Studio logos are an iconography all their own, but nothing puts a grin on my face like a spiffy send-up of a traditional company emblem tailored made to gel with the film I’m about to watch. Don’t get me wrong — nothing’s going to top classics like Alfred Newman’s Fox fanfare, Jerry Goldsmith’s Universal tune or the countless other openings ingrained in our cinematic memories. But when someone takes the recognizable logo and makes it their own…well, that’s when I get giddy. For decades, movie studios have been allowing filmmakers to tinker slightly with the prestigious logos that preface every film they release. Nothing too crazy — maybe a color shift or a throwback to a retired bumper — but nothing that would tarnish their reputations. These days, most movies are free to run wild. Many stick to the time-honored traditions of their studios, but the ones that don’t feel that much more special. Regardless of a film’s quality, a great logo is like the cherry on top for most movie buffs. Here are fourteen modern variants that bring a little extra magic to the pictures they kick off:

Brian Gibson loves to buy DVDs. Come with him on his weekly journey into the depths of credit card debt as he tells you what to buy, rent and avoid.

Well, there’s not much news to report this weekend at the Reject Report. Thank you very much, Hollywood, for not rolling out any new wide releases and giving me (and a lot of movie fans) a free weekend to watch football on TV.

This first weekend of 2009 is going to be a status quo one all the way at the box office, it looks like. There’s only a couple of new releases, Defiance and Good, and they are in very limited release (two theaters each).

The box office has been going to the dogs throughout the fall with funny animals winning at the box office all the time. Now that we are into the winter, things are no different.

Kevin and Neil bring on the fruitcake with their big, fat Christmas special. They question the correlation between Nazis and Christmas with the release of Valkyrie and The Spirit.

FSR’s resident chubby film critic Kevin Carr runs down the reviews on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Valkyrie, The Spirit, Marley & Me and Bedtime Stories.

This week we preview six movies — five new flicks and one expanding — on what is bound to be a star-studded weekend at the box office. We are in for a weekend loaded with big stars. Adam Sandler! Tom Cruise! Jennifer Aniston — and this time she is actually wearing clothes… No Doubt about it, we have a Spirited box office race to look forward to this weekend.

For Adam Sandler, the world of movies have always been his playground. In his own films and with his Happy Madison production, he seems to be able to do whatever he wants and still make plenty of money.