Using scores from Metacritic, Miller-McCune weighted the critical scores of actors' movies with the relative size of their roles in those movies. The final list shows that everyone who was in Lord of the Rings is an awesome actor with great taste in projects, with Elijah Wood topping the list and Viggo Mortenson and Ian Holm (the British geezer who played Bilbo Baggins) making the top four, too. Philip Seymour Hoffman is as serious an actor as you think he is, and Jessica Alba is as big a hack. Bottoming out the list was Freddie Prinze, Jr., followed by someone named Eddie Griffin and a tragic Matthew Lillard who had so much potential, once. Here's an abridged sampler:

Equally interesting was scatterplot showing the relative niceness and consistency of America's 25 most prolific movie critics. We discover that the Chicago Tribune's Michael Wilmington drinks the kool-aid more than any other critic, followed by the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert's perennially upraised thumbs. The meanest critic in America is the Austin Chronicle's Marc Savlov, who gives low scores but deviates regularly. On the other hand, TV Guide's Maitland McDonagh gives low scores and has a relatively low standard deviation from her mean score, meaning she's always stone cold.

[Miller-McCune]

• There's lots of winners to the pending Tolkien - New Line 100 million dollar settlement, reports The Reporter's Hollywood Esquire. Nerds will finally get to see Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro's planned two Hobbit films get rolling. The charities that are supported by the Tolkien trust should see a flood of cash. And most important, Warners legal department will get rid of a decade long mess in what became "one the of the most-litigated franchises in movie history." Hollywood Esq blames the debacle on the super-aggressive legal postures of former New Line Chiefs Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, who's strategy of underpaying partners sparked a parade of suits. [THR]

• Despite fierce opposition from the President's Address to the Joint Session of Boring, Hollywood can rejoice its first moderate hit of the fall TV season. Fox's Glee premiered very respectably, the first green shoots for the survival of media. In its debut, first non-pilot episode, Fox's singing dramedy drew in approximately 7.3 million viewers. The season openers of So You Think You Can Dance and America's Next Top Model earned respectable 6.5 million and 3.2 million overall. Of the networks airing the Obama speech, NBC was on top with 8.2 million viewers. [Variety]

• The major networks have joined forces in a coalition to attempt to create a new ratings system that will take on traditional giant Nielsen. The announcement indicated the coalition will develop a system that takes into account viewing across platforms. [THR]

• Sharon Waxman calls the Toronto Festival, which opens tonight, "a litmus test on the evolving state of serious cinema and its prospects for survival." With the recent meltdown of independent film distributors, the onus will be on Toronto to demonstrate what comes next in the distribution of grown-up movies. [The Wrap]

• Warner Brothers has reorganized its DC Comics wing into DC Entertainment. The new arm will attempt to get the legions of DC heroes trapped in development hell — including Wonder Woman and Green Lantern - up and ready for the their close-ups. [Variety]

• Michael Stipe's Single Cell Productions and Tom Hanks' Playtone have joined forces to to develop a romantic comedy that will exploit the song catalogue of iconic singer/songwriter Barry Manilow. [Variety]

The state television network Channel Two is running a marathon of the fantasy film trilogy in the coming days, hoping that its various messages and themes will pacify a rebellious populace. A reporter in Iran speculates about the choice to Salon:

Who picked this film? I start to suspect that there is a subversive soul manning the controls at Seda va Sima, AKA the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. It is way too easy to play with the film, to draw comparisons to what is happening in real life. There are the overt Mousavi themes: the unwanted quest and the risking of life in pursuit of an unanticipated destiny. Then there is the sly nod to Ahmadinejad. Iranian films are dubbed (forget the wretched dubbing into English in the U.S.; in Iran dubbing is a craft) and there are plenty of references to "kootoole," little person, the Farsi word used in the movie for hobbit and dwarf. "Kootoole," of course, was, is, the term used in many of the chants out on the street against President Ahmadinejad. He is the "little person." ("And whose side are you on?" Pippin asks the ancient, forest-dwelling giant named Treebeard. Those watching might think the answer is Mousavi, since Treebeard is decked out in green.)

We're putting a call into New Line to see if Iran even has the rights to put the flicks on state television.

Boomp3.com

Like the swallows returning to the missions of San Juan Capistrano, all of the women attending the Marc Jacobs fashion show flocked to quirky actor Elijah Wood. The Lord of The Rings star could not find a moment of peace in the tents of Bryant Park. Wood was startled by his newfound status as a hunk, but relished the experience all the same. Wood said, "I always thought that everybody loved Sean Astin from the movies, but I guess it was wrong. Shhh...don't tell my gal pal, but I'm loving this. It's going to make her super jealous and I love it when she's jealous."

[Photo Credit: Splash Pic]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

"No way. Sleepless in Seattle can go fuck itself," [Del Toro] said. "Monsters are the most beautiful creatures in the universe. I have no interest in everyday life, except through a twisted mirror."

Of course, slumping Seattle screenwriter Nora Ephron got to work straightaway, sensing an opportunity to rework her long-dormant third collaboration between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as the tale of a lovelorn, nocturnal minotaur and the elusive Fairy of the Dawn who fakes orgasms in his dreams. That, or Del Toro will just stick to his much cheaper, twisted-enough Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz reunion entitled, naturally, Fuck Itself. Count on it.

• Guillermo Del Toro to Never Direct 'Sleepless in Seattle' Sequel? [/Film]

1. Alfonso Cuaron. Del Toro's close friend and (with del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) one of the "Three Amigos" conveniently packaged by American press in 2006, Cuaron was Warner Bros.' surprising pick to helm 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. But his indie chops came in handy in both humanizing the franchise and positioning it more dynamically against Chris Columbus and Mike Newell's entries that sandwiched it. He's a versatile guy who gets the marketplace but isn't beholden to genre interests; in that way, his similarities to Jackson, who jumped from graphic B-horror comedies like Bad Taste to Heavenly Creatures to LOTR, are almost uncanny. Also, he's just a better director than del Toro; Cuaron could have made Pan's Labyrinth in his sleep, but del Toro couldn't have touched Children of Men.

2. Neil Jordan. Another guy with tons of range, the Crying Game/Michael Collins filmmaker is also a grossly underrated craftsman who could save everyone a lot of time and money by shooting both Hobbit films over about four months in Ireland. Alas, Jackson would likely object to the requisite IRA subplot in which Bilbo Baggins is sidelined indefinitely by injuries sustained in a car bombing.

3. David Lynch. A natural short-lister for any film involving midgets. Plus we all know how well his previous would-be fantasy franchise went.

4. Woody Allen. While it's true that Allen has returned from his four-year European exile with a new project featuring Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood, he has made little secret of his availability to the highest overseas bidder. With this in mind, and seeing as Middle Earth's brow-furrowed humorlessness is perhaps its most annoying attribute, we'd like to see Allen invited to New Zealand for a comic run through Baggins' deeply embedded neuroses — not the least of which is his underage shiksa love interest, played by saucy new Disney cast-off Miley Cyrus.

5. Uwe Boll. Why not? He is the only genius in the whole fucking business.

We know what you're saying: come on, at least there will be a production of The Hobbit! We're with you there, but that in itself is no reason to celebrate. This massive four year undertaking has to avoid too many pitfalls to really work. The coming together of Peter Jackson and New Line for the LOTR trilogy was an unlikely alliance that made a fortune for all involved. It's a shame that most people who have seen the films haven't seen the extended versions, but what they got was true to the spirit of the books and succeeded on every level.

This doesn't automatically mean the same for The Hobbit, however. For one, the idea of having Jackson supervise a talented director sounds good on the surface, but not everyone has the financial acumen of the George Lucas and Steven Spielberg Indiana Jones bromance, and when you're not solely committed to profits at all costs, the idea of a "filmmaking community" may simply be a nice way to say there will be too many cooks in this particular kitchen.

In addition, making the shorter Hobbit may not be, from a production standpoint, that much simpler than Jackson's trilogy. The immense amount of money and time spent will be reminiscent of those three films, yes. When you ignore the big budget and complicated special effects, the final product won't be that similar. While Lord of the Rings could promise epic marketability, The Hobbit screams, "What's my audience?" Already turned into a short feature by Ralph Baksi in 1978, the animated version is a good reminder that the story is a meandering odyssey with a tough ending for the screen, and it's more suited for children than an adult audience.

Lastly, the prospect of a second prequel has to raise a red flag. It sounds like this will be the way that Del Toro and Jackson get more of the trilogy's popular characters back into the milieu, and the gang has already expressed a desire to reprise their roles. That's a smart idea. The Hobbit doesn't have as much in the way of kick-ass heroes or battle scenes. It's a quieter, more imaginative story that needs a different feel than the trilogy, and perhaps a different hand behind it. In that sense, not handling the project himself appeared to be a good move for Jackson, but when it comes to the shaky ground of making two prequels that cover a 60-year period, and there's not a clear story or a clear audience, do we really trust a first-timer to the material?

If you still think this is will turn out well, picture this: Del Toro in his new house in New Zealand, getting unpleasant faxes from Jackson and writing partner Phillippa Boyer about scenes left on the cutting room floor, no pizza delivery, and miles to go before he wraps. Don't do it, Guillermo!

Guillermo del Toro to Direct 'Hobbit' [Variety]