should be small, probably less than 10. And for such a talked-about, controversial and long-awaited ambitious film, that should translate into good, even great PTA numbers. The User Rating, quite low a few months ago, is slowly getting better, currently standing in the high 6s with almost 1,000 votes. It's available for just $6 in November Ultimate leagues ($7 in October, $2 in Box Office leagues) which isn't a bad price, especially if the movie expands, as expected. Southland Tales doesn't offer certainty, but it could be a gem.

Now let's go to the opposite end of the spectrum for an R-rated Icelandic comedy about a soccer ace who reveals his homosexuality to his teammates. Eleven Men Out (Nov. 16) — that's "Strakarnir okkar" for those who speak the language — is in fact a 2005 film that took its time to make it to U.S. screens, and, to be honest, it's very unlikely to bring much power to your slate. (That $2 price tag is your first clue.) If you think the one-theater opening might create some PTA possibilities, then it's up to you to grab it. The less-than-stellar 5.4 IMDb User Rating doesn't suggest strong word of mouth. But hey, we still love Sigur Ros, so don't be mad, Iceland.

The "awards caliber" films continue to roll out, and one that could be a strong contender is Margot at the Wedding (Nov. 16). After the critically acclaimed and much awarded The Squid and the Whale two years ago, Noah Baumbach goes back behind the camera with a "dramedy" about a woman trying to convince her sister that her upcoming wedding is a mistake ... mainly because the groom doesn't really fit into the Prince Charming suit. Baumbach has proven with his own films and his work with Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) that he is one of the finest screenwriters working today, so it is natural that an examination of sibling relationships is an attractive genre in his hands.

The attraction only increases when you know that the woman/sister/groom trio is portrayed by Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh (Mrs. Baumbach) and Jack Black (in what could be a surprising performance). All this talent involved justifies the anticipation which surrounds Margot at the Wedding, and explains why the film will set you back $17 in November Ultimate leagues (and an even bigger $19 in October). Now, Margot does have a major factor going against it. If there's one thing that has been proven in the past few weeks, it's that the "big" arthouse films, those that you hear of months ahead and have "I want Oscars" written all over them, well, those films suffer when they lack critical enthusiasm. Just ask the makers of Reservation Road or Sleuth. I know there haven't been that many reviews yet, so it's hard to judge, but the ones that were published following the film's presentation at the Toronto Film Festival were mainly pretty cold.

I will say, though, that it's pretty unlikely that the limited release of Baumbach's film won't garner any PTA points on opening weekend. The Squid and the Whale was too good, and Kidman is too big a star, for this film to stumble like Sleuth did. Eight points, if the negative reviews keep coming, will be hard to attain. The current User Rating, although good at 7.4 with more than 200 votes, isn't particularly exceptional either. It's a frail film to put at least $17 on.

And wait 'til I tell you about Love in the Time of Cholera (Nov. 16). Here is a film that's been completely overvalued by Fantasy Moguls if you ask me. $19 price tag? Ten projected PTA points? No way. Absolutely no way. Will the film be good? You know that's not the point, but what a movie looks like before opening is crucial to its potential success, and I have to say that Love in the Time of Cholera lacks the appeal and the presence an adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez needs. The thing is, adapting an author like Garcia Marquez is something widely considered almost impossible, and it's quite hard to imagine the Colombian writer's words flowing on the screen in English, as directed by a British filmmaker (Mike Newell, director of everything from Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) with an Italian actress (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), a Spanish actor (Javier Bardem) and an American star (Benjamin Bratt).

This tragic romance spread out over decades ends up looking a bit like Milos Forman's Goya's Ghosts (which also featured Bardem), which was pretty much an artistic, critical and box-office failure last summer. For the moment, reviews have not appeared anywhere, so maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the critical response is going to be phenomenal and the film will be huge. But I honestly doubt it. Come on, the (awful looking) trailer makes a point of telling us about the "original songs by Shakira!" It's Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and all they can come up with, musically, is Shakira??!! Anyway, strangely, the word is New Line wants to open the film in about 1,650 locations, which is, as all of you know, not a good number (murderous for PTA potential, not substantial enough for a box-office breakout). So you can forget about the 10 PTA points. As for the $18 million projected box-office receipts ...

To finish this column, I will mention Rails and Ties, Alison Eastwood's first feature film as a director that was bumped up from December to this coming weekend, Oct. 26. This one's been pretty much off the radar, but it's still a nice looking drama, telling of the strange bond between a train engineer and a boy after a terrible train crash. For her first venture as a director, Clint's daughter signed two of Mystic River's actors, the always excellent Kevin Bacon and Marcia Gay Harden. Available for only $5 in October Ultimate Leagues, Rails and Ties isn't exactly a catch since its possibilities seem limited. Cheap as it is, however, and with a good cast and decent reviews (although not great), it might be able to catch a PTA point, and shouldn't have trouble staying in the 7s as far as User Ratings go.

So, moguls, anonymous visitors, chers amis, it's time for me to plunge back into a movie theater, and as I live in Paris, on my list this week is Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park. I know it's mean to show off, but I couldn't resist. Okay, that was rude, I'm sorry, and to redeem myself, I promise you next week's column will be great. No, it will be awesome. No ... oh, forget it, I'm too tired, and I just recalled that I hated Gus Van Sant's Last Days ...

Indie Jones definitely remembers the scene in which Phoebe Cates, well, none of your business. Did you know that Jennifer Jason Leigh was in Fast Times, too? Nobody ever remembers that. Express your Gus Van Sant envy to Indie at danceswithtthearthouse@gmail.com.