1. The Help was the big winner at last night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, nabbing Best Cast, Best Actress (Viola Davis), and Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer), but the biggest surprise of the evening was Jean Dujardin’s victory over George Clooney and Brad Pitt in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role category. [via The Wrap]

2. Thanks to a $6-a-ticket Groupon deal, Katherine Heigl’s poorly reviewed new film One for the Money came in third place at the weekend box office, earning a respectable $11.8 million. Topping it was Liam Neeson’s harrowing survival drama, The Grey, which took in $20 million, and Underworld Awakening, which made $12.5 million. [via I Watch Stuff]

3. The Sundance Film Festival handed out its 2012 awards over the weekend, with top honors going to buzzed-about titles like Beasts of The Southern Wild and The Surrogate; check out the full list of winners here.

4. The first teaser for Season 5 of True Blood is online, and while it doesn’t reveal any new footage, the tagline — “In Bon Temps, Nothing Stays Buried Forever” — suggests that a Russell Edgington-dominated storyline lies ahead. [via TVLine]

5. “You have to take a drink every time, and I mean every time, you hear the word ‘Scorsese.’ You’d be surprised how much that comes up in just casual conversation because people like to throw that thing around.” — Melissa McCarthy explains the drinking game that she and her Bridesmaids co-stars Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph came up with at last night’s SAG Awards.

Bonus Buzz: The Zombie Presidents Of The United States

Movie mavens IMDb have revealed their top ten most-viewed/searched-for stars, movies, TV shows, and anticipated in-production titles over the past decade. The lists celebrates ten years of the company’s industry database IMDb Pro and offers some surprising — and not so shocking — looks at trends centering on our film tastes. The Dark Knight Rises grabbed a number one spot as most-anticipated project, which shouldn’t be news to you, but the number two film of the past ten years — Donnie Darko — was a bit of a surprise.

We zeroed in on the top stars list and provided some subliminal insight into where movie audiences’ minds must have been for the last decade. Give us your explanations below after you check out the list past the break.

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When you have to keep an obsessive eye on film, music, books, visual art, television, the Internet, and all other manner of popular culture, something eventually has to give, and for us — well, for this author, anyway — it’s sports. An almost-complete disinterest in professional and collegiate sporting events can make one feel a bit of an outcast (and it certainly makes for a confusing Facebook feed; apparently some guy who’s really into Jesus won something important on Sunday?), but after faking it through high school and college, I can’t pretend to care anymore. Maybe it makes me a pencil-necked geek, but the idea of spending three hours watching a football going to and fro — particularly when there are still Hitchcock movies I haven’t seen — is simply unacceptable.

However, many of the same film fans who are patently disinterested in a Sunday afternoon of TV sports will gladly spend that same time planted in front of a sports-themed movie — basically the same thing, albeit with better camera angles and a scripted ending. (And the angles are the only difference in a wrestling movie, HA HA!) And that’s fine with this viewer; as I told a friend after its release, “I’d watch football every week if it looked like Any Given Sunday.” But cinephiles more sport-phobic than I (and they’re out there!) might prefer films that keep the game play squarely off-screen. In honor of today’s DVD release of Moneyball, one of the best of the bunch, we offer ten genuinely good movies about sports that are notable for their minimal sports action. Check them out after the jump, and add your own in the comments.

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In Touch of Evil, a video project for The New York Times Magazine’s new Hollywood issue, photographer/filmmaker Alex Prager asked the actors behind some of the best performances of the year to take on a few of cinema’s most villainous roles. We can’t decide which of the resulting vignettes is our favorite: Brad Pitt doing his creepiest Henry Spencer from Eraserhead, Viola Davis’ chilling take on Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Rooney Mara’s androgynous homage to Alex from A Clockwork Orange, or a very angry Michael Shannon as Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko. Either way, Gary Oldman as the ventriloquist’s dummy from the 1978 film Fats is definitely going to give us nightmares. All 13 of the beautifully-shot clips are well worth your time; click through to preview a few stills, and then head over to Times’ website to check them all out. Read More »

It’s the most ambivalent time of the year! No, not the holiday season — the awards season, which is now officially underway. The New York Film Critics Circle has just finished announcing this year’s winners via Twitter, and its picks have certainly raised our eyebrows. Of course, it’s a surprise to no one that critics loved Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, which took home two acting awards for its prolific principals, Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt, and an incredibly well-deserved cinematography prize. But it was French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius’ much-loved, just-released silent-era throwback The Artist that earned both their Best Picture and Best Director prizes. Also notable: Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, which we loved, didn’t win anything. Check out the rest of the critics’ favorites after the jump, and feel free to speculate wildly on what this means for the Oscars, Golden Globes, and Independent Spirits (which announced their nominees today) in the comments.

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Brad Pitt is the latest Hollywood star to threaten to leave the spotlight and has given a three-year timetable to make his exit. The actor — fresh off some stellar reviews for his role in Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life — wants to adopt more of a producer’s role. “I am really enjoying the producing side and development of stories and putting those pieces together. Getting stories to the plate that might have had a tougher times otherwise,” he recently told Australia’s 60 Minutes. Pitt’s already found his place in the producer’s chair, working behind-the-scenes on Malick’s movie and past efforts like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, as well as the upcoming World War Z and Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years a Slave. It’s hard to imagine a Hollywood without the likable actor. If he does follow through on his word, we hope he’ll still make an appearance every so often. History proves, however, that the acting bug is a pesky one and most screen stars renege on their promises to quit for good. Click past the break for a history of other actors that wanted to say goodbye. Read More »

1. The first full trailer for the Gary Ross-directed adaptation of The Hunger Games has landed online — and it actually has some serious potential! Watch it here.

2. Also newly debuted: the first 30 seconds of the trailer for the Meryl Streep-fronted Margaret Thatcher biopic, The Iron Lady, which you can see here. What do you make of her Thatcher impression?

3. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lady Gaga and her longtime creative director Laurieann Gibson have decided to part ways; it sounds like the fact that Gibson has been pursuing her own projects lately, as well as some friction over Gaga’s recent music videos, led to the split.

4. Courtney Love stormed offstage during a performance in Brazil on Saturday night after a concertgoer held up a picture of Kurt Cobain, and shouted, among other things, “I’m not Kurt, I have to live with his shit and his ghost and his kid every day and throwing that up is stupid and rude and I’m going to beat the f*ck out of you if you do it again.” [via NME]

5. During an interview with Australia’s 60 Minutes over the weekend, Brad Pitt announced that he’s planning to retire from acting when he turns 50 (which is three years from now), and put more of his focus toward producing. [via The Playlist]

Bonus Buzz: Best Slo-Mo Breakdancing You’ll See Today

Given the vast array of imaginative things that Hollywood is capable of crafting, it seems strange that moviemakers still struggle with some of the basics. Traditional makeup techniques that age actors stands as one of the biggest culprits and has often ruined entire films thanks to sloppy, weird, or unbelievable results. As many movies have proven, donning wrinkles and age spots doesn’t automatically equal a successful makeover. In the digital age, it’s easier for filmmakers to get a little help so that grandpa and grandma look more like live, actual people than a Halloween prop — but that’s what makes those who transform actors into senior stars old school-style so impressive. It’s an art form.

Leonardo DiCaprio underwent a dramatic transformation for the upcoming J. Edgar Hoover, and we definitely feel like it’s not one of his best-looking moments. The FBI’s first director didn’t win any beauty contests in his day, but DiCaprio appears to be drowning in his prosthetics, and the whole thing just seems awkward. This got us thinking about other cruddy elderly makeovers. Click past the break to see who made the leap to long in the tooth, in order from most convincing to least. Leave us your list in the comments.

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Described as “Caravaggio meets Fight Club,” Tarsem Singh’s mythology tale Immortals hits theaters on November 11. Man of Steel’s Henry Cavill takes on the role of Greek warrior Theseus, who leads a battle against the Titans — all set to The Cell director’s stunning visuals and taking a few cues from Zack Snyder’s otherworldly 300. Many movies have been inspired by sparring gods from ancient tales far and wide. Some of the stories about mythological scuffles that have been handed down to us over the years have been adapted into screen stories of modern warfare, while others have recalled the violent crusades more literally. Click past the break for a look at several celluloid versions of famous mythological battles. Leave your favorites below.

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Margin Call, a fact-based thriller concerning the beginning of the financial crisis, opens tomorrow with a stellar ensemble cast that includes Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker, and Mary McDonnell. (And Demi Moore. Hey, can’t win ‘em all.) Throw in last month’s Contagion (featuring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Bryan Cranston, Marion Cotillard, and Elliott Gould) and December’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (with Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, and Mark Strong), and this is starting to look like the Season of the Ensemble. In celebration of these smart, adult movies flush with Oscar winners and fine character performers, we’ve assembled some of our favorite big-cast ensemble movies after the jump — check it out, and throw in your own in the comments.

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