[Hammer in hand, Vadim Rizov (The Village Voice, The House Next Door) makes an astute attempt at nailing down the gelatinous zeitgeist, at least in how the symbiosis of H'wood filmmaking and filmgoing will be affected by the ongoing economic collapse. Kick back with some boot stew and check 'er out. -Aaron Hillis]

In the time between Confessions of a Shopaholic's initial wave of advertising and its release, things have (to put it mildly) changed; a lightweight chick-flick parable about a woman with a spending problem who finds love and a way to pay for her material thrills (a frilly entertainment based on a 2000 book to be released in the middle of a mild economic downturn) is now a dispatch from a different age. Even if, as the Wikipedia page claims, reshoots have taken the recession into account, the question stands: do today's depressed audiences want vicarious materialism? Or will they turn indifferently on the film and run back to the more apropos comforts of Paul Blart and its ilk?