I know from many, many personal experiences that it's distressing to see some critic totally not get a movie you really liked. So be it, and your disagreement is totally civil. No problem with that.

But this interested me:

Isn't [it] your job also to let people know if, when they take time out of their day or night to crawl into a dark room and hope to be transported out of their reality into someone else's and be entertained for a couple of hours, there's any likelihood of that happening?

I sort of felt it was obvious that I didn't have that experience -- if I had, I wouldn't have been sitting there worrying about the in-my-judgment crappy acting (by adults) and in-my-judgment even crappier editing, and the general tone of in-my-judgment unfocused mediocrity? As I wrote here, I didn't love "Atonement" the way a lot of critics (like my colleague Stephanie) did, but I *was* at least intermittently seduced into its lovely and slightly sinister world to the point where I was thinking about the characters and their problems, not about technical aspects of the movie. By the way, that happens all the time: If you've ever read this column, one of its unspoken but (I hope) obvious premises is that I'm here to support independent film. Most of the time I ack-cent-choo-ate the positive. When I strongly dislike movies, I tend to skip them entirely, unless they're large enough releases to merit critical attention no matter what.

That was the case here, and I'm perfectly happy that you enjoyed "The Kite Runner." I would like to have enjoyed it more than I did, believe me, but with a major release in the most overcrowded and demanding season of the year it's important not to pull punches. Those who disagree with me (like yourself) may well learn something; for example, not to treat my opinions as a reliable indicator of whether you'll enjoy a particular film.

I could go on to discuss the distinction sometimes drawn between "audience films" and "critic's films," with Kite Runner as a case in point, or mention Vincent Canby's maxim that it's pointless for critics to pretend to be "regular viewers," because you can't see 250-300 movies a year and be a regular viewer anymore. But enough of me, already.

that I had no idea the distributors would be advertising this film in Salon, let alone when such advertising might run. Like most reputable publications, Salon maintains a strict firewall on this issue. Indie-film distributors often advertise adjacent to our film coverage, and we're certainly grateful for that. (Picturehouse is publicizing this film far & wide, in hopes of emulating last year's success with "Pan's Labyrinth.") But the writers have virtually no contact with the sales staff; we don't mess with their business, and they don't mess with ours. Look at the Friday edition of whatever daily newspaper you read. Movie reviews or features run opposite or adjacent to ads for the movie in question all the time, without arousing anybody's suspicions.

After the Wedding (especially) and The Lives of Others, I mean. Both were terrific, and probably belong somewhere in that top 20. I guess they escaped my net because of the oddity that both were nominated for the '06 foreign-language Oscar, and many critics listed Lives of Others last year. (I definitely didn't see it until '07, though.)

The Italian? It was a damn good film, I'm not damning with faint praise. But it didn't stick with me the way some of these others did.

Brothers I did not see. Do you mean Susanne Bier's 2004 film? Not released in the US, to my knowledge. Although I'm admittedly counting things like Falling, which played one week at Anthology in NYC, and Regular Lovers, which played one week at Cinema Village. So who knows? Anyhow, I'd love to catch it.

And I really want to see that Sigur Ros movie, TheSimulacra! (Dig the monicker, by the way.) That sounds completely awesome. Maybe I should just put it on the list, sight unseen.

Yep, the quiz answer was Syndromes and a Century, which Stephanie saw last fall at Toronto and included on her '06 list. Hey, everybody makes their own rules (and, in my case this year, apparently breaks them as well). A very cool movie, which drew no audience in general release but is feeling the year-end love from geeks such as us. (No. 4 on the IndieWIRE critics' poll.)

So, ethanvahlere, it appears you were first. I was serious about an appropriate prize, drawn from my miscellaneous and voluminous collection of crap. So drop me a line if you actually want it: aoh[at]salon.com. Otherwise I'll move on to my inbox, since somebody else responded by email at 11:16 PM.