Pilgrim must vanquish seven levels of Exes. As he does so, they turn into coins at his feet (each level more coins). At one point, he “gets a life” from out of the air, or the scoreboard on the screen, as the case may be. It’s like that. You may find this extremely annoying. Especially if you’re not a fan of videogames, or have never played them.

Pilgrim plays very much like an amped-up version (sonically and visually) of Michael Cera’s earlier “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist.” We have star-crossed lovers. We have obstacles. We have a band, and rock and roll as a backdrop.

I truly think it’s safe to say that those who love videogames, rock and roll or great love stories will enjoy this film. The only flaw I could find with it is that the beloved heroine, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, wasn’t really as life or death as she needed to be. But maybe that’s just our age, everyone is lackadaisical.

The fight sequences, as you would expect, get more intense and spectacular as our hero gets a level further. Mae Whitman, so quiet and reserved on TV’s “Parenthood,” here kicks some serious booty. It’s wonderful. The final one, with Jason Schwartzman, is brilliant and wonderful and fun. Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick gives a very different version of herself as Scott’s beleaguered sister.

All of it comes from Brian Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels, but writer Michael Bacall and writer-director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) give it shape and keep it flowing along. Very fun movie.

This week, I read an article which stated that MILLIONS of people who lost their jobs in this economic crisis were just simply never getting them back. These two items are related.

Simply put, the world is changing. You have two choices: Change with it, or die. Seriously.

You can say all day long that scripted television is better than reality television (and I would agree with that), but that won’t make the networks stop putting cheaper programming in place of it. All writers everywhere can stop watching it, but does that make American Idol less successful? No, it just makes those writers out of touch.

People can argue about how pervasive the Internet is, and how really, they still love to curl up with their favorite newspaper on Sundays, but is that going to stop the iPad from becoming a dominant way to read books or what used to be printed content? No.

So you can stomp your feet and cling to your mainstream media and outdated jobs, or you can evolve and evolve now. The Internet is where it’s at, folks, like it or not. People want media that’s better, faster and on their phone. Whatever that is, and whoever provides it.

As much as big media hates this reality, people can find just as much enjoyment (you heard me, I said JUST as much) from a YouTube video of a cat playing with yarn, or a podcast created in someone’s garage, as with whatever the Big Media is pumping at us currently.

Face it, principled writers: Dancing with the Stars is glitzy and glamourous and fun to watch. Survivor has some of the best location shooting and underwater photography on television. The Amazing Race travels all over the world, so you see cultures you’d never otherwise see. Every hugely popular reality show has good points.

This is our world now. Computerized, mechanized, at your fingertips 24/7. That is our entertainment. Those are our jobs. Come and get ‘em. Or at least, quit your bitching about it. It’s not going away.

Prior to viewing this film, I was scouring this one and that. Could it be this one perhaps? Or maybe this one? I fell into the world of Pandora, and I had no more doubts. This movie is as transporting and visual and stunning as Titanic, and all other contenders can just sit down now.

“Avatar,” in case you haven’t heard, is James Cameron’s $400M movie, filmed and shown in 3D. And it’s a 3D that makes you forget any 3D you’ve ever experienced before. Even the glasses you receive are different, heavy and all encompassing, equipped with computer chips for special viewing (I saw it in the Cineramadome in Los Angeles).

So, the world that our hero is transported to comes at you in stunning color and texture, almost jumping out at you. Beautiful and transforming and ethereal. Like things you have never seen before. It’s amazing.

I thought that Cameron (who wrote and directed the movie) had borrowed a lot of ideas from experimenting in Second Life once or twice. Certainly the concept where you are your whole self in First Life and your full body avatar in Second Life for me came from there. But someone online schooled me that it’s an ancient concept, actually. The sources they cited were Ayeurvedic principles and a book series called Summer Tree trilogy, by Guy Gavriel Kay. Suffice to say, Cameron didn’t come up with the Avatar concept, though he certainly made it acceptable for the mainstream.

Like Titanic, this 3-hour movie is one you’re going to want to revisit. It’s like walking around in a magical world. And unlike Titanic, this one has a good story, with bad guys and good guys and big splashy fights. I loved Avatar in a big way. Loved the story and the new world and the hero, everything.

If you see one movie in a theatre this year, this is the one. And make sure it’s real 3D. It’s well worth it if you have to pay a few extra dollars for it, too. This groundbreaking film is where movies are going. How lucky we are to see it.

There is a reason that stage musicals take a long time to get to the screen: they are often difficult to translate. Nine is no exception. Nine first appeared on a Broadway stage when the sexual revolution was still hot on everyone’s breath, with promiscuity celebrated. We are now living in an AIDS-scarred world, where sex addiction is a common Oprah topic, and fidelity is celebrated.

So it’s hard to root for this world-weary hero who is supposed to be Federico Fellini. Oh, poor man. He has all these beautiful (if air-headed and emotionally unstable) actresses throwing themselves at him. He really has it rough.

And, really, he loves his wife. Yeah. OK.

To say nothing of the fact that modern audiences probably barely remember most of Fellini’s classics, though there are touches that harken back to his films throughout (and Marion Cotillard has the same eyes as his wife and muse, Giulietta Masina). Daniel Day-Lewis, the Felliniesque lead also looks starkly like Fellini’s stand-in hero, Marcello Mastroianni. There is a scene with Nicole Kidman that looks beautifully like the fountain scene from 8 1/2. Those touches are nice, as is the scenery of Italy.

Visually, the film is a treat. It alternates between black and white and color for really no apparent reason, though it is interesting to watch. The dance numbers, as expected from someone who directed the Academy Award-winning Chicago, are spectacular and lush.

We have Fergie as Fellini/Guido Contini’s first seductress doing a passionate song with the dancers using dirt for emphasis. Wonderfully staged, visually stunning. We have Kate Hudson playing a Vogue editor, doing a go-go 60s dance, and reminding all the world of her illustrious mother (Goldie Hawn, of course). We have Penelope Cruz, writhing around doing a sexy dance (which I’ve got to believe Jane Krakowski did much more with onstage). And (dear God, help us) we have Judi Dench SINGING.

Sophia Loren lusciously plays Contini’s mother, and makes you wish there were more actual Italians in the production.

But the story is thin and hard to get into. The music really isn’t as good or memorable or toe-tapping as Chicago was. Marion Cotillard was quite wonderful, but I find the rest of this production hard to recommend.

That’s pretty much it. Oh, sure there are a few wrinkles. He’s married to a younger woman. She’s seeing an architect. There is the extent of the “complications.”

Her sounding board/Greek chorus comes in threes: a couple of times it’s her three children, a couple of times it’s her three women friends. Neither is a device that works effectively.

This is due, in part, to the fact that the writer of the movie, Nancy Meyers, is also the director. In her defense, we do get lavish shots of the California landscape and chocolate cake.

But, as a movie, it’s really slow going. John Krasinski is practically wasted in a lame bit of comedy.

The real downfall, other than the insipid script that goes nowhere, is the casting of Steve Martin, who is like a wet fish opposite Meryl Streep’s luminosity. Mind you, I’d just about pay to see Meryl Streep read the phone book. She is gorgeous and stunning in nearly every scene (and is in nearly every scene).

But like the pastries that they consume after smoking a joint, it leaves you hungry for more afterwards. Plenty of other great movies around right now. Give this one a pass.

Suddenly, (500) Days of Summer comes onto the agenda unexpectedly.

From the very first frame to the very last, I loved this movie. LOVED it. Loved every frame, every moment, every backwards and forwards in time. I’ve seen maybe 100 of this year’s movies by now. This one completely spoke to me. It easily moves to the top of my favorites, and I sure hope it’s remembered at Oscar time. It was a joy to watch.

It’s a love story, but NOT a romantic comedy. The two leads, Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are wondrous and gorgeous to watch. We even get a bit of the incredible Zooey singing (she’s one half of the band She and Him when she’s not doing movies; I adore her voice).

It is smart, it is funny, it is interesting, it is well edited. The writers (Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber) should plan their walk right now to the Best Original Screenplay Oscar stage.

There is happiness, there is sadness, there is despair, there is an impromptu dance number that reminded me of the Bollywood end of last year’s “Slumdog Millionaire.” The music, starting from Regina Spektor’s “Us” under the opening credits and every song going forward, was stunning, smart and perfectly chosen.

The plot is simple. Summer is the character Zooey Deschanel plays. And they go through 500 days with her and the male lead (Levitt). And though the ending is not a romantic comedy ending, I actually love the ending. Drama, after all, is all about conflict, and if they’d just walked happily off into the sunset, it wouldn’t be much of a movie. Plus, now that I know the ending, I’d watch it differently the second time around. And YES! I do want to see it again. I can’t say that about many of the movies I’ve been slogging through.

A gorgeous movie about love. Well worth a watch.

Slickly directed by Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air” concerns a perpetual bachelor Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) who loves being airborne more than he loves people. In fact, he’s on a quest to log 10 MILLION miles. Along the way, he meets a similar soul (Vera Fermiga) who travels a lot too.

The soullessness with which Bingham approaches his job is chilling. He’s guided onwards by his boss (the always-wonderful Jason Bateman). A whip-smart young girl (Anna Kendrick) brings new ideas to the company, and Bingham is recruited to take her on the road and show her the ropes.

That Bingham discovers his humanity during the course of this movie is no small feat. But it’s the parade of the jobless that resonates most in this troubling year.

Not sure, but at least we have one now. The Last Station is a lush portrait of the final days of Leo Tolstoy, the “Tolstoyans” around him, and those battling for control of his works (his wife and his acolyte, Chertkov). Unlike a lot of the Oscar movies barreling at us right now, this one is rich with context, subtext and meaning. Like many of the same movies, its central thesis is that it all boils down to LOVE in the end.

Tolstoy, bravely played by the wondrous Christopher Plummer, has his match in his fiery and tempestuous wife, warmly portrayed by Helen Mirren. It is a joy just to watch these two together on screen. There is a scene where they flirt with each other prior to lovemaking involving rooster and chicken sounds that in anyone else’s hands would be ludicrous. To their credit, you watch it and swoon for them.

Add to this mix, the clearly defined portrait of Chertkov by Paul Giamatti. Three very strong characters, all fighting for control make this movie well worth watching. As if all this isn’t enough, we have our lead, played with fierce innocence by James McAvoy (you may remember him from The Last King of Scotland).

All of the acting in this movie is top notch. The direction and writing by Michael Hoffman is superb. We are dropped into a world we may not have known about, but which is fascinating. We see what may be the first version of paparazzi, camped outside Tolstoy’s home. We learn that celebrity may not just corrupt and distort the person, but also the very works one is trying to defend.

The title refers to the final train stop where Tolstoy spends his final days. This movie is well worth a stop on your Oscar film train.

The beauty of the movie lies in just that. As this parade of Oscar hopefuls come trotting by, this is the first one (other than Up, which premiered earlier in the year) which actually has a lot of heart. Our lead is a large black man named Big Mike, later Michael (played by Quinton Aaron), born to a crack-addicted mother and an absent father, who ends up in a private school through the assistance of one person who sticks their neck out for him (due to his potential sports ability).

He is noticed and taken in by rich, white Sandra Bullock and her family. There is no doubt, the way the movie unfolds, that it is a heart to heart connection. But nonetheless, the feeling that is left at the end is along the lines of: well, that’s all well and good for this one particular black man who is saved from his life of crack-hell, but what about the countless others who are not? And that’s really the feeling that I can’t shake about this movie. It so distinctly points out the disparity between the two worlds that it’s very discomforting.

That said, there are many heart-warming and kind moments. Sandra Bullock, being bantered around in Oscar circles for the first time ever with the words, “possible Oscar nominee,” is indeed wonderful and warm as the lead Leigh Anne Touhy. She is quite far from any role I’ve ever seen her in as the high-powered blonde Republican wife.

The movie skirts the issue of race adroitly. Michael is a person who needs Leigh Anne’s help, so she helps him. It is quite wonderful how the story breaks down like that. Simple. Anyone would do this.

So if you need a reminder what it means to show another person love, “The Blind Side” is a great movie to see. Not overly sappy or button-pushing, just sweet and kind. Like Sandra Bullock.