ScottFeinberg.com

By Rachel Bennett
Television Editor & Columnist

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Happy Halloween, readers!

It’s my favorite day of the year, so I couldn’t neglect it in this week’s list. Because All Hallows Eve is so fun, below are the top 10 best Halloween comedy episodes.

Sadly, dramas are not on this list (I never would’ve been able to cut it to 10 if there had been), but feel free to leave your picks in the comments —”Home” from Fox’s The X-Files, anyone?

For me, though, I’ll leave it to laughs. So put on your best TV-themed costume, grab that bowl of fun-sized candy and check out my choices!

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Last night, thanks to a very kind gesture on the part of my editor, I was able to realize a lifelong dream and sit in the audience at the Academy Awards. I covered the Oscars from the backstage press room three years ago, which was a thrill in and of itself, but, as someone who has spent a huge chunk of my life researching, writing, and talking about the Oscars, you can imagine how much more excited I was to have the chance to watch the ceremony unfold with my own two eyes. And, I’m pleased to report, the experience did not disappoint.

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By Scott Mendelson

This is the third of several year-end wrap essays detailing the year in film. This time, it’s about highlighting the good or great films that slipped under the radar somehow. Some got rave reviews and wide releases but stiffed at the box office while some never made it out of limited release. All are worth tracking down and all are, with one exception I will point out, now available on DVD/Blu Ray/download/etc. And nearly all of them are not hardcore independent films, but seemingly mainstream dramas and comedies that would have likely merited a wide release even a few years ago. Once again, these will be inalphabetical order.

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The following list and remarks reflect my personal opinions and do/will not in any way impact my projections or analysis on this site, wherein I strive above all else to correctly forecast what will happen, not what I believe should happen.

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The 15th annual Hollywood Awards took place on Monday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, kicking off a months-long season of self-congratulations and chicken dinners shared by the same core group of people.

There is something special about this event, though, because it offers industry observers our first opportunity to see how dozens of awards hopefuls handle the spotlight. There is no tension about who will get called to the podium, since the honorees are announced weeks before the ceremony (determined by the event’s executive director Carlos de Abreu and a panel of advisors), but there is still plenty on the line. Indeed, a highlight clip, introduction, or acceptance speech can immensely help or hurt a contender’s prospects, as the many studio publicists, executives, and chiefs in attendance (including The Weinstein Company’s Harvey Weinstein and Sony Pictures Classics’s Michael Barker) were well aware.

Based on what I was able to gauge last night from a seat in the audience and access that I was exclusively granted to the backstage area and green room throughout the show, nobody really set themselves back very much at this particular awards show, but a few people certainly came away from the festivities stronger than they entered them.

Some highlights…

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Last week, I had the great privilege of spending about a half-hour in New York with the iconic Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodovar, who has been one of the most internationally famous non-American filmmakers in the world for the past quarter-century.

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50 gala and special presentation screenings for the 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival — the annual awards season kick-off, which will run this year from September 8 through the 18 (and receive full on-the-ground coverage from this site) — were announced earlier today.

As Jeff Wells notes, it’s somewhat surprising that “Carnage” (Sony Pictures Classics, ?/?, ?, ?) and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (Focus Features, ?/?, ?, trailer) — both of which will be playing at the Venice Film Festival, which overlaps with Toronto — are not among them. Still, the list includes plenty of riches, based on everything that I’ve seen and heard, thus far, and I just hope that there are enough hours in each day that I’m at the fest to see all of the films that I’d like to see.

At the moment, I’m most looking forward to these 25…

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• Deadline New York: Mike Fleming confirms Lionsgate’s second big purchase out of the Toronto International Film Festival following their earlier deal for Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator“: John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” for which the studio intends to mount best picture and best actress (Nicole Kidman) campaigns.
• New York Times: Michael Cieply hears Casey Affleck‘s confession that his new doc “I’m Still Here,” which chronicles the shocking mental and physical devolution of his brother-in-law/Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix (and was panned at both Venice and Toronto), was nothing more than performance art.
• In Contention: Kris Tapley returns from a screening of the controversial doc “Catfish,” which Universal picked up out of Sundance earlier this year and is releasing in theaters today, and argues that it is “just as defining of where we are as a society” as “The Social Network.”
• 24 Frames: Steven Zeitchik thinks that Clint Eastwood‘s “Hereafter” may finally put a stop to his recent cold-streak at the Oscars (“Changeling,” “Gran Torino,” and “Invictus” all failed to live up to expectations), ignoring the fact that the film has already been widely pummeled by critics.
• Thompson on Hollywood: Anne Thompson learns that the North American rights for Pedro Almodovar‘s “The Skin That I Inhabit,” which will star star Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya and be released in November 2011, have been acquired by Sony Pictures classics, marking the 10th collaboration between the director and the studio.
• Hollywood-Elsewhere: Jeff Wells posts the recently-released one-sheet for Edward Zwick’s “Love and Other Drugs” and says it “conveys comfort, ease, self-satisfaction [but] certainly doesn’t indicate heavy-osity. It seems to be saying, “All that ‘this movie is really exceptional’ and ‘[Anne] Hathaway kills as a Parkinson’s sufferer’ stuff you were reading about earlier this year? Maybe or maybe not.”
• The Hollywood Reporter: Etan Viessing describes the Toronto International Film Festival’s “traditional role as a festival launching pad for foreign-language films,” and explains why it is particularly appreciated by foreign filmmakers this year.
• The Wrap: Daniel Frankel shares the specifics of the rather unique pricing model that Magnolia and the Green Film Company announced will be in effect for their upcoming documentary “Freakonomics.”
• The Playlist: Kevin Jagernauth says that IFC Films has made a decision to “play with fire” (read: Harvey Weinstein) by picking up the worldwide rights to Barry Avrich’s documentary “Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project.”
• PopWatch: Annie Barrett questions all the fuss surrounding Gabby Sidibe’s Elle cover photo, which some suspect was touched up to lighten her skin color.
• The Bay Citizen: Scott James reports on Oscar winner/feminist icon (thanks to “Thelma & Louise”) Geena Davis’s crusade against gender bias in entertainment and the media, noting that a study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media has found that “there were three male characters for every one female” in G-rated movies from the past 15 years.
• Twitter: Perez Hilton, “The Queen of Mean,” gives a Twitter-shoutout to Melena Ryzik, “The Carpetbagger.” There’s got to be a story — literally and figuratively — behind that.

Photo: A scene from the controversial new doc “Catfish.” Credit: Universal.