Movie lovers rarely agree on anything, but we’re pretty sure 99 percent of Academy Awards watchers hated James Franco’s performance as Oscar co-host last year.

Fellow actor Seth Rogen is sticking up for his “Pineapple Express” co-star, albeit belatedly.

Rogen, most recently seen in “50/50,” contends it’s the producers’ fault when an Oscar host stumbles. And, in the case of Franco’s ill-fated pairing with Anne Hathaway last year, no one could have saved the show from itself, according to comments from Rogen published at MovieLine:

I think when you agree to do something like that, you put a certain amount of faith in the institution, hoping that they’ll take care of you, and I feel like they didn’t [take care of him]. Why hire James Franco and then give him Billy Crystal’s monologue? It was like, “Oh, we’ll hire these young hosts and then we’ll just do the same sh*t we do every f*cking year.” Which to me was really odd. I think they just approached it wrong. They didn’t think it through, and they were way underprepared. I think they hung him out to dry. So I wouldn’t do it unless they hired some better writers [laughs].

Rogen deserves credit for sticking up for a pal, but his logic is ultimately flawed.

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The Caped Crusader will be sneaking into movie houses a few days before Ol’ Saint Nick does his annual toy run.

A prologue to director Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” will hit theaters Dec. 21 in front of the new Tom Cruise feature “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.”

Nolan says the upcoming film will be set eight years following the action seen in “The Dark Knight,” according to TheWrap.com.

Nolan told the British film magazine that the prologue is “basically the first six, seven minutes of the film” and will serve as “an introduction to [the villain] Bane, and a taste of the rest of the film.”

“The Dark Knight Rises,” the third and presumably final film in Nolan’s Batman trilogy, will hit theaters July 20, 2012. The new film stars Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway and Marion Cotillard.

“Rio” is by definition a formula film. After watching its trailer you should be able to figure out essentially every major plot point before it happens. It’s “101 Dalmatians” meets the love story of “Shrek,” starring birds. But “Rio,” for all its unoriginality, is immensely entertaining.

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Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is a Blue Macaw whose domesticated life in Minnesota with bookstore owner Linda (Leslie Mann) has left him flightless yet book-smart. He also happens to be the last male of his species. To keep his kind from becoming extinct, Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), a Brazilian ornithologist, brings Linda and Blu to Rio de Janeiro where Jewel (Anne Hathaway), the last female Blue Macaw, is being kept in a bird sanctuary. But efforts to breed Blu and Jewel go south when a gang of bird smugglers, with the help of a villainous cockatoo named Nigel (Jemaine Clement), kidnap the birds and try to smuggle them out of Rio. The birds escape, but not before being chained together – the flightless Americanized geek Blu and the fiercely independent Jewel. It’s a race against time as Linda, Tulio, and the thieves hunt for the birds, and the world’s biggest party, Carnival, hits the streets of Rio.

“Rio” is not a heavy, Oscar-worthy film like “Up” or “Toy Story 3.” This lighthearted adventure avoids a truly serious antagonist, in that while Nigel (played in dry villainy by Clement) is pretty mean, his human counterparts are essentially buffoons. The romance of Blu and Jewel serves as comic relief, as the nerdy Blu struggles to find his inner romantic, and unwittingly wins Jewel because of it.

What makes “Rio” stand out is its beauty. Rio de Janeiro is nes

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We, the editors of this fine website, confess to having many flaws, but among those flaws you will never find the second-guessing of geniuses such as Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder.

Anne Hathaway is womanly, a fine actress, and — if you’ll forgive the expression — stacked. Most importantly, her sexual heat was the only thing memorable in the otherwise forgettable “Get Smart” remake. And if she can bring smoke to that fluff…

Catwoman must be sexy, intelligent enough to credibly come off as a formidable foe opposite Batman, and look good crawling around in tight leather.

Check, check, and double-check.

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Hollywood head scratcher of the day:

James Franco and Anne Hathaway will co-host the 83rd Academy Awards in February, the producers of the Oscars show announced Monday. …

Hathaway, on her fifth appearance when she takes the stage on February 27, is currently in “Love and Other Drugs,” and was nominated for an Oscar in 2008 for her lead performance in “Rachel Getting Married.”

“James Franco and Anne Hathaway personify the next generation of Hollywood icons — fresh, exciting and multi-talented,” said telecast producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer.

“We hope to create an Oscars broadcast that will both showcase their incredible talents and entertain the world” when stars and industry chiefs gather for the show at Hollywood’s Kodak Theater.

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True love is a hard thing to define, for there are as many ways to describe it as there are longstanding couples on this planet. For some, it’s about the romance, for others about being an emotional rock of support throughout life’s ups and downs. For still others, great sex is a key spice to a flavorful lifetime of happiness.

In the new romantic dramedy “Love and Other Drugs,” Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway play a pair who hook up – literally and figuratively – in 1996, just as Viagra entered the American marketplace and created a seismic shift in the romantic lives of countless couples. Jake plays Jamie, a freewheeling ladies’ man who enters the world of pharamceutical sales just in time to make a lucrative living hawking both Zoloft and the sexual wonder drug.

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Hathaway’s Maggie, however, veers between being way more reserved than Jamie , and engaging him in bouts of sexual abandon. She’s an artist who lives in a fancy loft (despite having no visible source of real income, a rare flaw in this film), and runs hot for Jamie as long as there are no romantic entanglements beyond the base level of wanton sex. Anything deeper suddenly drives her away, a fact that eventually drives Jamie crazy as he wonders what she’s hiding.

Yet the fact is, he already knows her worst secret: Maggie has Stage One Parkinson’s Disease. As Jamie starts to see the appeal of hot monogamy over emotionally cold promiscuity, he finds he’s falling hard for Maggie – and that fact will lead to plenty of complications.

“Love and Other Drugs” does have some cliched aspects to its plot (after all, do romantic comedies ever seem to end sadly?), and a couple of holes (how does an artist like her afford a place like that without any major sales depicted?, and why does the movie shift its attention completely away from the rollercoaster ride of selling red-hot drugs in the second half?). But what it does have going for it makes up for the problems in spades. (more…)

[Editor's Note: Script reviews of upcoming projects have been around for as long as there's been an Internet. Therefore it's no secret that a film can evolve into something quite different from its screenplay. Please keep in mind that this article represents a look at a particular script and not the final product.]

They say exposing Hollywood’s liberal sucker punches is like a drug, and Big Hollywood’s secret script source had just handed one over that was practically ticking:  The Adjustment Bureau, coming out in March.  John Nolte ran down the situation for me:  Zinn-loving Hollywood half-wit Matt Damon is the star.  He plays a liberal politician.  And since it’s a fantasy, the liberal politician is the hero.

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This could have been the H-Bomb of sucker punch movies.  I knew that if I didn’t handle it just right it could detonate and splatter me with razor sharp shards of progressive clichés and jagged fragments of left-wing memes.  “Suit me up,” I said, “I’m going in.”

Sweat collected on my furrowed brow.  I cut the red wire.  Nothing.  I cut the blue wire.  Nothing.   I had defused a sucker punch dud.   

I was actually let down.  Where was the thrill?  I felt like trotting over to Safeway and acting bewildered by all the choices in the cereal aisle.

Sure, I’m disappointed – you don’t need me if a movie doesn’t treat half its audience like borderline morons.  But The Adjustment Bureau still has some important lessons – like how to be a liberal, make movies according to your vision, and still not gratuitously alienate potential moviegoers.

First, a quick look at the plot.  We’re not here to blow the lid off of the script’s surprises, so if you want more detail it’s probably lurking out there on the web.  In short, the story involves the aforementioned Matt Damon as a liberal congressman with a fateful destiny that an unexpected infatuation threatens to derail.  The infatuee is a quirky ballet dancer – she’s wacky in a kind of “Look at me! I’m wearing Doc Martens with this vintage prom dress!” kind of way that is only slightly less tiresome on-screen than it is in real life.  (more…)

“Alice in Wonderland” director is Tim Burton a recognized genius of signature atmospheric animation and cinematic story and style. The story’s screenwriter, Linda Woolverton, who has penned Disney classics like “The Lion King,” is also a masterful story-teller. But their styles hardly mix, and the surreal atmosphere of “Alice in Wonderland” can’t hide this fact.

“Alice in Wonderland” borrows elements of both of author Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, telling the story of a grown Alice who is set to marry the oafish son of her deceased father’s business partner. But as her trophy wife future pans out before her, she gets cold feet and flees her engagement party, inadvertently chasing a rabbit in a waistcoat and falling down a hole into a strange world. Once there, she learns that it is her destiny to rescue “Wonderland” from a swollen-headed Red Queen, obsessed with beheading others. As a rebellion brews in preparation for the foretold day of victory, Alice must reconcile that to save Wonderland she must battle the terrifying dragon-like Jabberwocky. Despite the dreamy atmosphere of Wonderland, Alice slowly realizes that if she accepts the task of slaying the Jabberwocky, it might kill her. (more…)

Did you know celebrities have a right to speak their minds about politics courtesy of The First Amendment? Or that the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon televised debate changed the way we saw politicians forever? “Poliwood,” a new film “essay” from director Barry Levinson, uncovers those nuggets and much, much more.

The film, set to bow at the Starz Denver Film Festival this weekend and already airing on Showtime, does offer more than just those recycled themes. It’s an occasionally fascinating look into the modern actor’s mindset as well as the anger the general public feels when they hear celebrities pontificating on events of the day.

Director Barry Levinson

We’re also given a peek at the passions driving some celebrities to speak out on the issues. Yet the film is emblematic of Hollywood productions which strain to achieve balance but come up mostly empty.

The bulk of the film features liberal celebrities from the Creative Coalition, a nonpartisan group, maneuvering around last year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver. (more…)

First off, let me ask the question: in today’s PC, non-sexualized world, am I allowed to use the word “actress?” I guess I’ll chance it.

My friend Kitty sent me this link to an article about the ongoing saga of turning the 1,100 page book “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand, into a feature film:

Rand’s popular but polarizing book — it’s derided by many literary critics but has a huge public following — tells the story of Dagny Taggart, a railroad executive trying to keep her corporation competitive in the face of what she perceives as a lack of innovation and individual responsibility. (more…)

The movie business is not generally kind to women when they pass the age of 40, and Julia Roberts (now 41) is learning that lesson the hard way. The former Pretty Woman has returned to the big screen this weekend in Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity (Universal), and one prominent blogger wrote this headline:

Duplicity soft: Julia’s Comeback? Audiences Say Go Back

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star in the fun, smart DUPLICITY, from writer/director Tony Gilroy

Roberts’ last starring role was in 2003’s Mona Lisa Smile ($63.8M domestic), and since then she has become a full-time Mom. Overall, she has 8 movies on her resume that have reached $100M in the US with her as a lead (I’m not including the Ocean’s Eleven franchise). Her most successful string of movies started in 1997 with My Best Friend’s Wedding ($127.1M cume) and ended with her Oscar winning performance in Erin Brockovich ($125.6M cume). During that span, she starred in 6 movies, generating an average of $115M in domestic box office.

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The Academy Awards for 2008 have been handed out, and the “popular kids” have Oscars on their mantles, but the dirty little secret about winning awards is that you’ve gotta campaign for them. Thousands of dollars were spent by the distributors and filmmakers behind Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), Milk (Focus Features), The Reader (Weinstein) and other assorted winners and nominees, but not all performances received that sort of big money backing.

I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue. (more…)

Good news for the Motion Picture Academy. Despite the fact that the five Best Picture nominees had combined to gross less than $300M domestic by showtime, Oscar ratings were up considerably from last year’s all-time low. Early numbers show that the ABC telecast scored a 27 share, surging by 11% overall and by over 14% with TV’s “money demo” 18-49s. Compare that to last year when the show was down 25% in households from 2007 and down 30% among 18-49s.

The credit should go to producers Lawrence Mark and Bill Condon, although I can see why the streamlined show is a bit of a Rorschach test for viewers. If you love movies, and especially actors, last night’s show was respectful and enlightening. If you are inclined to dislike awards shows and actors, then the telecast would be pretty dreary.

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Hugh Jackman’s opening number the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen on TV that didn’t involve Dr. Gene Scott.

I can’t imagine how anybody watching could have enjoyed that.  OK, maybe Rob Lowe.

Give Anne Hathaway credit:  her Nixon’s better than Frank Langella’s.

Hugh Jackman’s coming across like an Aussie version of Conan O’Brien and I don’t like it.

This just in:  Obama has just raised the marginal tax rate on slumdog millionaires.

Her eyes are following me around the room again.  But seriously, do people REALLY think she’s good looking? I simply do not get it. She’s a bag of antlers. When are we going to stop this skinny/skank look? Take a close look and ask yourself if you’d believe it if she came out as a transvestite? Maybe I’m just still pissed that she dared to get into Barbara Feldon’s pumps.

Kate Winslett rules. Mmm…

I am forecasting a coronation for Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) at Sunday’s Academy Awards. My final predictions call for Slumdog wins in 8 of the 9 categories it is competing in including Best Picture and Best Director: Danny Boyle. The only place I think it will fail is in the Sound Mixing category where The Dark Knight (Warner Bros) may trump it.

Slumdog Millionaire is about to win the Hollywood's Grand Prize

The “Battle Royale” of the night is Mickey Rouke from The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) vs. Sean Penn in Milk (Focus) in the Best Actor category. There have been two ties in major categories in Academy Award history. The first was in 1932 when Frederic March in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde shared Best Actor with Wallace Beery for The Champ. (March had one more vote, but in that era, any finish within 3 votes was rules a tie.) Then in 1968, Katherine Hepburn for The Lion In Winter and Barbara Streisand for Funny Girl tied for Best Actress. If there was any justice, Rourke and Penn would share the award. In any other year, either of them would be a lock. Forced to make a pick, I’m going with Rourke.

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On Sunday, the Academy Awards will be handed out at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and there are some clear favorites. Slumdog Millionaire, the feel-good Danny Boyle Mumbai opus made for just $14M, is a heavy favorite to win Best Picture. It’s hard to imagine Slumdog missing out on Hollywood’s biggest prize, having won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA Award and just about everything in between.

But, in the world of gambling, you always want to look for value. What are the films and performances with longer odds that would be worth a wager on Sunday? My purpose here is to establish a betting line for each of the six major categories, and then find the value bet in each category.

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Hollywood execs seem to be waking up to the power of women at America’s multiplexes. The success of He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) and this weekend’s Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) can be traced to Meryl Streep’s witty riff on the tyrannical Anna Wintour in The Devil Wears Prada in the summer of 2006. Prada opened to a $27.5M weekend on its way to a $124.75M domestic cume (Streep also earned an Oscar nomination).

Then in July of 2007, New Line grabbed an almost identical $27.47M with the opening weekend of the female-skewing Hairspray, translating to $118.87M domestic. Also Enchanted, starring Amy Adams, was a hit for Disney over the holidays reaching $127.8M domestic.

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Liam Neeson is officially a full-fledged action star. The Irish-born actor has often played heroes, whether it was Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece Schindler’s List, the wise Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace or determined sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in 2005’s biopic Kinsey, Neeson has always had a knack for playing the earnest-but-flawed good guy. In his new movie Taken (Fox), writer/producer Luc Besson and director Pierre Morel have turned him into a Dad with the “mad skills” of a super-spy – think Mike Brady crossed with Jason Bourne.

The result is a well-reviewed (56% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) action film that will help to satisfy blockbuster-hungry audiences waiting for Warner Bros’ Watchmen (due March 6). Taken has scored big on its opening weekend. After grabbing an estimated $9.4M, the movie surged on Saturday to $11.62M (up almost 24% from opening day) and, despite today’s Super Bowl, the film could reach $24.62M according to studio estimates. That will be more than enough to win the Super Bowl 3-day, and positive word-of-mouth could get this one into the $70M-$75M range domestic.

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The chubby guy on the Segway rallied for a come-from-behind win over the Beckinsale-less Underworld sequel, but regardless, it was a 1-2 finish for Sony. When I originally predicted that Paul Blart: Mall Cop as the likely weekend winner over the MLK 4-day, some online sites questioned my pick. Even I didn’t expect an opening close to $40M, and now the Kevin James vehicle has surprised again.

The Adam Sandler-produced comedy has broadened its audience, showing real family appeal. That led to stronger Saturday and Sunday matinees for a stellar $21.5M by Monday morning. That gives the movie a 10-day cume of just shy of $65M, which is impressive considering that it was budgeted at just $26M. After success as a supporting star in movies like Hitch ($179.5M cume) and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry ($120M cume), it appears that James can open a movie without the help of Will Smith and Adam Sandler. Mall Cop dipped only 32% from last Friday-thru-Sunday (and that was part of a 4-day weekend, which can often lead to a sharper drop). (more…)