Like most actors, James Garner is not particularly fond of a lot of his work. As he tells CBS News ahead of tomorrow’s arrival of his autobiography The Garner Files, he rates only two of his big screen efforts as being excellent.

What is atypical however is the way the 83-year-old actor and co-author Jon Winokur have chosen to convey this information. As New York Post movie critic Lou Lumenick was one of the first to note, Garner has basically gone Leonard Maltin on himself:

This is the first movie star biography I’ve seen where an actor provides capsule reviews of all his movies. Even more unusually, Garner rates all but one of them from zero to five stars. The ones he rates most highly are The Americanization of Emily (1964) and The Notebook (2004) with five stars…

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The American Film Institute announced the full gala and special screening lineup for its upcoming film festival today. Clint Eastwood‘s new film J. Edgar will open the festival, while director Steve McQueen’s Shame will close the festivities. In between: a new film from Roman Polanski, Michelle Williams as Marylin, Ralph Fiennes‘ directorial debut and Werner Hertzog.

Lars von Trier‘s Melancholia will also be showing. Here’s hoping he says some more wacky Nazi stuff that gives us something to write about.

Full gala and special screening lineup after the jump:

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This past Thanksgiving, Philadelphia Inquirer movie critic Steven Rea launched a whimsical blog at Tumblr. Titled “Rides a Bike,” it honors those halcyon days when movie stars rode around Hollywood backlots on bicycles.

Many of the photos depict timeless pairings, such as Audrey Hepburn with her dog Mr. Famous or Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth riding tandem. There’s also the somewhat incongruous two-wheeled taming of men of action like Sean Connery and Steve McQueen.

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As senior writer for E! Online, Josh Grossberg (pictured) cranks out a wide range of celebrity news items. This week for example, topics have included the will and testament of Ronni Chasen, the imminent prison time of Wesley Snipes and the DUI arrest of David Cassidy.

But Grossberg still finds time for sideline projects. On the heels of his 2009 documentary A Bridge Life, about the victims of Hurricane Katrina herded to the Houston Astrodome, he tells the Broward New Times that he has just finished writing his first Broadway musical, is in conversations with NBC about a “huge” reality TV series and is expanding his 2010 Cannes Film Festival short Betrayed into a feature titled Disappear.

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At the beginning of the week, LA Weekly reporter Patrick Range McDonald was unimpressed by the potential choice of the intersection of Highland Ave. and Santa Monica Blvd. as “Steve McQueen Square.” But thanks to a City Council vote on Tuesday, it’s now official: the end-point of Route 66 is also the beginning of an attempt by municipal politicians to kickstart the Hollywood Media District.

An official dedication is set for Sunday, the 30th anniversary of the iconic actor’s death. Ahead of another special McQueen event Thursday, November 11th at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood (which FBLA will be attending), the Jules Verne Festival is co-sponsoring a 30-year mark automotive parade.

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