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First off, here is a recap of my super duper Major Video Weekend. Sometimes I just want to spend two days watching movies and doing very little else. It’s been a while since I rented four at one time, but here’s what I checked out (and some of them you should check out too), in order of best to worst.

Gimme Shelter was definitely the weekend champion. Even a goofy freeze frame in the final reel can’t stop this Albert Maysles rock documentary about The Rolling Stones 1969 tour of America and their free concert at Altamont Speedway. The concert attracted hundreds of thousands of people and was marred by brawling hippies and Hell’s Angels, who were hired to run security. Four died at the concert, including one man who was stabbed to death by a Hell’s Angel for brandishing a handgun and pointing it at the stage.

This documentary surprised me. Its pace is slow and deliberate, but it is intimate and honest at the same time. And has always commanded my attention. My favorite scenes are anything with Charlie Watts, just because he’s the coolest, and watching Keith Richards, eyes closed leaning back on a couch, mouthing the words to Wild Horses as the song plays back in the studio. “I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie. I have my freedom but I don’t have much time. Faith has been broken, tears must be cried. Lets do some living after we die.” It’s a strange, conflicting feeling watching a rock star who is nearly destroying himself with drugs and alcohol sing this song and look so vulnerable and so small while doing it.

Winter Passing I thought was a decent reconciliation piece. Definitely worth a rental if you’re a fan of Zooey Deschanel, even though she looks like Keith Richards, death warmed over in this movie. I had much higher hopes for Alan Parker’s The Commitments. Parker directed Fame, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Angela’s Ashes, and he does a commendable job here in this 1991 film about a ragtag group of Dublin musicians who want to start “The World’s Hardest Working Band” and play soul music. The movie has a wonderful heart and there are moments of genuine humor—“Aren’t we a little…white?”—but overall I found it anticlimactic. There was never a pay off for any of the characters’ relationships. And Prozac Nation comes in last. Christina Ricci’s birthday party meltdown and a Lou Reed cameo aside, the film is a fairly irredeemable, depressing movie about depression. The voiceovers are trite and Jason Biggs has always been just a tad bit annoying in every scene he’s in…even if he’s blurry in the background somehow his blur bothers me.

Opening this weekend are Pixar’s animated Cars and Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion. Though the voice work of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman and George Carlin should make Cars a hit, I’m predicting it will be the first underperformer from Pixar’s golden boy John Lassetter (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, The Incredibles). And there’s even less buzz for A Prairie Home Companion, Altman’s multi-thread story of an NPR country and western program and it’s last night on the air. Fans of P.T. Anderson may want to check out the film, though, since he co-directed for the ailing Altman. Not sure how much influence he had on set, other than putting pregnant girlfriend and SNL actress and former Rental’s keyboardist Maya Rudolph in the film. Although Philip Seymour Hoffman isn’t in it, so maybe he didn’t have complete creative control.

Oh dear. Cue the Simon and Garfunkel. It was joked about in Altman’s The Player, but now reclusive author Charles Webb is completing the sequel novel to The Graduate, called Home School, and has already sold the rights. Check out the story here.

SPOLER ALERT! If you’re waiting until Thursday night at 8 p.m. to find out who won at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards from host Jessica Alba, stop here and go watch YouTube or something. But if you simply must know, below are the advance, inconsequential results for the completely inconsequential MTV Awards.

BEST VILLAIN

Hayden Christensen – Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (20th Century Fox)

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE

Isla Fisher – Wedding Crashers (New Line Cinema)

BEST HERO

Christian Bale – Batman Begins (Warner Bros. Pictures)

SEXIEST PERFORMANCE

Jessica Alba – Sin City (Dimension Films)

BEST FIGHT

Angelina Jolie vs. Brad Pitt – Mr. and Mrs. Smith (20th Century Fox)

BEST KISS

Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain (Focus Features)

BEST FRIGHTENED PERFORMANCE

Jennifer Carpenter – The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Screen Gems)

BEST COMEDIC PERFORMANCE

Steve Carell - The 40-Year Old Virgin (Universal Pictures)

BEST ON-SCREEN TEAM

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson – Wedding Crashers (New Line Cinema)