The Toronto Film Critics Association’s 2006 awards are announced today, and I noticed something interesting: A near-complete absence of American winners. Really — “Thank You for Smoking” got First Feature, and that was it. Even the Animated Feature winner is an Australian production.

It’s no big deal; we’re just usually a little more susceptible to the Hollywood glitz thing, since we’re inundated with it every September at TIFF. Not this year. The little projects outshone the heavy hitters, right across the board. Interesting.

And how do I feel about the winners, you may ask? Well, I guess I’m okay with most of them … well, except “Happy Feet”, which I think goes insane about 75 minutes in and never recovers; I much preferred “Flushed Away” — which didn’t even make our final ballot this year, probably because DreamWorks/Paramount didn’t make a screener push — and “Over the Hedge”. But otherwise, I’m good.

Six more reviews to write today, and two movies to see, so I’ll catch you tomorrow. Man, the holiday crush is, um, crushing.

Counting the votes for the TFCA awards this morning — and check out our spanking new website! — but here, finally, are the links to Friday’s Metro reviews. You know, if you’re still interested.

“Charlotte’s Web”

“Cheech”

“Eragon”

“The Good German”

“The Pursuit of Happyness”

“Snow Cake”

No link for “Monkey Warfare” yet, but hopefully that’ll go up later today. I’ll keep an eye out.

Okay, it’s not a big surprise that “The Pursuit of Happyness” opened at #1 this weekend — Will Smith is box-office gold, baby, and he’s been pushing this film for months now.

But the #2 spot going to “Eragon”? That awful, awful attempt to cash in on the “Lord of the Rings” phenomenon? That’s just not right.

Look, I know I can’t do anything about the tickets sold this weekend. But if you’re even considering seeing this film, let me put it clearly: “Eragon” is a terrible, terrible movie. It doesn’t respect you. It doesn’t even respect its own material.

It’s the product of a bunch of guys in a room who wanted to make a lot of money, and slapped together the first dragon-related project they could find in the service of their own avarice. As Adam puts it over in Eye, this isn’t a real movie — it’s the knockoff they sell at grocery stores to parents too cheap to buy the branded toy their kids have asked for.

Send a message. No more money for the crappy dragon movie. Let’s stop the sequel before it gets the green light.

Do it for the children.

Well, it’s not a total loss; there are still a couple of terrific Christmas releases yet to open. But this week’s debuts are a fairly sallow bunch across the board.

Sorry for the late post, by the way; I kept holding off in the expectation that the Metro site would have today’s reviews the next time I checked. It looks like they’re not being quite as up-to-the-minute as one might expect of a daily publication … they’ll probably go up late Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, here are the skinnies:

“Charlotte’s Web”: The first ten minutes are perfect in every way, and then the cows start farting. If you have children, it’s your duty to protect them from this adaptation. Yes, Julia Roberts is the perfect voice for Charlotte — as far as she’s concerned, she’s starring in an arachnid remake of “Steel Magnolias” — but the movie doesn’t appreciate her. Or anything else, really.

“Cheech”: Quebec actors run around talking tough and waving guns to no particular effect. Saddest bit: In a movie with several failed attempts at humor, the script’s one great opportunity for pitch-black comedy — a suicidally depressed escort who shows up for work anyway, because what the hell — is played straight. It must have been pretty slim pickings at Canada’s Top Ten if they found room for this one.

“Eragon”: “Star Wars” with dragons. Makes Lucas look like Akira Kurosawa. But then, the movie lost me from the first line of spoken dialogue, when John Malkovich groans to Robert Carlyle that — really, he says this out loud — “I’m sad without my stone.” And it’s not even a stone. Dork.

“The Good German”: I often find Steven Soderbergh’s experiments more entertaining than his mainstream work, but this one — which affects the style and production strategies of a 1940s studio B-picture — seemed to slide sideways. Not that George Clooney and Cate Blanchett weren’t born to be photographed in high-contrast black-and-white, or that Soderbergh doesn’t know what he’s doing … but why riff on “Casablanca” and “The Third Man” when you’re only going to come up short?

“Monkey Warfare”: Meh. I know everyone else is high on this, but it did absolutely nothing for me — and I like everyone involved. But Reg Harkema needs to put the Godardian stuff away, or at least incorporate it into his overall aesthetic instead of yanking it out and waving it around every 20 minutes, just to remind us that he’s seen “La Chinoise”.

“The Pursuit of Happyness”: A self-help book becomes a self-help movie, with valuable life lessons galore: Respect Yourself. Homeless Doesn’t Mean Hopeless. Love Your Kid. Will Smith Deserves An Oscar. And maybe he’ll get it on sheer physical exertion alone: The guy runs back and forth across the same three San Francisco streets so often you’ll think you’re watching the long-awaited Frogger movie.

“Snow Cake”: There’s a terrific character study in here, about a quietly broken Englishman who reawakens to life when he’s trapped in northern Ontario for a weekend (and really, who wouldn’t?) … but the inclusion of Sigourney Weaver as the autistic woman to whom Rickman finds himself beholden keeps pulling that film off the rails. Weaver’s not bad, but her character is entirely unnecessary to the story.

Ah, well. Seen “Stranger Than Fiction” yet? That’s still around.

For years, the Variety website was a source of magnificent frustration for people like me, who can willingly lose hours — or even days — wallowing in industry coverage.

Magnificent, because the coverage is indeed insanely detailed (and I love that kitschy jargony zing) … and frustrating, because of the site’s subscription firewall, which demanded $300 a year for unlimited access. You could get a two-week trial if you were willing to supply an e-mail address, but after about four months I ran out of aliases.

Point is, they finally came around, and Variety.com is now fully accessible through an ad-supported model. They’re not even those annoying full-page interrupts; just unobtrusive banner ads, usually pushing a movie for Oscar consideration. (Today, for instance, it’s Universal’s “United 93“.)

Anyway, I’ve just found this weekend’s box-office stats, which are really depressing: “Apocalypto” came in at number one, which means Mel Gibson will be able to make another one of his high-toned splatter fests somewhere down the line. (“The Holiday” is number two, which at least slows Nancy Meyers’ insidious momentum for now.)

So, yay! Variety’s back! And just in time for me to read up on the upcoming Palm Springs International Film Festival — on account of I’ve just been invited to sit on the FIPRESCI jury at the 2007 edition.

Eleven days in California. In early January. Maybe things really are starting to turn around.

Friday means movies! December means Oscars! And Christmas family comedies with half of “The Daily Show” in them! (As soon as my Metro reviews go live, I’ll add the links.) UPDATE: Links finally live!

“Apocalypto“: In which Mayans slaughter one another for Mel Gibson’s entertainment, and because they’re all heathens who’ve never accepted Christ as their savior, well, it doesn’t matter how horribly they suffer.

“Blood Diamond“: In which, once again, white people look on unhappily as very bad things happen to black people. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio says “bra” at the end of every sentence, Jennifer Connelly literally phones in her big scene, and Edward Zwick spends a buttload of money on a movie designed to caution people about spending buttloads of money. On diamonds. It’s all so “Die Another Day”, you know?

“The Holiday“: In which Nancy Meyers tries to convince me that Kate Winslet is a dumpy doormat, that Jack Black is unironically playing a romantic lead, and that Cameron Diaz can drink and drive and not remind me of “In Her Shoes”. This is one of those movies that ends with everybody dancing happily around the living room, and generally triggers my gag reflex every six or seven minutes.

“Unaccompanied Minors“: “The Breakfast Club” meets “Home Alone” in this very broad comedy about kids running wild in a snowbound airport, and yet this is the most satisfying release of the week. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is, and still manages to cast an interesting person in every adult speaking part. Seriously. Sandra Tsing Loh turns up in a three-line bit. And any movie that reunites three of the five Kids in the Hall for a game of musical chairs is okay by me.

Six more days to the first TFCA ballot. Boy, I hope they screen “Night at the Museum” before our voting deadline …

I’m pushing through the usual wad of reviews for tomorrow’s Metro, so I’m a little busy at the moment, but I am obliged to point out that the trailer for David Fincher’s “Zodiac” is online at Apple’s Quicktime site, and it’s quite the thing — especially, um, if one’s new laptop can play an HD feed.

Yes, I procrastinate. And I’m really good at it.

About twenty years back, at the height of the last horror boom, Anthony Perkins gave an interview about the importance of killing off absolutely every single character — otherwise, some clever writer would find a way to bring them back for another unnecessary sequel.

I mean, what if the dog lives? he pointed out. The dog’s still alive! He’ll go off with a new family and the monster will go after them in the next movie!

I think it was an interview with Fangoria. They frequently got quotes like that.

I bring this up because I have seen “Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj“, which couldn’t get Ryan Reynolds to reprise the role of Van Wilder and so fashioned a sequel around the character’s dog, who goes off to a stuffy English college — accompanied by Kal Penn’s character, Taj, because the dog would get kind of boring after a while.

Sadly, Tara Reid does not return to stalk them.

Also, my reviews of “The Hamster Cage” and “Unnatural & Accidental” are online, if you need any further elaboration beyond Friday’s capsules.

You don’t, though.