I haven't seen "American Gangster" yet—the trailer looks kind of bleh. But Lou Lumenick's review in the New York Post is full of big blurbage. He compares "American Gangster" to "The Godfather" and "Scarface." He says Denzel Washington gives his best performance yet. (Yet?! Really???) He ends with big Oscar talk: "... one of the year's best movies—and surely a major Oscar contender."

Hm. Is this is like the time Roger Ebert called "The Cell" one of the best movies of the year? Wait. Maybe not. The rest of the nation's critics mostly love it, too. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone calls it a "major awards contender," though it's "long," "overstuffed" and "limited" (thanks, Peter). Joe Morgenstern of the WSJ is also reminded of "The Godfather." Manohla Dargis of the NYTimes seems mixed in her lead, though the rest of the review sort of collapses into a critique of simple hair-braiding.

What does this all mean?! I guess it's in the running for best picture, and I'm buying a ticket to see it this weekend.

Scary Spice (AKA Melanie Brown) is a star on "Dancing With the Stars," but after the series ends on Nov. 28, she'll spice up her life with the Spice Girls reunion tour. Scary shared 7 secrets with us about returning to Spice World.

(1) All the Spice Girls were shocked at how fast tickets sold out. "You can never judge what the public reaction is going to be like," she says. "When we were told our tickets sold out in something ridiculous like 38 seconds in London, we all held our breaths."

(2) They've wrapped the new Spice Girls music video. "I saw it today, in one of the final edits. It's really beautifully done. It's very classy. It's very elegant. It's all very grown up." 

(3) Her "Dancing" dancing is different than her Spice Girls dancing. "'Dancing With the Stars' is more technical, because it's ballroom. Spice Girls, it's me, so I put my flavor on it ... it's more street dancing ... you build up a sweat in each."

(4) The Spice Girls rehearse for four hours a day. "We have singing coaches, so we can do our harmonizing. I think we're a little bit better. We've matured with age."

(5) Why she moved to LA six years ago: "London is too cold for me," she says.

(6) She and Victoria Spice are still BFFs. "We have play dates with our kids together, quite a lot. Me and my husband go over there for dinner."

(7) But she won't give us any of David Beckham's secrets. "I'm not going to rat my friends out like that! We're all about protecting and supporting each other."

Every Friday from now on, I'm writing up the cut footage from my magazine interviews for the blog. Some of them will have nothing to do with the Oscars—if that's not your thing, sorry about that, just skip to the next post.