You are already aware of whether or not “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” interests you. “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” is a bit of a stoner classic, possessing the sort of random logic that strings the best weed-fueled movies together. The sequel, “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay,” was raunchier and had some hilarious bits, but never really came together as a complete product the way a lot of modern comedies fail to do. This third outing fares better than the second, adding a Christmas-driven plot to the stoned “After Hours” shenanigans.

This time around, Harold & Kumar have gone their separate ways as friends. Harold is a big-shot executive on Wall Street and lives in mortal fear of his father-in-law, which is completely understandable since the in-law is played by Danny Trejo. Trejo’s fearsome father has an intense love of Christmas, with special attention reserved for the magic of his homegrown Christmas tree.

While his wife is out with the family for midnight mass, Harold pledges to decorate the tree, hoping to make into a magical display and win the respect of his in-laws. His hopes are dashed when Kumar, still a bloodshot walking disaster, shows up to give him a mystery package, which contains a magical joint. One thing leads to another, and Trejo’s Christmas tree is destroyed in a freak accident, leading Harold & Kumar on an evening excursion to replace the tree, even if it means getting attacked by Russian mobsters, going on a claymated acid trip, or having yet another run-in with Neil Patrick Harris.

Again, you know what you’re in for with a Harold & Kumar movie, and while not as fresh as the original, it’s a more coherent sequel than the last film in the series. Inserting them into a Christmas setting gives it a sweet holiday flavor to go with the raunch-factor, which is always almost cranked up to John Waters levels of nasty in these films. A Rankin/Bass-style sequence of claymation high jinks allows them to indulge the Christmas-special vibe the story already has, while showing stuff you probably otherwise couldn’t get away with in an R-rated comedy. I giggled like an idiot through the last two films, and I did the same through this. Unlike a lot of stoner comedies, you don’t need to be high to enjoy them.

The Blu-ray ain’t loaded in terms of extras, it features an extended cut, as well as deleted scenes, which is par for the course. There’s a segment on realizing the claymation sequence, but it’s just a storyboard-to-film comparison. The only bits that are really worthwhile are some short “interviews” with Tom Lennon, where he crafts an argument that “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas” is superior to the work of Dickens, Hemingway, and Faulkner, asking whether or not they thought to depict showering nuns in their work. He does admit that Victor Hugo explored some of their ideas first in “Les Miserables,” though. Can’t win ‘em all.

I find it strange that they’ve decided to go ahead and release it in February, as most Christmas movies don’t get their home video release until the next Christmas season is upon us. Not that I mind, I don’t need to be in the Christmas spirit to chuckle at some good ol’ fashioned stoner antics. This ain’t a candy cane for the easily offended, but I’m sure most of you know better than to put it on during the next family gathering, because we all know this is more of a treat for an ugly Christmas sweater party with some friends.

Available on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Instant

Other Noteworthy Releases

The Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part I: I’ve never seen any of these, but one day I plan to get loaded and have a marathon once they’re all available for home consumption. Anyone care to join me? Mark Kermode described this movie as “bonkers,” which sounds promising on several levels. Look for it on Friday, February 11th.

Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Amazon Instant

Lady and The Tramp: I watched this movie a lot when I was a kid, which is why I’m shocked I remember hardly anything about it, apart from the memorable spaghetti-date scene and the “we are Siamese if you please” bit with the cats. Time for a refresher.

Available on Blu-ray/DVD combo

Anonymous: Roland Emmerich took a break from Irwin Allen films writ large and sub-Spielberg/Cameron offerings to do a movie about nutty conspiracy theories regarding whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote his plays. The movie drew the ire of Shakespeare experts and plain ol’ film critics alike, but it’s interesting to see a guy who loves to blow stuff up as much as Emmerich does take such a dramatic turn.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World: If you were alive in 1963, and had ever appeared on film with the intention of making others laugh by that point, chances are you were in this movie.

Available on Blu-ray

Casino Royale: Not the Bond debut of Daniel Craig, but the Bond spoof with the likes of David Niven, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers and Orson Welles.

Available on Blu-ray

Love Story: No, moron, love DOES mean having to say you’re sorry.

Available on Blu-ray

The Sunset Limited: A two-man show written by the great Cormac McCarthy, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones, who also directs. I’m in.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Project Nim: A man versus beast documentary about an ape raised as a human, directed by “Man on a Wire” filmmaker James Marsh, which goes well with a side of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.”

Available on DVD

A Fish Called Wanda: Kevin Kline’s Oscar-winning turn came from this unlikely Monty Python-populated film, which gets its Blu-ray release this week.

Available on Blu-ray

La Jetee/Sans Soleil: I own this set on DVD for “La Jetee” alone, which is one of the more interesting science fiction films out there, even if it is comprised almost entirely of still photographs and voiceover. Speaking of Monty Python earlier, one of their veterans, Terry Gilliam, took the plot of “La Jetee” to new heights by remaking it as a feature with “12 Monkeys.” Mark Romanek also referenced it heavily in his video for David Bowie’s “Jump, They Say.” This set showcases the most significant film work of Chris Marker, whose work has found much renown across various mediums.

Available on Blu-ray

A Star is Born: The film likely to win big at The Oscars this year, “The Artist,” owes its basic plot to this film directed by “Wild Bill” Wellman, starring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March. Kino is presenting it just in time for the Academy Awards, with all the bells n’ whistles they’re wont to give.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

This piece originally appeared over at Parcbench.

The film doesn’t deserve a rebirth on home video. The story is difficult to swallow, and thrillers need far more shocks than the few doled out here. But star Daniel Craig invests so much in the main character that you’ll keep watching just to see how the tortured story resolves.

Craig plays Will Atenton, a writer who leaves his posh publishing gig to write the next great American novel — or British novel, perhaps, given his plummy accent.

Will retreats to his family’s snow-kissed home and a wife (Rachel Weisz) and two daughters who look like they sneaked out of a ’50s family sitcom.

It’s all too bloody perfect, and soon we’ll see why.

The house Will calls home once belonged to a family murdered by the father. Naturally, the real estate agent neglected to mention this fact to Will, but some curious run-ins with a beautiful neighbor (Naomi Watts in an utterly thankless role) and some goth-lovin’ teens fill in the blanks. What’s worse, the home is frequently stalked by strangers, and when Will summons the police for help, they all but shrug their shoulders.

The trailer’s big reveal isn’t the true story here, but the film doesn’t improve when the narrative switches from psychological horror to straightforward mystery.

It’s all too daffy to  gin up our interest, with screenwriter David Loucka (“Borderline”) using Will’s delusional mind to unfairly trick us at every turn. But Craig’s Will is so full of good cheer and so crestfallen when reality sneaks  up on his cobalt blue eyes that we keep rooting for a finale superior to the set up.

Nothing doing. Most horror movies wish they had set designs as gorgeous as what’s seen here, but even the lowest of low-budget shockers are more effective at getting under our skin than this “House.”

The Blu-ray extras manage to transcend the flawed feature film. “Burning Down the House” breaks down how a critical sequence late in the film avoided both CGI and singeing the film’s cast. Special effects maestros describe how some propane tanks, a well placed fireball and some flame-proof paint helped create a firefighter’s nightmare.

Director Jim Sheridan clearly has had enough of computer-aided effects, and in “Building the Dream House” he says as much while exploring how the titular “House” became an uncredited character in the film. In fact, hearing how the location scouts found the structure used in the movie as well as how it was recreated on a sound stage for interior shots is a reminder that even inferior movies require a staggering amount of preparation.

Had the “Dream House” screenplay received such tender loving care, it might have fared better with film goers.

Does it even matter which film comes in first at the box office?

“The Devil Inside,” the no-budget faux documentary about demonic possession, already covered its costs from the midnight screenings, according to Deadline.com.

Now, anything else it makes will be gravy – minus marketing fees and other related costs.

Compare that to “Dream House,” the 2011 horror flop starring Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz.

That film costs roughly $50 million to make, according to Box Office Mojo, and its theatrical haul was an anemic $21 million. There’s nothing wrong, technically, with a movie studio ponying up to deliver big stars, big special effects and a heaping helping of spectacle. But some genres, like horror, simply don’t require that approach.

One of the most profitable films of 2011 turned out to be the low-budget shocker “Insidious,” a film which actually had both movie stars (Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne) and plenty of scares.

Recognizable stars are a bonus today, not a necessity. And since too many actors erase the goodwill audiences have for them with ugly political statements and obnoxious behavior, why not cast unknowns in more projects?

The star of “Cowboys & Aliens” and two James Bond films is chatting up a storm these days. First, he slammed the Kardashians in vulgar terms. Then, he blasted politicians in similarly indelicate language.

Now, Craig is confessing he nearly gave up the gig which made him a superstar – playing 007.

There was that long hiatus where Bond maybe wasn’t happening. I’d got it into my head that if it went another two years on top of the two-year gap we’d already had, then they should probably find someone else. And I should think about getting on with things.

We should probably take him at his word.

Craig is the kind of celebrity who truly disdains the trappings of fame. Consider how he avoided the press while getting hitched to his “Dream House” co-star Rachel Weisz. And any star willing to speak his mind so freely probably cares less about the career security blanket offered by the Bond franchise than most of his peers.

“Skyfall,” the much-delayed third Bond film starring Craig, is expected to hit theaters by the end of 2012.

Fincher, a master of uneasy mood and unflinching depravity, is a perfect match for the very raw material of novelist Stieg Larsson’s 2005 bestseller. And while he doesn’t necessarily improve upon director Niels Arden Oplev’s 2009 picture, he amps it up in a major way. In this he’s been well-served by his sharp eye for casting: Rooney Mara, who played the wronged girlfriend at the beginning of Fincher’s The Social Network, here gives a spectacular performance as the psycho-punk computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, and for the length of the movie, at least, she obscures the memory of Noomi Rapace, the actress who so fully inhabited that character in the earlier film.

Fincher was right to go to Sweden to shoot this picture—the film has a Nordic chill that seeps into your bones. Once again we are in Stockholm, where crusading magazine publisher Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) has just lost a libel suit to a corrupt business mogul he had targeted in an exposé. Handing over the reins of the magazine to his colleague and girlfriend, Erika Berger (Robin Wright), Blomkvist just wants to disappear for a while. And on a faraway island off the Swedish coast, an aged industrial titan named Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) has just the place for him to disappear to.

Vanger wants to bring Blomkvist in on an investigative assignment. Ostensibly he’ll be writing a history of the Vanger family, many of whose unpleasant members also reside on the island. Actually, however, this hired outsider will be looking into the disappearance of Henrik’s beloved niece, Harriet, who went missing some 40 years earlier.

You can read the rest of the review at Reason.com

The American version of the popular European film, drawn from the trilogy of best sellers by Stieg Larssons, is a solidly constructed thriller with enough sex, danger and escapism to keep audiences engaged. But Fincher’s film is nothing if not perfunctory, and it doesn’t help that the director falls back on the same drab color palette he used to better effect in last year’s hit “The Social Network.”

Daniel Craig stars as Mikael, a disgraced journalist who lucks into a sweet gig after losing his shirt in a libel suit. An avuncular old man named Henrik (Christopher Plummer) hires Mikael to solve the decades-old case of a teen girl’s mysterious death. The girl happens to have been Henrik’s niece, part of an extended family with more skeletons in its closet than that “Poltergeist” graveyard scene.

It seems an impossible case to crack, but Mikael needs to prove himself in the wake of the libel suit, and he’s eventually joined by a super-researcher named Lisbeth (Mara Rooney) who can dig up facts no one else can.

Will the duo unearth enough family secrets to help them solve the murder, or will the forces which brought the poor teen down in the first place rise up to smite these too-curious snoops?

It takes a good, long while before “Tattoo” emerges as anything but a nattily detailed time waster. The film’s first hour can be tedious, what with Mikael poring over old photographs and Lisbeth shocking everyone she meets with her piercings and unconventional hair choices.

Where’s the sense of danger, or even a tangible reason to root on these off-putting heroes? The screenplay downloads plenty of information into the audience’s mainframe, and that doesn’t spark an already pokey narrative. You get the sense not even Henrik is losing sleep over the long buried case.

Fincher’s film slowly finds a sense of purpose, and from there it’s a slick and satisfying trip to the film’s bloated finale.

“Dragon Tattoo” might be the oddest star vehicle for any young actress, but Rooney owns it all the same. She’s wafer thin and talks in an almost embarrassed cadence, the kind that all but shouts, “Please, don’t pay me any mind.” But it’s hard not to drink in her performance, especially when she starts asserting herself against the men in her life out to do her harm.

Craig, still looking for a signature role outside the Bond franchise, inches closer to one here as the driven reporter out to clear his name. His natural ruggedness makes Mikael hard to admire, and that works well within Fincher’s drained canvas.

Rooney and Craig still have a devil of a time sussing out tension from the narrative’s necessities, like staring at old photographs for what feels like ages to glean the next clue. Fincher reteams with his “Social Network” composer Trent Reznor, but they can’t match the singular intensity of their last collaboration.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” isn’t Oscar worthy, nor is it the best thriller you’ll see this year. It’s a quiet tale told with smarts and gumption, but it’s hard to imagine it once caused shock waves throughout popular culture.

We’ve gone from Dirty Harry to Jason Bourne (or whatever his name ended up being; the camera was too shaky for me to ever tell what was going on). We’ve gone from Humphrey Bogart to George Clooney.  We’ve gone from John Wayne fighting Indians to Na’vi fighting Americans.

But, don’t fret. For there is an answer to our problems, fellow film buffs. I know you’re six feet from that ledge, but let me give you hope…they are called books. They are these contraptions with bindings and pages with words on the inside. Together this all creates a story one hundred times more fulfilling than today’s dim-witted liberal flavor-of-the-month films.

Hollywood has always been a liberal town. They give us anti-Iraq war movie after anti-Iraq war movie despite the fact that they all flop at the box office. But what of the literary world?  They must surely share Hollywood’s contempt for conservatives and enriching stories, right? Wrong. The publishing world seems to get it, for the most part. They like to publish what sells and what seems to sell today are right-leaning stories.

Stephen Hunter, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Tom Clancy, Frank Miller, James Ellroy, and Andrew Klavan. These are just a handful of names of today’s top fiction writers. All of them have something in common: they have, admittedly, right leaning politics and philosophies. This does not mean that their books are some kind of weird right-wing propaganda. What it means is that their stories usually make the bad guys who the bad guys really are and their heroes don’t shy away from masculinity or righteous indignation. These writers also have something else in common: they are all New York Times bestselling authors. Try out Stephen Hunter’s new novel Soft Target. It’s a hundred times better and more visually striking than any new action film to hit theaters in the last year. Or try Andrew Klavan’s last adult thriller, The Identity Man. It’s more thought-provoking and more well thought out than any half-baked political thriller cooked up by George Clooney. These writers lead the fiction front in literature today. They put out bestsellers that frequently win acclaim from critics.

As for non fiction…now we are really getting to the heart of the beast. Look at the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction and you are bound to see a plethora of conservative thought. While Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham are regularly blasted in the mainstream media, they regularly put out bestsellers. Others do too. In fact, most non-fiction political books that hit shelves are written by conservatives. Why this phenomenon and why now? Is it that conservatives have been turned away by Hollywood so they have retreated to the inner workings of books? Or is it because right-leaning artists and right-leaning thinkers need more than a 90-minute film to bring across a message and/or story?

Perhaps films are more representative of a liberal approach to storytelling, while writing is a more conservative approach. Films are a collected effort. They takes hundreds, if not, thousands of people to create, and usually have a vision that is compromised by too many cooks in the kitchen. Books, on the other hand, are a celebration of individualism. It takes one person to sit and put his vision down. Maybe this is the explanation, but maybe not.

But whatever it may be, this much is true: if you hit up your local bookstore or head over to Amazon, you’ll find a world of old school storytelling and right-leaning stories. John Wayne and his films ain’t dead, they just grew up. They exist in an entirely new world: the world of books.

Check out footage from the latest Tea Party rally and you’ll see people holding signs referencing classics like 1984 by George Orwell and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Check out footage of the latest Occupy Wall Street rally and you’ll see people wearing “V for Vendetta” masks. That says it all.

JAMES GARNER’S DAUGHTER OPENS TRIBUTE SITE TO HER AWESOME FATHER

The Mighty James Garner’s daughter, Gigi Garner (a successful talent manager in her own right), has opened a tribute website to her father. She seems to be updating it fairly regularly with a number of terrific family photos and excerpts from Garners’ new memoir “The Garner Files,” which I loved and reviewed here.

Please check the site out.

Anyone who’s been reading me for any amount of time (or who has seen my Twitter wallpaper), knows of my all-consuming affection for all things James Garner, most especially “The Rockford Files.” You can imagine how much this tweet meant to me.

Tell me how it gets any better than that. You can’t, because it doesn’t.

The only bad news is that if this photo on Ms. Garner’s site displays the actor’s real signature, that means I got robbed on Ebay.

Cue my well-rehearsed of-course-I-got-swindled-again Rockford face.

FINALLY: AN HONEST ASSESSMENT OF HOLLYWOOD’S BOX OFFICE BLUES

With all of Hollywood and most of their sycophant entertainment media blaming box office and DVD woes on everything but bad product, this is the rare break from that absurd narrative:

Basically, films aren’t the draw they once were. With streaming and cable and TV shows getting better and better, there’s a lot more competition now, and the longer studios ignore it and try to operate like they always have (releasing all their “smart” movies at the end of December, for instance), the more it’s going to continue to decline. Almost without exception, all the decent movies I saw this year were films that the distributors considered too niche for a broad audience and almost no one saw them, because they barely had a chance to. Meanwhile this week’s top three releases have a 2, 3, and 4 next to the titles, and all had concepts created in the 1960s or earlier. If films are going to compete long-term, they’re going to have to start giving the “niche” stuff that gets people excited about movies a chance to compete with the bland blockbusters that make money. There are only so many Dark Knights. The general public has a major ambivalence towards movies right now, and if it doesn’t get better soon it’s going to turn into a grandpa medium the way late-night TV has.

And let’s not forget Hollywood’s non-stop, 15-year assault against the 70% of their audience that isn’t liberal.

Goodwill is crucial to institutional brands and this industry has arrogantly worked overtime to squander almost all of it.

Chickens, meet the roost.

SIX MORE JAMES BOND FILMS FOR DANIEL CRAIG?

“Filming has gone very well so far and I’d love Daniel to surpass Roger’s record and do eight pictures,” Michael G. Wilson told the UK’s Sunday People. “Daniel’s been an absolute pleasure to be around because he takes the role so seriously. There’s really no one more passionate about making these films work than him – he’s a filmmaker’s dream.”

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY TRAILER ONLINE TUESDAY AT 7PM PST

Gentlemen, start your nerdgasms.

I kid because I love.

EVA GREEN EYES ‘300: BATTLE OF ARTEMISIA’

Ever since her memorable turn as Vesper in “Casino Royale,” I’ve been a fan. Unfortunately, Hollywood seems to be more interested in girls than women these days, and the ridiculously sexy and womanly Green hasn’t been in much.

Hopefully, everything will work out. Not that I’ll need another reason to see this.

NEW YORK TIMES BLAMES ‘LOST’ FOR EVERYTHING BAD ON TELEVISION

This is just silly:

A similar process is under way in the post- “Lost” television world. The first three seasons of “Lost” may have approached the imaginative charms of the original “Star Wars” trilogy, but the next three were nearly as awful as George Lucas’s catastrophic prequels. You could easily picture the stumped writers of “Lost,” helpless in the face of an ever-growing pile of unsolved mysteries, madly skimming Wikipedia entries on space-time geometries and black holes.

The show’s finale was the crowning disaster, the Scooby-Doo ending to end all Scooby-Doo endings. After hinting for years that their nonsensical mess would add up to something, not only did the producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof fail to address a tiny fraction of the trillions of mysteries they introduced, but they threw out the Lostpedia with the bath water, scrapping all of those riddles for the equivalent of Lucas’s teddy-bear victory dance: a celestial moment with the survivors, hugging and holding hands in the afterlife.

This is all ancient history — or would be, if not for the fact that the implosion of “Lost” was like a dirty bomb that made the world unsafe for serial dramas to this day.

The writer then goes on to blame “Lost” for what he sees as the sloppy execution of “Homeland” and “American Horror Story.”

First off, I caught “Lost” on DVD and while some individual episodes lacked (especially during the writers’ strike), as a whole I found the series and the finale very, very satisfying. This, I think, is the best way to watch programs that work like the old movie serials from yesteryear. Waiting a week and a full summer between chapters is a completely different experience than sitting down and devouring it like a good novel.

I haven’t seen “American Horror Story” or “Homeland” yet, but I have seen enough of Kelsey Grammer’s Starz series “Boss” and FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” (two series released after “Lost”) to argue that television’s current golden age is alive and well. The writing, acting and overall storytelling occurring on the small screen these days makes life worth living.

BROADCAST NETS DOWN, CABLE UP IN 2011

The major broadcast networks continued to see an erosion of their audiences in 2011, while cable networks saw theirs expand, according to TVbytheNumbers.com. The website said on Thursday that while ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC saw their total household audience decline 3 percent this year, the audience for ad-support cable as a whole was up 3 percent and the top ten cable networks recorded a 4-percent gain.

A+ ‘EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE’ MOVIE REVIEW

The largest issue I had with this film was figuring out how to describe the effect it had on me emotionally. It’s a crushing film that will leave many moviegoers in a heap, but I don’t look at it as an overly sad movie even though the level of sadness on display is undeniable.

‘SURVIVOR: SOUTH PACIFIC’ WINNER REVEALED

This show is still on the air?

MARSHALL FINE’S ‘DRAGON TATTOO’ REVIEW

Is Fincher’s film better than Niels Arden Oplev’s? Not really. It’s different; it’s probably as good as the Swedish version. But better? Nope, sorry – which brings us back to the issue of the movie as a commodity, rather than an artistic vision.

I’m not impugning Fincher’s intentions; I’m just saying that, as good as his film may be, it’s redundant and unnecessary.

Is it entertaining and well-made? Absolutely. For the audience that would never dream of seeing a foreign film, this movie will be the last word in “Dragon Tattoo” movie-making. And they’ll get a quality product.

‘THR’ REVIEWS JOLIE’S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT

Jolie deserves significant credit for creating such a powerfully oppressive atmosphere and staging the ghastly events so credibly, even if it is these very strengths that will make people not want to watch what’s onscreen. All the director’s decisions were taken in the interest of heightened verisimilitude, from working in the Bosnian language (an English-language version is available as well) to using as many authentic locations as possible (some in Bosnia, others in Hungary) and having cinematographer Dean Semler employ a combat-ready style.

SHERLOCK RETURNS TO THE BBC: ‘HE’S DEFINITELY DEVILISH’

Superb series. Season one is, I think, still on Netflix.

There’s so much good television these days, you can hardly keep up.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

“A Christmas Carol” (1984) – Most people choose Alistair Sim’s 1951 version of “A Christmas Carol” as their favorite, and for good reason. But after watching the 1984 television adaptation again last night, I have to say that George C. Scott is my favorite Ebenezer Scrooge. The Academy Award-winner’s interpretation is the most human and down-to-earth, which gives an added impact to those classic lines of dialogue we all know by heart.

Scrooge’s redemption scene is especially poignant in this version, which was directed by Clive Donner, the editor of the 1951 film.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

‘THE DINGO STOLE MY BABY! — PART DEUX’

BRAD BIRD GIVES AN UPDATE ON HIS EARTHQUAKE MOVIE, 1906

RIDLEY SCOTT TALKS ‘PROMETHEUS’

FIRST PHOTO OF SYLVESTER STALLONE IN ‘BULLET TO THE HEAD”

‘HOMELAND’ SEASON 1 FINALE REVIEW

WILLIAM SHATNER IS COMING TO BROADWAY

‘DEXTER’ SEASON 6 FINALE REVIEW

PROFILE: PAM GRIER

‘IT TAKES A THIEF’: THE DVD DEBRIEF REVIEW

MAX VON SYDOW LOOKS BACK AT HIS WORK ON ‘FLASH GORDON’ AND ‘STRANGE BREW‘

RIDLEY SCOTT SAYS THERE WILL BE NO ALIENS IN PROMETHEUS

REAL-LIFE RUDY ACCUSED OF SCREWING INVESTORS OUT OF $11 MILLION

8 GREAT TV CHRISTMAS SPECIALS

NEW FOOTAGE FROM ‘THE AVENGERS’ IN GERMAN TRAILER

WHY ‘PERSON OF INTEREST’ IS A SUPERHERO SHOW DONE RIGHT

REJECTED GREEN GOBLIN MAKE-UP TESTS FOR SAM RAIMI’S ‘SPIDER-MAN‘

100 GREATEST JEWISH FILMS

TOP 100 CULT FILMS

10 GREAT PERFORMANCES IN BAD 2011 MOVIES

MEET THE NEW POP CULTURE, SAM AS THE OLD POP CULTURE

JOHN WILLIAMS: THE LAST MOVIE MAESTRO

6 AWESOME MOVIE AMUSEMENT PARK RIDES AND THEIR REAL LIFE LOCATIONS

TOP 15 JAMES BOND DEATHS

REVISITING THE ‘LETTERMAN’ EPISODE FEATURING ANDY KAUFMAN AND JERRY LAWLER

A LOOK BACK AT JOHN FRANKENHEIMER’S ‘SECONDS‘

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CLASSIC PICK FOR TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20

TCM:

12:30 PM  EST: Age of Innocence, The (1934) –  A young attorney risks his career for love of a glamorous divorcee. Dir: Philip Moeller Cast:  Irene Dunne, John Boles, Lionel Atwill. BW-81 mins, TV-PG, CC.

This is a rare opportunity to see the first film adaptation of Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about an aristocratic New Yorker who meets the only woman he’ll ever love after it’s too late. However, I only recommend this as a rare curiosity.

While many films produced during the same Production Code-era (like 1936’s “Dodsworth”) were able to tell stories that covered similar themes of adultery and divorce in a mature and dramatic way, 1934’s “Age of Innocence” is pretty lacking. For starters, Dunne is miscast and the overall production is stagy and surprisingly slow moving for an 81-minute film.

This is in stark contrast to Martin Scorsese’s beautifully realized 1993 adaptation that captures the longing and loss of its source material as well as any film ever could.

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter @NolteNC.

NOTE: There will be no Call Sheet tomorrow. I am taking a vacation day.

ALEC BALDWIN IS A SAD AND MISERABLE MAN:

From 2008:

Alec Baldwin, who stars in “30 Rock,” the NBC sitcom that has revived his career and done nothing to lift his spirits, has the unbending, straight-armed gait of someone trying to prevent clothes from rubbing against sunburned skin. He is fifty years old, divorced, and lives alone in an old white farmhouse in the Hamptons and an apartment on Central Park West—feeling thwarted, if not quite persecuted. In conversation, he lets out an occasional yelping laugh, but he is often wistful, in a way that is linked to professional and romantic regrets, and to a period of tabloid notoriety last year, when an angry voice mail that he left for his daughter, who was then eleven, became public. He is very conscious of what is lacking in his life—a spouse, for example, and a film career something like Jack Nicholson’s, and the governorship of New York—and his rhetoric can sometimes bring to mind a scene from “30 Rock” in which Baldwin, in his role as Jack Donaghy, a shameless but astute TV executive, stares at an equestrian painting by Stubbs and, in a growled whisper of longing, says, “I wish I were a horse—strong, free, my chestnut haunches glistening in the sun.” According to Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of “Saturday Night Live” and an executive producer of “30 Rock,” Baldwin “guards against enjoyment.” (Michaels is a friend of Baldwin’s and was a model for the Donaghy character.) “I’ll say, ‘Alec, you have one of the best writers in television’ ”—Tina Fey—“ ‘writing this part for you. It’s shot in New York, where you chose to live. You work three days a week, you get paid a lot of money, you’re getting awards. It’s a great time in your life. It’s an all-good thing. And, if you were capable of enjoying it, it would be even better.’ ” Or, as William Baldwin, one of Alec’s three younger brothers, said recently, “There’s always something for him to fucking whine about.”

The price of being a narcissist is that happiness is an impossibility. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

THE 10 BEST CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD TOUGH GUYS

Nothing to disagree with here, especially the “special mentions.”

PIERCE BROSNAN FINDS NO COMFORT WATCHING HIS BOND FILMS

Shame, really:

Pierce Brosnan doesn’t mind leaving the James Bond-watching to his sons these days.

“I never go near them,” the actor tells Zap2it about his four rounds as Agent 007 that began with “GoldenEye” (1995) and ended with “Die Another Day” (2002). “I’m badly criticized by my boys that I will not sit and watch them with them, but I just don’t have any desire to see them. I find no nourishment in them.”

At the same time, Brosnan maintains he’s “deeply proud” of the work he did as the Bond predecessor to Daniel Craig, who will mark the movie franchise’s 50th anniversary in “Skyfall” next year. “I just don’t find any comfort in watching them. I’ll cast my eye over them, but I have to move away and say, ‘Go ahead, boys. It’s all yours.’”

Brosnan was a very good Bond. Sometimes the films let him down, but I was sorry when he left the franchise,  and after “Quantum of Bourne-ShakyCam,” I was real sorry.

In related news….

DANIEL CRAIG ON WHAT WENT WRONG WITH ‘QUANTUM OF SOLACE‘

Blame the writers strike:

[Craig] had some interesting things to say about the muddle that was Quantum Of Solace.

When asked if the script sometimes was “an after-thought on huge productions”, Craig related that back to Quantum Of Solace.

“On Quantum, we were fucked”, he said. “ We had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers’ strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t employ a writer to finish it. I say to myself, ‘Never again’, but who knows? There was me trying to rewrite scenes – and a writer I am not.”

When pushed further on the fact that he was having to write scenes himself, Craig contined:

“Me and the director [Marc Forster] were the ones allowed to do it. The rules were that you couldn’t employ anyone as a writer, but the actor and director could work on scenes together. We were stuffed. We got away with it, but only just. It was never meant to be as much of a sequel as it was, but it ended up being a sequel, starting where the last one finished.”

I’d feel a whole lot better if Craig had blamed the shaky-cam. You don’t how much better.

TOM CRUISE CONFIRMS ‘WE’RE WORKING’ ON ‘TOP GUN 2′

Video at the link:

About reuniting with director Tony Scott and producer Jerry Bruckheimer for the possible sequel, Cruise said that “Tony and I and Jerry, we never thought that we would do it again. Then they started to come to us with these ideas of where it is now. I thought, ‘Wow, that would be … what we could do now.’”

Cruise added: “If we can find a story that we all want to do, we all want to make a film that is in the same kind of tone as the other one and shoot it in the same way as we shot ‘Top Gun.’”

I’ve read more than once that Cruise caught no small amount of hell for doing the original “Top Gun” from Hollywood liberals like Paul Newman, who saw the iconic film as right-wing, pro-military propaganda (as though that’s a bad thing). I’ve even read that Cruise doing Oliver Stone’s “Born On the Fourth of July” was a sort of penance to put the actor back in the good graces of the liberal plantation.

If they do another “Top Gun,” it should be interesting to see how this might affect the outcome.

CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF ‘STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY‘

I still remember sitting in the theatre, knowing this would be the last outing with the original crew, and hoping it would never end. Once those goodbye signatures started flying up on the screen, a piece of my childhood died.

“Undiscovered Country” was a terrific adventure, though — a worthy send off.

Shatner and Nimoy were only 60 at the time and, looking back, I’m guessing Paramount wishes they had held on to the original cast for a few more features. The “Next Generation” movies are fine, but nothing and no one will ever replace the goodwill and warm chemistry of Kirk and company.

In this house, they’re family.

RUH-ROH: DROP IN CD SALES EXCEEDS GROWTH IN DIGITAL SALES

When the Super Bowl half-time show keeps reaching for senior citizens, the music industry has a problem:

Warner Music Group continues to sing a sad tune when it comes to its financial performance. It reported today that it had  a net loss of $103M in the quarter that ended in September, 124% bigger than its loss in the same period last year, on revenues of $707M, down 6%. The financial report is mostly for bondholders; Russian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries bought the company in July for $3.3B. Still, it’s a dreary filing for the company whose roster of hitmakers includes Bruno Mars, Cee Lo Green, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Jill Scott. Warner says that its recorded music revenues fell 8% to $571M. Although sales from digital distribution were up 6% to $194M, that was “more than offset by contracting demand” for CDs.

When I was a teen, music was all about freedom and sin: Sex, drugs, and rock -n- roll. What I hear today is mostly about anger (rap), social responsibility and kissing the ass of the state. Bono’s kind of a downer, no?

Any day of the week, I’ll take music that says “fuck you” to the establishment and the planet and The Man and the government and the sanctimony of crybaby do-gooders over music that places a virtue on surrendering to the establishment.

At heart, though, I’m a Sinatra guy — but don’t forget, he was the original gangster.

‘STORAGE WARS: TEXAS’ RECORD-SETTING DEBUT SEEN BY 4.1 MILLION VIEWERS

Every time I come across this program I watch and wait for the concept to kick in. Then the credits roll and I realize it did.

Don’t get it.

CONTROVERSIAL HITCHCOCK BIOPIC IN WORKS

Here we go:

The BBC plans to air a movie based on Tippi Hedren’s account of her relationship with Alfred Hitchcock when she was “discovered” by him to portray the lead character in the 1962 movie The Birds. Among other things, she has claimed that she had to rebuff Hitchcock’s sexual advances during the making of that film and the follow-up, Marnie. She reportedly was interviewed extensively by screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes for the project, and Donald Spoto, who wrote a largely unflattering biography of Hitchcock in 1999 (The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock), will reportedly act as a consultant on the movie. British actress Sienna Miller has been signed to play Hedren; Toby Jones, to play Hitchcock; and Imelda Staunton, to play Hitchcock’s wife Alma.

Hitchcock’s wife Alma was involved in everything her husband did. She was very much his right arm and especially crucial to the screenwriting and pre-production process, so it should be interesting to see how that plays out.

I met Hedren at an autograph show last year and let me tell you, at 80 years old, she’s still stunning. The photo she signed for me is very similar to this one. Same dress, but there’s a crow perched on her finger and the background is orange. It’s one of my favorites.

As far as the psycho-sexual backstory that always seems to  come with everything involving Hitchcock, it was boring decades ago. Okay, we get it; he had a thing for hot, young, icy, unobtainable blondes. Please don’t ever stop giving us that insight, because we didn’t hear it the first 400 times.

People are people. Hollywood didn’t devolve into degeneracy over the last few decades. Tinseltown was always Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s just that once upon a time, Hollywood didn’t attempt to normalize their deviant behavior and spoon feed it to our kids.

Once upon a time, Hollywood had class.

‘DARK KNIGHT’ 4 AND 5?

The Mighty Gary Oldman:

“Yeah, yeah. For us I think ['The Dark Knight Rises' is] the end. Whether they will make more, my guess is probably. I mean, they don’t have [the Harry Potter franchise] anymore. So, there could be a Batman 4 & 5. It may be Chris [Nolan] overseeing it in a producorial position, but for us and for Chris I think that’s it. It’s a great way to go out though. It’s a great story. Epic, epic thing it is.”

Works for me.

More: TOP 10 GARY OLDMAN PERFORMANCES

‘THREE STOOGES’ TRAILER

It’s a good thing Christian Toto did yesterday’s Big Hollywood write up for this. My first impression was that it was awful, but after a few more viewings, it’s kind of growing on me.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

More episodes of “The Closer.” If you haven’t seen the show, you should. We’re in the middle of season four and it just keeps getting better. What’s not to like about a protagonist who wants murderous kids tried as adults, is in favor of the death penalty, and loathes the “L.A. Times”? Other than a couple of stupid, out-of-nowhere, obligatory (if you’re going to survive in Hollywood) shots at “torture,” when it comes to crime and punishment, this is as good as it gets for conservatives — like the first four years of the original “Law and Order.”

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

GORE VERBINSKI’S ‘THE LONE RANGER’ FINALLY RIDES

SET PHOTOS FROM ‘THE EXPENDABLES 2‘

‘THE DARK KNIGHT RISES’ VIRAL CAMPAIGN KICKS IN

ANGELINA JOLIE TO STAR IN UNTITLED DRAMATIC THRILLER FROM DIRECTOR LUC BESSON

HAS THE ‘STAR TREK’ SEQUEL FOUND ITS NEW VILLAIN?

DETAILS ON THE WACHOWSKI/TOM TYKWER FILM ‘CLOUD ATLAS‘

EPIC ‘JURASSIC PARK’ ART SHOW

COMING TO THE SYFY CHANNEL IN 2012: THE ORIGINAL MOVIE ‘JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK‘

THANK GOD.

UNIVERSAL ANNOUNCES HARRY POTTER WORLD FOR HOLLYWOOD AND ORLANDO EXPANSION

ANOTHER TRAILER FOR ‘THE IRON LADY’ ARRIVES

THE LATEST VINTAGE FILM SCORE RELEASES

4 STORYLINES FOR A ‘DAREDEVIL’ REBOOT

COMPARING FRED ARMISEN’S ‘SNL’ OBAMA TO DANA CARVEY’S BUSH

10 GREAT ACTORS WHO PLAYED TERRIBLE SUPERVILLAINS

A LOOK BACK AT WOLFGANG PETERSEN’S UNFILMED ERNEST SHACKLETON MOVIE

A LOOK BACK AT ERNST LUBITSCH’S DESIGN FOR LIVING

4 UNEXPECTED FAN BASES IN POP CULTURE

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CLASSIC PICK FOR FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9

TCM:

4:00 PM  EST: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958) —  A dying plantation owner tries to help his alcoholic son solve his problems. Dir: Richard Brooks Cast:  Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives. C-108 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format.

Superbly realized and acted adaptation of the Tennessee Williams’ play. Though it was hidden deep in the subtext of the film, in the original play, the Paul Newman character was openly dealing with his homosexual urges.

As a kid, seeing Elizabeth Taylor in that white slip, I was dealing with the just the opposite.

What audiences sensed, I think, is exactly what’s wrong with the movie itself and that’s the casting. While Daniel Craig impressed us in “Casino Royale” and especially “Layer Cake,” he just doesn’t register as the mysteriously dangerous stranger who shows up in a corrupt Western town. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Craig. Bogart’s a legend, but not every legend looks comfortable wearing a cowboy hat. Craig does look the part, but what he is missing requires some explanation.

As The Man With No Name, Craig fails to register. The story really does rest on his ridiculously toned shoulders, and this is where things falter most and also where I’m about to get a little unfair. As much as I would like to, it’s impossible for me to separate my love and knowledge of film from what Hollywood’s producing today, and when it comes to this kind of “town” Western and this kind of character, Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s “Fistful of Dollars” (1964) is the standard. As is Eastwood in his own masterpiece “High Plains Drifter” (1973), and I would even include Bruce Willis in “Last Man Standing” (1996), Walter Hill’s imperfect but still memorable updated remake of “Dollars.”

The stranger has to carry a sense of mystery about him that’s both unspoken and intriguing. Without a word of exposition, we have to want to know who this guy is and what makes him tick. Is he the good guy? Is he the bad guy? Moreover, there has to be a sense of unpredictable danger — the sense that this man is capable of anything. Lastly, a wicked sense of humor doesn’t hurt.

Blame it on the script, director, or genre, but Craig’s lacking here. While the actor might look the part, he “felt” out of place (not in the right way) and the sense that he might be explosively dangerous never generated a tense anticipation… probably because the question is answered too soon in a contrived barroom brawl. In a better film, by the time Craig’s stranger finally shows us how capable he is, we should be on the edge of our seats dying for that moment to arrive. Instead, due to [insert action scene here], “Cowboys and Aliens” denies us that pleasure.

Another problem is Harrison Ford, who’s never successful when he’s not playing Harrison Ford. As the brutal patriarch who “runs the town,” Ford is obviously channeling “The Big Country”’s (1958) Charles Bickford, but it’s all very surface. Nothing about the Ford character’s ultimate “arc” surprised in the least.

The problems with Craig and Ford are what I think audiences intuitively understood, even if I didn’t. One of the key components of marketing a film is to put an actor the public likes in a situation they are dying to see him or her in (Willis vs. terrorists, Sandler vs. snobs), and moviegoers just weren’t excited by the idea of seeing those two in that setting — and, as it turns out, for good reason.

The aliens, however, are even worse. As the story’s antagonist, their motivation feels contrived, and the effect their presence might have in that time and place is never really explored. Moreover, they never feel like much of a threat. There’s hardly any tension when they’re on-screen, much less off.  There’s so much promise wasted in this area, I wouldn’t know where to begin.

Another problem is the script, which, as I said above, lacks tension but is also structured poorly. Flashbacks explaining Craig’s backstory never fail to kill what little momentum is building, mainly because we don’t care about the Craig character’s backstory.

As expected, Favreau directs the action well, and the special effects, especially in the early scenes, are top-notch. The climax, however, is the biggest letdown. If anything’s lacking from “Cowboys and Aliens,” it’s fun.

On home video, this mash-up of genres should play better than it did with the expectations that come with the theatrical experience, especially one that’s a summer tentpole. But this is what you call a one-off — something you probably won’t be interested in seeing again. If Hollywood wants to know why DVD sales have collapsed, “Cowboys and Aliens” is Exhibit #12,127.