Wanna see the trailer for Cloverfield? All you have to do is solve seven Chinese riddles to reveal the secret location of the magical wizard key that unlocks a chest containing a map -- written in Sanskrit -- that leads to an underground Masonic temple. Knock three times and a blind albino man will blink in Morse code the link to a special website. Log onto the site precisely when the moon is in line with Jupiter -- not a second before -- and you'll get the first glimpse of The Big Untitled J.J. Abrams Whatever. Whoop-dee-do.

Which is better, Blu-Ray or HD DVD? At this point I honestly don't care. Talk of storage capacity, Ethernet connections and data encryption just makes my eyes glaze over. All I want is a picture sharp enough for me to count the pockmarks on Brad Pitt's cheeks, and I'll be happy. Just flip a coin -- in a few years we'll all be downloading our movies anyway.

Are you ready for heroic adventures of Black Vulcan and Apache Chief? How about BurgerTime: The Movie? Having exhausted all of the A-list videogame and comic book titles at its disposal, Hollywood is hard at work mining the B and C lists for marketable characters, and offering package deals on lesser names with flicks like The Avengers and The Justice League of America. Buy Superman and we'll throw in Aquaman, Wonder Woman and The Flash for free!

I know that 2008 is an election year and many of you will want to make your opinions known, but don't repeat the mistakes of 2007's fall movie season, which was bogged down by a bevy of mediocre Iraq-themed flicks. I would never dream of suppressing anyone's freedom of expression; I simply ask that if you're going to make a statement, please make sure that it's contained within a movie that doesn't royally suck. (I'm looking at you, Redford.)

Learn from the National Hockey League, which will likely never fully recover from its costly 2004-2005 work stoppage. Hollywood's product has a distinct advantage over the NHL's in that its appeal extends below the 45th parallel, but a prolonged WGA strike will almost certainly send more and more people running to their Xbox 360s and Wiis -- permanently.

Methinks the threat of illegal downloads and Chinese DVD knockoffs were a tad overstated. According to the New York Times, box office receipts at North American theaters rose 5% last year, to a record $9.7 billion -- not exactly a catastrophic year for the industry. I realize it's unrealistic to expect the MPAA to suspend its entire anti-piracy campaign, but can we at least do away with those lame PSAs that now run before seemingly every theatrical release?

Analysts will be quick to point out that while box office receipts rose, theater attendance was flat. Want to get more people into theaters? Try improving the theatrical experience. Follow the example of director Robert Zemeckis, whose dazzling 3-D adaptation of Beowulf provided moviegoers with a remarkably visceral, immersive experience -- even if the movie itself was a disappointment. Also, invest in cell phone jamming technology. Seriously.