Questlove to Guest, and Die, on Law & Order: SVU

Questlove: drummer, producer, author, professor,Tonight Show bandleader, corpse. Yes, the worlds most versatile music nerd is adding an unconventional notch to his resume by playing a dead man on an upcoming episode ofLaw & Order: SVU.

The Roots Light Up Okayplayers Holiday Part in Brooklyn

On Friday morning, SVUactor Ice-Ttweetedan on-set photo of Questlove laid out on a coroners slab, with what looks like a nasty bullet wound to the head.(His trademark afro pick stylishly survived the blow.)SVU Behind The Scenes, Ice-T wrote, This corpse looks strangely familiar

Playing a corpse, oddly enough, has been one of Questloves deep-burning dreams. Back inNovember, the drummer penned an article entitled25 Things You Might Not Know About Me forUs Weekly, with the Number Seven entryreading, Its my fantasy to play a dead body onLaw & Order. (Its the gift you give a man who has it all.) While Ice-T didnt specify the title or air date of the Quest-featuring episode, its now a must-watch.

On Monday, Questlove and the Roots helped launch The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. The first week of shows has been filled with A-listers and expansive musical performances: Last nights episode featured Arcade Fire delivering acolorful version of the ReflektorstandoutAfterlife.

The Lucky One Another awful Nicholas Sparks movie

Peter Travers is fed up with Nicholas Sparks, the author behind sappy tearjerkers like The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John and the new movie, The Lucky One. Travers admits that he cried while watching the film, but it's because he weeps for the future of movies if Hollywood continues to make these awful pictures based on Sparks' dopey romance novels.

If you're seeing The Lucky One, Travers wants to know why. Let him knowin the comments below,on Twitterorvia e-mail.

Star Trek Prospers at the Box Office, But What Is the Best and the Worst Star Trek Movie Ever?

Star Trek, refashioned by director J.J. Abrams into an origin story even a non-Trekker could love, beamed up a big $76.5 million at the weekend box office. Expect a sequel to be announced pronto and salary hikes for Chris Pines Kirk and Zachary Quintos Spock. Many fans were rooting for the gross to break $100 million and put the newbie in reach of last summers Iron Man. But the miracle didnt happen yet! Star Trek is, lets face it, a tired franchise. A paltry $30 million debut for 1996s Star Trek: First Contact was the best opening in the 10-film series, until now. Thanks to Abrams and his young cast, the Starship Enterprise is looking good to live long and prosper. Which begs the question. What is the best Star Trek movie and what is the one you wouldnt watch again even with a gun at your head?

BEST: Until No. 11, my vote would have to go to 1982s Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. At the risk of incurring the wrath of Trekkers, the first Star Trek movie in 1979 was a snore. The sequel has the real juice, namely a roaringly comic Ricardo Montalban as the evil Kahn, a role he created in the Space Seed episode of the TV series in 1967. His hair gone white and his skin like Corinthian leather, Montalban is a sight to see as he lures Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner is pure ham on wry) from his desk job and back into command of the Starship Enterprise. Leonard Nimoy is also splendid as Mr. Spock, showing a half interest in a half Vulcan officer (Kirstie Alley). Director Nicholas Meyer digs deep into the tensions between Kirk and Kahn. Let them eat static, orders Kahn when the Enterprise tries to establish radio communication. And I totally loved Kahn springing his secret weapon it enters through the ear and makes the target extremely susceptible to suggestion.

Honorable Mention: 1986s Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Nimoy directed this one and did himself proud. A giant, cigar-shaped alien probe is threatening to vaporize Earth unless it can talk turkey with a humpback whale. But this is the 23rd century, and humpbacks are extinct. Thats the spur to send Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise crew to boldly go back to San Francisco, circa 1986, and steal two humpbacks to mollify the probe. Save the whales and youll save the Earth. Its a good joke with a pertinent kick, especially when the crew deals with pizza, beer, Health Care and other artifacts of a primitive time.

WORST: For me, its no contest: 1989s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier dominates the wall of shame. Directed by William Shatner, the film is deeply, irredeemably embarrassing. With Shatner in command not only does he star and direct, the story was his idea Kirk is the whole show. Called back to the Enterprise (despite the budget, it still looks like a flying waffle iron), Kirk must rendezvous at the center of the galaxy with get this God! The trip gives Kirk time way too much time to consider the big who-and-whats-out-there questions of existence. The dull gab never stops, heaven looks like the California desert tinted red, and the film is devoid of grace, wit or the excitement needed to rouse you out of a justifiable coma. In my review, subtitled Windbags At Warp Speed, I noted that Shatner cant direct for diddly. For my troubles I received a wonderful letter from the man himself. Actually, it wasnt a letter. The man who would be Denny Crane simply tore the review out of Rolling Stone and wrote on it in red pen four words pithier than any in the movie: Fuck You, Bill Shatner. I treasure the note. Not the movie.

More Star Trek on the Travers Take:

Review: Star Trek

At the Movies With Peter Travers: Star Trek

On the Basis of Sex Review: Call It RBG: The Early Years

Ruth Bader Ginsburg the Notorious RBG to those who cheer her 25 years of defiantly independent thinking on the Supreme Court sure as hell deserves a biopic. At 85, the jurist is such a cultural icon that shes portrayed by Kate McKinnon on SNL as a ball of energy who breaks into a happy dance every time she flips a Ginsburn. The woman is a rock star. And anyone who wants a Ginsburg portrait that covers all the bases can check out RBG, the hit doc released earlier this year.

On the Basis of Sex is more like an origin story that catches Ginsburg in the enthralling act of inventing herself, highlighting the ups and downs of the trailblazers formative period. Call it RBG: The Early Years. Though Felicity Jones (Rogue One, The Theory of Everything) may seem an eccentric choice to play the Jewish, Brooklyn-born legal icon, the gifted British actress has no trouble finding the intellectual rigor and propulsive drive that define this 51 dynamo.

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Even title that reflects Ginsburgs career-long battle against gender discrimination so its fitting that the film is directed by a woman. Mimi Leder (The Peacemaker, Deep Impact) forgoes cinematic innovation to tell her subjects story in the clearest, bluntest, most RBG-appropriate way possible. From her days locking horns with the male aristocracy at Harvard Law School she was one of only nine women in a class of about 500 men to her retreat to academia (when this tied for first-in-her-class graduate was turned down by major New York law firms), Ginsberg never met a hurdle she couldnt climb.

And she had plenty of obstacles to overcome, like when her marriage to fellow student Marty Ginsburg (Armie Hammer) hit a bump when, shortly after the birth of their daughter in 1955, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Ruth attended his classes and took notes until his recovery. The film takes pain to shows the Ginsburgs (they had a son in 1965) as helpmates, despite demanding careers. While Ruth taught and also worked for the American Civil Liberties Union with legal chief Mel Wulf (Justin Theroux), Marty rose to prominence as a tax expert.

Those who think the film presents too rosy a picture of the Ginsburg home life may find further ammunition in the fact that script is written byDaniel Stiepleman, who happens to be Ruths nephew. And yet the legal facts check out as the film sweeps into the 1970s with the rise of the womens movement (Kathy Bates is well cast as pioneering activist lawyer Dorothy Kenyon) and Ruth finds the breakthrough she needs. Specifically, Marty discovers the case,Moritz v. Commissioner of the IRS an obscure 1972 tax dispute in which Charles Moritz (Christian Mulkey), a single white male living in Colorado, is denied a $296 tax deduction for looking after his sick, elderly mother. The law basically says that only women can take deductions for being caregivers. Ginsburg wants to prove otherwise.

Its a doozy of an irony: Ruth finds her way into battling a half-century of legalized bias against woman by defending a man. And to watch the her defend him, with Marty at her side, is not only engrossing legal drama, but a historic look at how one woman helped explode the myth that female subservience is part of the natural order. In the films coda, the real-deal RBG herself turns up. You want to roar your approval which means this movie can claim, in effect, mission: accomplished.

Watch NSFW, Mother-Punching Red Band Bad Santa 2 Trailer

Thirteen years after the filthy hijinks of Bad Santa, professional thieves Willie T. Soke (Billy Bob Thornton) and right-hand-man Marcus (Tony Cox) reunite in the films long-awaited sequel. The first trailer finds that disgruntled duo talking business at a diner, as Marcus teases a new job with a potential windfall of millions. Fittingly, Soke fires back with a racist one-liner.

Overall, the clip is light on plot and heavy on button-pushing quips like Soke, dressed in his familiar Santa attire, spouting profanity at passerby (Ho, ho, merry Christmas. Feed the starving children. Come on, you fucking dickheads). The trailer, soundtracked by Aerosmiths Back in the Saddle, also features glimpses of the secondary cast including new romantic interest Diane (Mad Mens Christina Hendricks), a grown-up Thurman (Brett Kelly) and Kathy Bates as Sokes equally foul-mouthed mom, Sunny.

In one of the trailers best moments, Soke greets his mother with a punch to the jaw, earning the wisecrack response, You still hit like your fuckin father.

Bad Santa 2 hits theatersNovember 23th, 2016 via Broad Green Pictures. The film was directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls) and written byShauna Cross (Whip It), Doug Ellin (Entourage), John Phillips (Dirty Grandpa) and Johnny Rosenthal.

In an interview with Slash Film, Thornton said his outlandish character has probably gotten a little more world-weary since the original Bad Santa. However, he clarified that the writers have taken the character to some deeper places.

I think we pushed it even a little further this time, not only in the sort of dark humor but also in the emotion, he said. This one has more of a heart, more of a story you would say, but it also went a little further with some of the nasty stuff.

Americas Got Talent Recap: And Were Live

The time has finally come: Americas Got Talent is now live. Well, not right now. But it was last night.

Over two hours on Monday, 12 of the remaining 48 contestants performed for the 3,000 fans who packed into the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. They also hoped to impress judges Howard Stern, Howie Mandel and Sharon Osbourne, who once again had the combined power to stop their performance with the push of a button. How did the acts fare? Read on for our complete breakdown.

Distinguished Men of Brass: Youd be hard pressed to find many people whod put much stock in a marching band being a favorite to win this competition. But the D-Mob, as they love to call themselves, always bring killer energy. And their funky take on Beyoncs Crazy in Love was expectedly high-spirited, especially when they broke into a shimmy mid-song. The judges felt it was a decent performance, but they certainly werent raving about it. You have to take it beyond a halftime show, Mandel said. Stern added that the sound gets muddled on TV.

Edon: This yarmulke-rocking 14-year-old thats something we could never pull off took yet another swipe at making a pop song into a piano ballad. This week it was David Guettas Titanium, with Edon doing his best Sia imitation (his prepubescent voice helps here). There was a bit too much production overpowering his voice at times. The judges thought otherwise, praising the young singer. You hit every single note! proclaimed Osbourne. Added Mandel, From one to another, Jew are terrific.

Jarrett and Raja: Based on their previous auditions, we had high hopes for these two magicians. After all, they were able to infuse a bit of music and some comedy into their illusion-based routine. But things got weird on Monday when Jarrett started out by belting Singing in the Rain before getting into a faux shower and making women appear behind a towel. The main problem was that you could see the womens feet under the towel, ruining the trick. It was rather cheesy, Osbourne said. You need longer towels, she said as the audience booed the act off the stage.

Lil Starr: Theres no denying that, for a six-year-old, Lil Starr is one impressive dancer. And wearing lensless pink glasses, a la LMFAOs RedFoo, while tap dancing to an LMFAO medley was downright genius. But on Monday Starrs moves got lost in the commotion of the stage production. Mandel said shes the next Shirley Temple, but Stern felt she hasnt evolved. I dont think it is an act that can win, he said. Sadly, wed have to agree.

Todd Oliver: Maybe it was just us. But from the beginning we never understood all the fuss surrounding this dog ventriloquist. After another elementary showing on Monday, our opinion remains the same. Yes, Oliver did bring out another dog this time, who made some jokes about marking his territory on his owners pillow. But it all felt a bit forced. The judges concurred. Youve got to work on the material, Osbourne said.

American BMX Stunt Team: With the X Games having just finished on Sunday, this team of half-pipe rippers and ramp shredders couldnt have picked a better time to flaunt their skills. Their act was swift and proficient, with no flubs. They also were more confined this go-round, with a smaller stage adding a level of difficulty to their routine. I bow down to you, said Osbourne.

Nikki Jensen: The Australian singer took a self-admitted risk on Monday by singing without her guitar. Her mediocre rendition of Coldplays The Scientist didnt do her any favors, either. Theres an admittedly intriguing element to her Alanis Morissette-meets-Regina Spektor warble. But her performance skills, as noted by the judges, are rather bland. I dont think you did anything that was memorable, Stern said. Osbourne agreed: You are capable of giving us more.

The Scott Brothers: Stern has stated on multiple occasions that the dance acts this year feature some of the strongest competitors on the show. Wed have to disagree, and the evidence was in this brotherly combos whimsical yet cheesy performance. Wearing matching purple blazers and white fedoras, the brothers Scott unleashed synchronized dance moves that, while certainly cohesive, did little to create a lasting impression. Shockingly, the judges lapped it up. You guys hit a home run tonight! Stern said. Really, Howard?

Michael Nejad: Every so often theres an act on a reality talent competition that gets absolutely pummeled by the judges. On Monday, the musician who fashions everyday objects a baseball bat, shovel, vacuum cleaner, etc. into homemade instruments was that contestant. True, Nejads odd take on Maroon 5s Moves Like Jagger was, well, weird. But the judges particularly Stern, in his most raw moment of the season yet held nothing back. Sometimes a shovel is so that you can dig your own grave, which you did tonight, Stern said.

787 Crew: AGT producers have been playing up the emotional backstory of this Puerto Rican dance outfit for a few weeks now. The group spent nearly $4,000 to fly to their auditions and are out to prove that they are every bit as American as the rest. But their feel-good story couldnt save them from a subpar performance on Monday. Their dance routine a combination of b-boy moves and acrobatics lacked the flair theyd previously demonstrated. I think youre in trouble tonight, boys, Stern said coldly.

Shanice and Maurice Hayes As far as father-daughter singing duos go, the Hayeses are top-notch. Its hard to say, however, how they rate when you take away the aww-how-cute factor. Their take on Faith Hills Therell Be You was quite solid. At times their vocal blend was noticeably lacking, but just when it seemed they might lose focus, Shanice, a vocal powerhouse, brought it home. Ive been worried about you guys, Osbourne admitted. But you nailed it big-time tonight!

David Garibaldi and His CMYKs: This multimember dancing-paint crew are far and away one of the most inventive acts of the season. On Monday, painting a slick portrait of Mick Jagger in a matter of minutes and then finishing it off with a huge blast from a black-paint-spewing fire extinguisher, Garibaldi and his CMYKs mesmerized us, the judges and the audience. If I were a woman Id marry you now, Stern told Garibaldi. You are rock & roll, added Osbourne.

PREDICTIONS: All signs are pointing to Edon, American BMX Stunt Team, Shanice and Maurice Hayes, and David Garibaldi and His CMYKs moving on.

TOMORROW: Tune in to find out which four acts America voted into the semifinals.

Last episode: The Battle Rages On

Q&A: Ken Marino Talks Wet Hot Prequel, The State Reunion and Burning Love

Over the past couple of years comedian Ken Marino has worked on everything from Party Down to Wanderlust to his own web series Burning Love, a hysterical spoof of The Bachelor and other dating shows. But to comedy fans of a certain age hell always be thought of as Louie, an obnoxious character on The State who endlessly repeated the catchphrase I wanna dip my balls in it.

We spoke to Marino about the changing comedy landscape, the possibility of a prequel to Wet Hot American Summer and what future projects (if any) The State has in store.

What are you doing right now?
Im calling from a room in my home and Im eating some almond butter and honey.

What project are you working on at the moment?
Im shooting a movie with the Duplass Brothers called Milo. Its about a monster that comes out of my ass and kills people.

Wow. I feel like Ive seen you in a lot more projects during the past couple of years than any other time period during your whole career.
Ive been working pretty consistently since I came out here to Los Angeles many, many years ago, but I think the things I happen to be working on are airing a little bit more, and the projects are a little cooler.

How do you think the Internet has changed your career?
I dont think its changed my career much, but it certainly helped with Burning Love. It gave us an opportunity to shoot this whole thing we thought would be funny. I think we would have had a harder time getting something like this done on TV. We were able to shoot a whole season of the show under the radar and have complete creative control over it. That was exciting. Im OK to live or die by something like that.

Youve worked on some sitcoms for the big networks. That must have been a pain in the ass at times.
Well, theyre not. Each one . . . sorry, sometimes Im going to hesitate because almond butter is a little hard to swallow without anything around it. But I am hungry. Anyway, any project anywhere is different. Working on a sitcom for TV has pluses and negatives. But I certainly dont want to bash that process. Its a great way to make something, though it is harder when there are a lot more people and a lot more money involved in it. Sometimes there are just too many people waiting on different things, but sometimes it falls in place and the show is terrific.

Its interesting to think about how many more outlets there are for comedians now as compared to when you started your career.
Its unbelievable. I was just talking about that to somebody a day ago. In the mid-Nineties we shot The State in front of a live audience, and then we went out and did remote pieces with David Wains video camera. Basically, we were shooting YouTube videos, web content, before there was a web. So we were kind of practicing doing that, without even realizing it. This kind of guerrilla short-format comedy is now very popular.

If you look back now, its pretty unreal you landed a sketch series on MTV when you were all right out of college.
Back then, I didnt think about that. I was like, Oh, we word hark and were committed, and we think we have a funny voice. Great, we have a show. Thats exactly whats supposed to be happening. But 18 or so years later, its crazy to think we got that show right out of college on a network a lot of young people were watching, so we were able to kinda get into their heads.

Definitely. To people my age, no matter how much youve done since, well always think about Louie from The State. Do you hear that often?
People still come up and say that, which is crazy, to think that people remember that stupid, ridiculous character that I love. Its ridiculous. The whole idea of that character was to create something that was a fuck you to recurring characters. We were like, Were not gonna do that! Thats the easy way, but were not gonna do that! But we wound up doing that anyway, so Louie was created as a one-off recurring character, but we wound up doing him five or six times. People still come up to me and say Louie! I love it.

Ive been reading about a possible prequel to Wet Hot American Summer for years. Is that being discussed in a serious way?
I know theyre talking about it. David just wrapped a movie that they wrote in hopes of getting it done after Wet Hot. But Wet Hot wasnt a financial success out of the gate. It sort of became a cult thing. I do know theyre working on a prequel. I dont know how far they are into it.

Would you want to do it?
Me? Oh, hell yeah. Ive worked with David and Mike [Showalter], and those are the guys I wanna work with forever.

Do you think playing a teenage camp counselor in your 40s will seem ridiculous, or somehow even funnier?
I think its pretty ridiculous and funny.

Do you think a project featuring all of The State is possible at some point in the future?
We always talk about it, but I think the only way for that to happen is for one of us to write something and invite everyone else in. There are 11 of us, and everyones working on different things. Were all busy. Wanderlust had four-five members, and The Ten had every member in it in some way or another. But to do a Monty Python-type movie, I dont know. I hope that happens at some point, but the clocks starts ticking.

Do you think a stage tour would be possible at some point?
Yeah, that would be great, too. But its 11 people. Its a lot of people. I would love for that to happen, but a lot of different schedules need to line up. But you know, I think in our hearts we would all love to do it. Its just a question of timing.

Are you shooting more Childrens Hospital soon?
Yeah. We just premiered season four on August 9th. Were getting back into breaking some new stories, new shows, and then were going to shoot the new season in December.

Nice. Im surprised its lasted this long. Usually things like that come and go pretty quickly.
I think one of the reasons they keep asking us back, and we keep doing it, is that its fun and easy to do. We shoot it in a really short amount of time. We shoot over the course of December into January, which is when theres nothing going on in this town. Its just a fun project for us. We all enjoy working together. Its like a holiday Christmas treat.

Its nice that you get to juggle movies, TV and web shows like that. Its gotta be great to flex all those muscles at once.
Yeah. Theres so many different venues to work in, and Im lucky enough to have the opportunity to work in them from time to time. If I can step outside myself, which I tend not to do, I value it and appreciate it. I feel lucky.

Robert Redford-Produced Surfer Doc to Premiere at Tribeca Film Festival

A crew of surfers who helped change the sport tumble into each others company in a new clip from Momentum Generation, a documentary executive-produced by Robert Redford (among others), thats set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The film tracks the rise of athletes who eventually win world titles and forever reshape worldwide culture in the 1990s and beyond, according to a statement from the directors, Jeff and Michael Zimbalist.

In the Momentum Generationteaser, the surfers come together as a group for the first time. We all knew each other from surfing different amateur events, Rob Machado says. But it wasnt until we stayed at Benjis house that we became a posse.

The fact that Benji Weatherley had a house ideally situated for surfing was actually accidental. My mom and dad split up, he remembers in the film. She went to Hawaii on vacation. She came back and said, hey boys, get in the car, were moving to Hawaii. And it happened to be the north shore of Oahu.

We didnt even know that Pipeline and Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach [all popular surfing destinations] were down there, Weatherleys mother adds. This was how nave we were.

That changed quickly. Ross Williams and Shane Dorian were two of the first surfers to start visiting Weatherleys house regularly. Soon the group of aspiring stars ballooned to include Kelly Slater, who went on to win 11 World Surf League world championships, Taylor Knox, a member of the Surfing Hall of Fame, and many others.

Weatherley tells Rolling Stone that Momentum Generation offers important lessons for surfers and non-surfers alike. If you have an amazing group of people that are humble and grounded with the same goal in mind, he says, you can achieve anything.

The Best and Worst of Angelina Jolie

When it comes to female action stars, Angelina Jolie has cornered the market. As a rogue CIA agent in Salt , shes hotness incarnate and a box-office force of nature. And Jolie delivers the same kick-ass goods in Wanted, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the performance-captured Beowolf. Jolie is also the gamers sex symbol of choice as British adventuress Lara Croft, but her two Tomb Raider movies are too brain-numbingly dull to ever consider watching again.

Peter Travers picks the seasons cant-miss films and the ones with a bad vibe in his summer movie preview.

Id rather watch Jolie act. You heard me. She can act. She can also drop the ball (see below). Which brings us to the best and worst of Jolie on screen. Id like to hear your picks. But first, click here to see my choices for the prime of Angie.

Peter Travers Video Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

You may know the basics about this fifth Potter flick Harry gets his first kiss, the kids are still fighting evil but the plot goes far deeper than that. Watch Peter Travers explain how the real world finally invades Harry's world in this exclusive video review.

Read Peter Travers' Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix review here

Spectre

If there is such a thing as James Bonds Greatest Hits, then Spectre is it. The 25th movie about the British MI6 agent with a license to kill is party time for Bond fans, a fierce, funny, gorgeously produced valentine to the longest-running franchise in movies. Bond freaks will be orgasmic playing spot-the-reference to the series that began in 1962 with Dr. No.

Non-freaks still have Daniel Craig to feast on. In a photo finish with Sean Connery as the best of the six movie Bonds, Craig comes out blazing. Hes a blunt instrument in a creamy Tom Ford tux, alive with danger and sexual swagger. This is Craigs fourth time as 007. After the abysmal Quantum of Solace, he rallied with Skyfall, the biggest boffo Bond ($1.1 billion worldwide). Craigs stated goal was to make Spectre better than Skyfall. Not quite. Casino Royale, Craigs first go-round, remains his peak, the film that caught Bond in the act of inventing himself.

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Spectre carries on Craigs reinvention of Bond, blowing a reported $250 million budget on spectacular action without losing whats personal. Skyfall director Sam Mendes is back to keep things real, but the plot cooked up by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth is a 148-minute minefield of distractions.

Ah, but what distractions. Apologies to The Spy Who Loved Me, but the Bond series has never had a more drop-dead dazzler of an opener than this one, set in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead. With Bond leaping across rooftops to take out the evil Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona) and winding up in a dizzying chopper battle above the crowds in Zocolo Square, the scene is a visual triumph for Dutch camera whiz Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar, Her) and a new peak in the art of eye-popping.

Then Bond is off to Rome, chasing bad guys in a custom Aston Martin DB10 and having sex with Sciarras widow (Monica Bellucci, still wowza at 51). The widow is Bonds entree to Spectre, a secret society of global terrorists led by Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), a mystery man from Bonds orphan past. Im the author of all your pain, says Franz, whose ID is easy to guess. No spoilers, except to say that Waltz, purring with lethal charm, is perfection.

Back at MI6, Bond and the new M (Ralph Fiennes) face a new enemy, C, short for Max Denbigh (a smarmy Andrew Scott). Hes a bureaucrat who wants to refit British intelligence for the digital era: drones in place of agents and the end of the 00 program, which made spycraft hands-on. So its Bond, M, Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and gadget-master Q (a wonderful Ben Whisaw) against the cyber-Nazis on one side, Spectre on the other.

Spectre even offers a fresh take on the Bond girl. Shes Madeleine Swann (La Seydoux), a French doctor with a name out of Proust and no patience for Bonds swinging, macho lifestyle. She puts the randy spy in touch with his feminist side and, just maybe, lasting love.

Not buying it? Too candy-ass? I see your point. But Bonds train fight with a hulk called Hinx (Dave Bautista) recalls the brutal choo-choo classic in From Russia With Love. Craig puts heat and heart into Spectre, as if hes taken Bond as far he can. The movie is a fever dream of all the Bond villains and all of Bonds efforts to see a life past them. An exhausted Craig has said hed rather slash my wrists than play Bond again. Theres still one more film in his contract, but to quote Sam Smiths Bond song, The writings on the wall. If so, Spectre is a stirring, way-cool valedictory. Craig does himself proud.

Off the Cuff: Liam Hemsworth On Hunger Games and Xbox addiction

Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth stopped by Peter Travers office at Rolling Stone headquarters to chat about going on a mall tour in advance of the movies release, his role as a love interest for Jennifer Lawrences Katniss Everdeen, sparring with older brother Chris Thor Hemsworth, and getting his ass kicked by 10-year-olds when playing Call of Duty. They make fun of you over the earpiece, he says. Im okay, Ive played a lot and should be a lot better, but these little 10 year olds are just really talented!

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Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Did producer Judd Apatow swear a blood oath to make the comedy careers of everyone he hired on TVs Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared? I ask because the creative types on both those low-rated but deservedly treasured sitcoms keep turning up as actors, writers and directors on the films issuing from Apatow Nation. The last two (Walk Hard, Drillbit Taylor) were factory seconds. But Forgetting Sarah Marshall the tale of a dude dumped by his girlfriend while his limp dick hangs out ranks with the hit models, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Superbad.

The man of these two hours is doughy, hangdog, unfailingly funny Jason Segel, who appeared in Freaks, Undeclared and Knocked Up and currently does sitcom duty on the un-Apatovian How I Met Your Mother. Segel wrote the script and stars as the rejected lover in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and he pulls off both jobs with a deceptive ease that does Apatow proud. First-time feature director Nicholas Stoller no surprise that he worked as a writer on Undeclared shows a rare knack for keeping a balance between what makes the characters wacky and what makes them human. Its the job of Apatow regulars such as Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd and Bill Hader to blow in and rev up the laughs.

Mission accomplished. Segel is an immensely appealing screen presence as Peter Bretter, a couch potato who composes a Dracula musical for puppets while turning out what he calls dark, ominous sounds for a CSI-like crime drama in which Billy Baldwin (a hoot) co-stars with Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), Peters live-in girlfriend of five years. Peter knows hes dating above his pay grade. Move out of the way, giant, scream paparazzi when Peter escorts Sarah to premieres. But this is a woman who buys him Tupperware to keep his cereal fresh. Its love. Cheers to Bell (Veronica Mars, Heroes) for finding nuance in a diva written as a stone-cold bitch. The sight of Sarah dumping a full-frontal Peter is one for the comedy time capsule forget that he dissolves in tears. (Note to prudes: Even a shriveled schlong gets an R rating.) Peters girlie meltdown disgusts his stepbrother, Brian (Hader), who hustles him off to Hawaii to forget Sarah at an Oahu resort where lei has at least two meanings.

Mahalo to that, brother. The scenes at the resort, which comprise the bulk of the movie, are rip-roaringly fun and surprisingly touching. Peter is crushed when Sarah shows up at the hotel with her randy new love, Brit rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Rachel (Mila Kunis of That 70s Show), a sympathetic hotel clerk, tries to cheer Peter up by letting him use a $6,000-a-night suite until Dakota Fanning shows up. But as Peter mopes, taking surf lessons from Kunu (Rudd) its Hawaiian for Chuck and befriending Darald (Jack McBrayer of 30 Rock), a honeymooner chasing the myth of the clitoris, the humor stays rooted in truth.

The trick of keeping many characters spinning simultaneously on film is not an easy one (see last years The Heartbreak Kid for how to botch it). But Segels deft script is a gift for actors. Two non-Apatow players nearly steal the movie. The illegally adorable Kunis is killer good, taking the second-tier role of rebound girl and turning it into her own Cinderella story. Brand, a Brit stand-up, radiates star quality and ace comic timing as the sexually insatiable lead singer of Infant Sorrow, a rocker so self-involved that he doesnt see why Sarah wouldnt want to join his groupies, the Sorrow Suckers, on tour. Brand is priceless when a pushy waiter (Hill is perfecto) asks if Aldous has listened to his audition CD. I was going to, says Brand in an accent that blends Keith Richards with Monty Python, but then I just carried on livin my life.

OK, Forgetting Sarah Marshall goes out with a whimper when you so want a bang. But until then, this so-called romantic disaster comedy is a raucous ride through one mans pain. Apatow has given Segel all the tools to score his breakthrough in big-time movie comedy. Consider it scored.

The Purge: Election Year

Let us now praise creepy masks and class warfare! Over the course of two movies, producer Jason Blums future-shlock horror franchise about a government-sponsored holiday of lawlessness has gone from yuppie siege thriller with an intriguing premise to pulpy-as-fuck social critique; the leap from 2013s original installment to 2014s highly politicized The Purge: Anarchy is damned near quantum. For this threequel, director James DeMonaco and co. double down on the populist anger and throw in a powderkeg Presidential election to boot, pitting blonde Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), whos campaigning on a strict anti-Purge platform, versus a blustery Trump avatar. (To be fair, her opponent is really a Frankensteins monster composed of spare parts from Mitt Romney, John McCain and various GOP silver foxes he might as well be called R.E. Publican.)

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Meanwhile, a room full of scheming old white men, i.e. the Powers That Be, want her out of the way. If that means hiring some racist skinhead mercenaries to off the potential POTUS on Purge night, hey, a status-quo-loving elites gotta do whata status-quo-loving elites gotta do.

Before the commencement klaxons go off, however, we meet the rest of our heroes: Joe (Justifieds Mykelti Williamson), the owner of a local deli that doubles as a neighborhood town hall; Laney (Betty Gabriel), a former gangster alpha female who doubles as a paramedic; and Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria), a Mexico City transplant that happens to be a crack shot when shit goes down. (Immigrants: They get the job done.) And yes, Frank Grillo our generations Lee Marvin, if were lucky returns as Leo Barnes, the previous movies badass now working security detail for the Senator. In other words, when theres politician-protecting, arm-breaking, neck-stabbing and self-inflicted bullet removals to be done, hes your man.

Once an attack forces Roan and Leo into the streets, and the rest of the movies good-guy factions join up with them to make it through the next 12 hours, Election Year breaks out the maniacs in blank-faced masks and baroque B-movie touches a killers car covered in white Christmas lights, a guillotine sideshow, a Pit and the Pendulum-style booby trap thats become the franchises aesthetic stock in trade. It also offers up the most diverse ensemble casting this side of the Fast & Furious flicks, an ecstatic church-and-state mass that plays like a Fox News wet dream, some genuinely disbelief-suspending plot devices, and the sort of camp-nip quotables (The original founding fathers are about to fuck up the new founding fathers!) designed to further rile audiences already drunk on hootin, hollerin bloodlust.

Mostly, though, what The Purge: Election Year delivers is a sort of come-one-come-all chance to rage against the machine. Despite the left-leaning ideology embedded into the series DNA, its still a bit of a political Rorschach test: You can look at Sorias hero as an example of pro-immigration tendencies, and see the roving packs of Euro murder tourists as pandering to the xenophobic crowd (Foreigners coming to our country, intones a news reporter, to kill!). And for all of its protagonists anti-Purge liberalism, the story sure gives a lot of ammo to the pro-Second Amendment, the only way to handle a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with gun crowd.

Rather, the films real currency is simply a nonpartisan free-floating us-vs-them anger, in which a put-upon underclass finally gets payback and a one-percenter upper class finally gets its comeuppance. You can be a pissed-off Tea Partier or an Occupy advocate and find something here to stoke your fat cat hatred; either way, catharsis is doled out not in a dusk-til-dawn homicidal free-for all but two harmless hours in a theater. Election Years only real stance besides be sure to vote in November is that America is violence. God bless the U.S.A. God save us all.

Kevin Smith Takes Jay and Silent Bob on the Road

The home headquarters of Kevin Smiths fanboy empire of movies, comic book men and Smodcasts resides in a Hollywood hillside house once owned by pal Ben Affleck. It was more of a fraternity clubhouse in those days, with arcade video games and a dude crashed in every room, until Smith and the wife took over 11 years ago and familyd it out.

He came back one night, Smith says of Affleck, a sometime collaborator and newly-minted Oscar winner as a producer (and director/star) of Best Picture Argo. We were playing poker, and Affleck was like, Hey, man, when did you put the fireplaces in? They were always here, and he had no idea. We still refer to it as Bens house, which is fuckin weird, because he lived in it way shorter than we did.

Smith leans against the bar in the upstairs living room. Standing nearby is eternal sidekick Jason Mewes, the other half of the indie-film comic duo Jay and Silent Bob. Theyve seemed inseparable ever since Smith introduced them to the world as two dudes selling weed outside a convenience store in his 1994 indie comedy Clerks. That was followed by several more films, the short-lived Clerks: The Animated Series, an ongoing series of podcasts (a.k.a. Smodcasts), a new animated movie and their current live tour across the U.S.

Photos: Kevin Smith on Charlie Sheen, Pot and Being Fat

Theyre back with Jay & Silent Bobs Super Groovy Cartoon Movie!, being rolled out to fans through a series of premieres followed by live Q&A sessions with the two goofballs. Smith is also currently writing Clerks III. It all comes after a rough period of drug addiction for Mewes, which threatened to derail all Jay and Silent Bob activity permanently.

Our friendship has become what everyone assumed what it was from those movies, says Smith, the chatty alter ego to the mostly speechless Silent Bob of the long overcoat and backwards cap. If you told me five years ago Youre going to be in business with Jason Mewes, I would be, No way you cant depend on him.'

On this afternoon, Mewes counts 1,036 days sober, and he credits the podcast for keeping him straight. I tell stories and talk about shooting puddle water and toilet water and that reminds me, Wow, I dont ever want to be sitting in a toilet shooting toilet water its disgusting,' he says.

Mewes was clean and sober once before for a solid five years, but then quietly slipped back into addiction, telling no one. Despite a mountain of evidence, Smith was slow to recognize it, even during a strange trip to Las Vegas together.

I walk into his room and its something out a David Lynch movie, Smith says. I open the door, and there is Jason standing up in the middle of the room. Hes got massive Vegas windows behind him, the desert and all the casinos. The lights are on full fuckin bore, the TV is not even on, and hes standing there eyes closed, swinging at the air.

After an intervention and some false starts, Mewes successfully completed rehab, but he needed something to keep him busy and healthy afterwards. Mewes suggested they do their own podcast together a format Smith had been doing for years for his huge fanbase, to great success.

I say, what would you like to talk about? recalls Smith. And he was like, We can talk about pussy and fuckin Star Wars . . . And I said, Oh, weve done a bunch of that. You know what would really be interesting? Talk about the drugs. That will keep you on the straight and narrow, too. To name it is to claim it, just like going to a meeting.

The continuing show is called Jay and Silent Bob Get Old, and it has recounted Mewes drug misadventures in vivid detail. Their starting point was a series of essays Smith published online called Me and My Shadow. (Documenting their live show is the just-released two-disc DVD Jay and Silent Bob Get Irish.) The Smodcast now has a regular audience of 400,000, says Smith.

Most people have a filter. They think it, and it drops through a filter before they say it, says Smith. He doesnt, so it goes from brain to mouth. Hes got a charming personality and a great disposition, where he gets away with saying some pretty heinous things that others wouldnt.

While the Jay character in Smiths films was based entirely on actual behavior and crazy dialogue hed witnessed Mewes unleash in public, his friend couldnt turn it on and off at will for an audience. Unlike the director, he wasnt a natural raconteur, so hes had to work at it, keeping a notebook handy and a plan before stepping onstage. The podcast experience has turned Mewes into a dependable live performer without a script.

It was already me anyway, Mewes says of the Jay character as written for the screen by Smith. A lot of the stuff written down is stuff I have said over the years. Of course, Kevin would add plot lines. When we do the animation voiceover, I get to be Jay 100 percent. When Im walking around I know I cant pull my balls out now because it would offend you, but the Jay character would pull his balls out. I still enjoy the movies and the character because I get to let loose.

One day, Mewes told Smith hed decided he wanted to be a producer, so Smith gave him a script for Jay and Silent Bob as superheroes Bluntman and Chronic, which hed written 10 years earlier for a comic book series. Mewes expanded on that and turned it into Groovy Movie.

As a sign of his growing trust, Smith gave Mewes the rights to the movie character Jay, and the list of projects they have planned together is getting bigger. Last time it was, You got clean, good job, bye, and Im off to work on my other shit, says Smith. This time around, we started doing everything together. We became really best friends. I spend more time with Jason that anyone other than my wife at this point. We walk fuckin dogs together.

Even so, as he finishes the final pages of Clerks III, Smith says writing Jay and Silent Bob into a movie in 2013 was a struggle at first, even for his distinctive View Askew universe. I dont know how to put two middle-aged stoners in a movie anymore, says Smith. For a while we werent going to be in it. Finally, when I started writing in earnest about a month ago, I found a way for us to do it. Why would we still be leaning outside those stores? I guess slinging weed is enough reason to be there.

Live dates:

5/15 Moore Theater, Seattle
5/17 Midland Theater, Kansas City, MO
5/18 The Pageant, St. Louis
5/19 The Vic Theater, Chicago
5/20 Clowes Memorial Hall, Indianapolis
5/21 Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak, MI
5/22 Pabst Theater, Milwaukee
6/5 The National, Richmond, VA
6/6 The Fillmore Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
6/7 Studio 35 Cinema & Drafthouse, Columbus, OH
6/8 Madison Theater, Covington, KY
6/9 Oaks Theater, Oakmont, PA
7/5 The Plaza Live, Orlando, FL
7/6 The Palladium Theatre, St. Petersburg, FL
7/25 Paramount Theater, Austin, TX

The Worlds End

In these dog days of summer, Hollywood usually does its worst (Im talking about you The Mortal Instruments). To my surprise, a diamond has emerged from the gutter. Its name is The Worlds End, and itll knock you on you ass from laughing when youre not rubbing your eyes in disbelief. Whats it about? Thats tricky. Its about five fortysomething Brit losers who decide to complete some unfinished business. Actually its Gary (Simon Pegg), manic in the extreme and still wearing his long coat and Sisters of Mercy T-shirt, who decides for his old school chums. Real-estate agent Oliver (Martin Freeman), married car salesman Peter (Eddie Marsan), and divorced construction boss Steven (Paddy Considine) merely go along. Hardass lawyer Andrew (Nick Frost) is dead set against it. But Gary prevails. The Five Muskeeters of old will indeed the complete the Golden Mile, swilling pints of beer at every one of the 13 pubs in their home town of Newton Haven. Back in 1990, they quit at the sixth pub, never making it to the last stop at The Worlds End. Jeez, I know what youre thinking: Why should I spend two hours watching five aging, self-pitying laddies crying in their beer? Look, I cant say much. Spoiling the secrets of this movie is a no-no. I can say that these five actors are sheer comic perfection. I can point out that director Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) achieves just the right balance between fun and funnier. And I can add that the delicious Rosamund Pike, who just got the lead with Ben Affleck in David Finchers Gone Girl, shows up to ignite sparks with Gary and Steven. But the best I can do without being accused of ruining the surprise is to remind you that Frost and screenwriters Wright and Pegg also joined twisted forces on 2004s Shaun of the Dead (zombiefest) and 2007s Hot Fuzz (gorefest), two films that traveled quite a distance from the natural order. OK, now Ill shut up, except to say that The Worlds End is better than all right. Its the shit.

Solo: Watch Thrilling First Trailer for Star Wars Spinoff

After a sneak peek during the Super Bowl, the first full trailer forSolo: A Star Wars Story was unveiled Monday. The spinoff focuses on the pre-A New Hope adventures of Han Solo.

Ive been running scams on the street since I was 10. I was kicked out of the flight academy for having a mind of my own, Alden Ehrenreich, who portrays the young Solo, says in voiceover. Im gonna be a pilot. The best in the galaxy.

Without giving away too much of the plot, the trailer hints at a mission masterminded by Woody Harrelsons Tobias Beckett, who recruits Solo, his trusted Chewbacca, QiRa (Game of Thrones Emilia Clarke), Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) and a character played by Thandie Newton to join his crew.

Laser fights and spaceship battles ensue before the trailer closes with Solo, at the helm of his beloved Millennium Falcon, navigating the ship through the arms and tentacles of an enormous octopus-like monster floating in space. I thought we were in trouble there for a second, but its fine. Were fine, Solo charmingly reassures his crew while narrowing escaping death.

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A previously released synopsis for the film stated, Board the Millennium Falcon and journey to a galaxy far, far away in Solo: A Star Wars Story, an all-new adventure with the most beloved scoundrel in the galaxy, the synopsis reads. Through a series of daring escapades deep within a dark and dangerous criminal underworld, Han Solo meets his mighty future co-pilot Chewbacca and encounters the notorious gambler Lando Calrissian, in a journey that will set the course of one of the Star Wars sagas most unlikely heroes.

Solo, the Star Wars series second anthology film following 2016s Rogue One, and one of Rolling Stones 50 Most Anticipated Films of 2018, arrives in theaters May 25th.

The trailer will likely reassure Star Wars fans worried by Solos well-documented disharmonious production, which included the departure of directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller well into filming; Ron Howard was brought onboard to help finish the film.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are talented filmmakers who have assembled an incredible cast and crew, but its become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and weve decided to part ways, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said in June 2017.

The Office Finale Gets 15 More Minutes

The Office will have some extra time to say farewell: NBC has extended the series finale scheduled for May 16th from 60 to 75 minutes, The New York Times reports. The episode will air from 9 to 10:15 p.m. EST.

Closing Time: Saying Goodbye to The Office

Executive producer Greg Daniels had spent weeks asking NBC for extra time to make room for all the farewell scenes he said would have been difficult to edit down to fit into one hour (including commercials). NBC will make up for the extra time by airing the show that follows, Hannibal, in 45 minutes with fewer ads.

The Office finale will wrap up the fictional nine-year documentary shot at Dunder-Mifflin with one last round of cast interviews. Although NBC and Daniels have said that original star Steve Carell, who left after the seventh season, would not return to reprise bumbling boss Michael Scott, TV Line reported yesterday that Carell will make indeed a cameo in the finale. Carells rep denied the actor would appear.

Christopher Robin Review: Ewan McGregor, Meet a Bear Named Pooh

Fans of A.A. Milnes delightful stories about an industrious, honey-obsessed bear named Winnie the Pooh and his gang of forest-dwelling droogs Kanga and her child Roo, pragmatic Rabbit, wise old Owl, anxious Piglet, the emo-dour donkey Eeyore, the manic and possibly Meth-addicted dynamo that is Tigger may recall that, at the end of The House at Pooh Corner, theres a farewell party. Christopher Robin, their young human friend, is saying goodbye; hes heading off to a world far beyond the land of heffalumps and woozles. The scene is recreated in the beginning of Disneys new live-action movie set in what we guess were now calling the Poohniverse (thank you, Twitter!), as young Christopher (Orton OBrien) cavorts with CGI versions of his old pals. Then, after a valedictory walk with Winnie in which we see the stuffed animal run his hands over the tops of flowers in what is the single greatest cribbed Terrence Malick shot ever the lad leaves. The film then proceeds to answer the question that many, or some, or maybe absolutely no one, has been asking for decades: So like, what happened to Christopher Robin after that?

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Well, for starters, he goes to boarding school. Then the teenage Christopher gets a firsthand dose of what tragedy feels like, turns into Ewan McGregor, enlists in Her Majestys armed services as WWII rages, moves to London, meets Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) on a bus, gets married, becomes a dad and gets a job in the efficiency department of a luggage company. You know: life, etc. (The incidents are introduced via chapters that are dead ringers for artist E.H. Shepards illustrations in the books a sublime touch, this.) The fact that his coworkers all vaguely resemble his old crew is not a coincidence; also, he may have to fire them if he cant satisfy his boss (Sherlocks Mark Gatiss) by finding cuts elsewhere. This means Mr. Robin will need to work all weekend to meet a deadline, thus blowing off a family getaway at their Sussex cottage, much to the dismay of his daughter, Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). Morose, our hero sits on a park bench and theres his old friend Winnie, sitting behind him. Will the adult Christopher Robin discover that, having left childish things behind, he needs to regain that part of himself in order to get his priorities straight? Does a Pooh bear shit in the woods?

Once the two head back to their old stomping ground in search of their old furry friends, theres every reason to think that Christopher Robin is going to turn into another tale of borrowed bedtime-story mythology in the name of inner-child nurturing a Hook for the Hundred Acre Woods set. Its not quite that toxic, thanks in no small part to McGregors game performance as a confused, conflicted man fighting obstacles real (paternal guilt, a marriage on the rocks, missing papers that could cost him his livelihood) and imagined (killer heffalumps!). Hes an actor who can roll with this movies punches, whether it requires him to be light on his feet or dragged down by existential despair, exhilarated by childlike play or exasperated by a house-wrecking creature who says things like, People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day. (This movie could paraphrase the tagline from the original Superman: Youll believe a man could talk to a bear who speaks in Zen riddles.) And yes, thanks to a screenplay from unusual suspects like Allison Schroeder (Hidden Figures), Tom McCarthy (Spotlight) and Alex Ross Perry (the guy behind Listen Up, Philip?!?), things do get dark. You cant discount just how disturbing it is to witness the psychodrama of a man screaming at a stuffed animal.

As for director Marc Forster, hes the type of utility player whos done everything from batshit absurdism-lite (Stranger Than Fiction) to Bond flicks (Quantum of Solace), intense character dramas (Monsters Ball) and postapocalyptic zombie epics (World War Z). What probably got him this job, however, is Finding Neverland, his 2004 Oscar-nominated take on the story of J.M Barrie and the real-life inspirations for Peter Pan its mix of whimsy, teeth-gnashing, fantasy, melodrama, name-brand actors and period-piece production design feels like a dry run for what hes doing here. Whereas that earlier movie often felt annoyingly cloying, however, Christopher Robin only feels occasionally sticky: Every time things start to get goopy, we get silent-comedy slapstick like Pooh destroying the Robins household. Or pomo digs like Eeyore moaning, Oh no, not the song! as Tigger launches into his introductory theme tune. (Kudos to the top-notch voicework here, especially from Pooh O.G. Jim Cummings and Brad Garrett as the depressed beast of burden.) Or breathtaking visuals like a low-angle shot of McGregor leading a bouncing, skipping, shuffling menagerie across a hilltop. Its a superior model of library-card nostalgia.

Then the whole shebang switches from the countryside back to the big city and turns into a quest to find an M.I.A. Madeline whos gone to London, Tigger & Co. in tow, to track down her dad and the rest of the movie switches into pure momentum mode. Its funny to see how the movie glides past scenes of Brits gaping and gawking at talking toys and anarchic comic moments that movies like Shaun the Sheep would make whole meals of as it rushes to reunite everybody and restore order. At that point, its all over but the shouting and the weeping and the bad-guy comeuppance and every single dad in the audience thinking, Jesus, I really should spend way more time with my kids.

Brand-name extension, selling toys to kids and pushing the Cats in the Cradle pressure points of adults are not strange bedfellows in the slightest. But you do wish that the seams holding together an odd, lyrical story of childhood innocence lost and regained and whats essentially a tonier version of goofy childrens movie didnt show so blatantly. It never feels like Poohsploitation, but it never finds a tone that can connect the two into a cohesive whole, either. So you simply take what you can get here. And sometimes, when Christopher Robin hits you with a perfectly gentle ribbing or drops an image of McGregor and Pooh sitting together on a log so much depends on a red balloon glazed with magic-hour light beside the star of Trainspotting its more than enough.

Bleed for This Review: Boxing Movie About Real-Life Champ Pulls Its Punches

Miles Teller proves himself a champ by going all 12 rounds as Vinny The Pazmanian Devil Pazienza, the Rhode Island boxer who competed in three different weight classes only to face the fight of his life after breaking his neck in a car accident and being told to hang up the gloves. That hyperbolic plot summary suggests a minefield of Hollywood clichs, and to be sure, Bleed for This sometimes bleeds right into them. But writer-director Ben Younger (Boiler Room, Prime) has a way of punching his way out of tight corners. And Teller, doing work to equal his star-making turn in Whiplash, gives his all and then some.

Vinny is a nightmare to manage sex, gambling and brawling ranking high among his addictions, even if its right before a fight with Roger Mayweather. His father (Ciaran Hinds) goads him on while his mama (Katey Sagal) hides when his bouts are on TV; its a family to rival the bickering bunch that David O. Russell dished out so deliciously in The Fighter. But the trainer who whips bad-boy Vinny into shape is Kevin Rooney (Aaron Eckhart) bald, pot-bellied and on the ropes himself, having just been canned by Mike Tyson. Cast way against type, the terrific Eckhart lets it rip and starts Vinny back on the road to winning.

Cue the car accident and Vinny being fitted with a halo, a metal brace screwed into his head that may help him walk again but pretty much ends his chances of getting back in the ring. Hum the Rocky theme in your head and youll know that Vinny will fight his way back, beat the odds and take on Roberto Duran for the middleweight belt in Vegas. Its an underdog tale as old as time, and its familiarity is hell on maintaining surprise. Younger jacks up the action in the last third, but the air goes out of a fight movie when you can see the next jab coming.

Gringo Review: Star-Studded Crime Farce Is Pretty Pitiful Pulp Fiction

The All-Star Pulp Fiction Gonzo Crime Farce (TM) its practically a genre. Get a bunch of famous people together (not like disaster movie or Oceans Eleven-level famous, but enough to reach Ive-seen-these-actors-before mark), get them mixed up in some very complicated caper or heist or scam, run them around in circles until something funny, or frightening, or in the best-case scenario, funny-then-frightening, happens. Foreign locales and cheesy soundtrack cuts are a plus. Sos gory, unexpected violence. There have been good, bad and ugly versions of this movie over the past few decades, and Gringo seems perpetually stuck between the last two categories. It cant decide whether it wants to be magnificently toxic or merely mediocre. Mileage may vary on where the movie eventually lands, but either way, this is a romp thats keen on going nowhere and sloooowly.

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Harold (David Oyelowo) is a Nigerian immigrant working in a Chicago pharmaceutical company. His boss, Richard (Joel Edgerton, possibly the busiest actor in showbiz right now), is the sort of douchebag-bro who has a vanity license plate and does push-ups in his office. This gent is also not adverse to doing his fellow corporate apex predator, Elaine (Charlize Theron), in said office as well, which is exactly what gets interrupted one afternoon by a frantic phone call. Long flashback-story short, the two executives have brokered a deal involving marijuana in pill form, currently being manufactured in Mexico until complete legalization becomes the law of the land. All of three of them had gone south of the border to finalize some details. Harold stayed behind. Now hes been kidnapped. And Richard and Elaine think that, instead of paying a ransom, their coworker may be better off dead.

Theres more, much more, because of course there is. Like a Mexican cartel drug lord, whos a Beatles superfan and has a tendency to shoot anyone who thinks Sgt Pepper is the bands best album. (Spoiler alert: Hes more of a Let It Be guy.) And Harolds wife Bonnie (Thandie Newton), whos having an affair behind his back. And a sleazy British musician (Harry Treadaway), whos goaded by a comely young woman hello there, Paris Jackson! into picking up some contraband in Mexico as well, with his guitar-shop-owning girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried) in tow. Also theres two inept brothers who own a hotel and Richards own sibling, an ex-mercenary (Sharlto Copley) whos agreed to go extract Harold for a price. And some plot twists. And double crosses. And bullets. Etc.

All of this should be a cakewalk for director Nash Edgerton, Joels brother and the braintrust behind the loose Australian filmmaking collective Blue Tongue. If youve seen the amazing gangster flick Animal Kingdomor that creepy Joseph Gordon-Levitt character study Hesheror Nashs own 2009 neo-noir The Square,youve seen a Blue Tongue movie and even if the groups arthouse 2.0 take on Ozploitation (or vice versa) somehow didnt leave you slack-jawed, you could appreciate the sheer piss-and-vinegar excitement behind its projects. Only the first part of that dual descriptive shows up here, and Gringos overall sourness only makes its overfamiliarity that much more contemptible. We know we dont have to necessarily care about the caricatures youre foisting on us in the name of coolness but cant you at least make this fun instead of a slog? Theres a D.O.A.-ness to this whole affair, except when the filmmaker, a former stuntman, gets to roll a car not once but twice,or stage a headshot or two. Then its back to running his actors through this poorly conceived mousetrap of a movie. He is better than this.

So is Oyelowo naturally! and Joel, and Newton, and certainly Theron, whos the only person that seems determined to make the best of a bad situation. You forget that she first made a name for herself in a movie just like this, 2 Days in the Valley (1996), and she gives a performance here thats the definition of doubling down. Whether shes slinking through office meetings like a sexed-up shark or barking Mamet-worthy obscenities or giving herself an aggressive, self-loathing pep talk (the movies highpoint), Theron invests a sense of livewire commitment in her corporate hotshot that the film isnt worthy of. Its almost like shes singlehandedly trying to electrify her fellow cast mates back to life a sort of come on guys, lets all put on a show here 1,000-wattage jolt. Theres a momentary spike whenever she flashes a fuck-you glare or hidden-agenda come-hither stare. Then Gringo goes back to flatlining. Its a crime movie that doesnt pay.

Super 8 JJ Abrams new movie is scary and sweet

Peter Travers says that while you shouldn't know too many plot details going into J.J. Abrams' scary new movie Super 8, you should know that it's a movie with a lot of sweetness and heart. The story, which follows the adventures of a group of kids making a homemade zombie movie in the Seventies, is a joyful celebration of innocence and imagination.

This Week's New Reviews:

Super 8

The 12 Must-See Summer Movies Plus Five Unheralded Gems and Five More to Skip

Damn You, Hollywood: Shutter Island Banished to 2010

The fall season is desperate for a great movie, and Paramount Pictures has gone and moved Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (starring Leonardo DiCaprio) to 2010. This news has Peter Travers mightily pissed. Check out his rant, above.

Rock on TV Preview: My Chemical Romance and Panic! at the Disco Bring Emo Back to Late Night

Flamboyant, theatrical emo rock may not be as popular as it was back in the mid-Aughts, but youd never know that from looking over tonights late night television listings. First up, Panic! at the Disco will hit the Tonight Show, where they will play a number from their latest record Vices and Virtues. An hour later, My Chemical Romance will stop by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to play a cut from their extraordinarily energetic and deeply underrated fourth album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. Its a good night to wear some guyliner!

Imelda May Conan, TBS 11:00 p.m.

Panic! at the Disco Tonight Show with Jay Leno, NBC 11:35 p.m.

Drive-By Truckers Late Show with David Letterman, CBS 11:35 p.m.

Eric Church Jimmy Kimmel Live, ABC 12:00 a.m.

Joe Jonas Lopez Tonight, TBS 12:00 a.m.

My Chemical Romance Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NBC 12:35 a.m.

New Star Wars Trailer Focuses on Mysterious Kylo Ren

Star Warsfans received a Thanksgiving surprise Thursday as The Force Awakens official Facebook page dropped another minute-long preview for the much-anticipated film. This time, the action revolves the movies masked and hooded villain Kylo Ren, a mysterious adversary played by Girls actor Adam Driver.

The latest preview harkens back to the first Force Awakens trailer released nearly a year ago, with a spookyvoice since identified as Andy Serkis Supreme Leader Snoke asking, Theres been an awakening. Have you felt it? While the question was left unanswered in the original trailer, this time around Kylo Ren responds simply, Yes. Even you have never faced such a test, Snoke tells Ren in voiceover that accompanies new footage of the villain acting malevolently.

Elsewhere in the trailer, fans also get a shot of Harrison Fords Han Solo and Daisy Ridleys Rey firing lasers at an unseen enemy, plus more footage of Oscar Isaacs Poe involved in a shootout with TIE Fighters. All teams, give it everything you got, he yells to his squadron.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first in a series of never-ending Star Wars films, arrives in theaters on December 18th.

Bad Company Make Late-Night Debut on Leno

Bad Company made their network debut last night on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, performing their classic "Bad Company"in preparation of the band's 40th anniversary tour. Swirling fog lent an ethereal air as Paul Rodgers and Co. churned through the title track to the band's 1974 album, Bad Company. The musicians today will be featured guests at the Grammy Museum in L.A. for a Q&A with fans followed by an intimate performance. They kick off their tour June 15th in Rancho Mirage, California.

Carrie Fisher Was Prepping Wishful Drinking Sequel

Carrie Fisher was developing a follow-up to her one-woman show Wishful Drinkingto be staged at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, IndieWirereports.

The sequel was to be titled, fittingly,Wishful Drinking Strikes Back: From Star Wars to, uh, Star Wars!and would have reunited Fisher with Joshua Ravetch, who directed the 2006 original. The Geffen Playhouse reportedly commissioned the piece last Thursday, December 22nd. A day later, Fisher suffered a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles. She died Tuesday at age 60.

In a statement, the Geffen Playhouse said of Fisher, She was a wickedly funny force of nature and it was a privilege and a pleasure to have her on our stage. We send our love to her family and friends as we all mourn this tremendous loss.

Following its original run at the Geffen, Fisher took Wishful Drinkingto Berkeley, California, Seattle and Washington D.C. before doing a limited run on Broadway in 2009 and 2010. HBO released a documentary of the performance in 2010 as well, while the show also served as the inspiration for Fishers 2008 autobiography of the same name.

In Wishful Drinking, Fisher delved into her unique upbringing she was the daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher her struggles with addiction, mental health and appearance, as well as her love-hate relationship with Star Wars.

Fast and Furious 6 and Hangover Part III: Fun and Disaster

Summer means high-octane movies, and few flicks will offer extreme experiences like the vehicle heists of Fast and Furious 6 and the disarrayed buddy comedy of The Hangover Part III. But so deep into each series, is either film worth watching? Peter Travers offers a qualified yes.

I had a great time atFast Five, and now, I had the same kind of great time at [Fast and Furious 6], Travers says. So either Im losing it completely, or I just am in that popcorn-movie summer feeling. And the action isnt just limited to cars expect planes, aircraft carriers, tanks and all sorts of other fast and furious vessels. After two hours of this, I had a smile on my face, Travers says of the sixth iteration in the series, which featuresVin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson and Michelle Rodriguez as the former criminal crew now working for theU.S. Diplomatic Security Service in exchange for a clear record.

Peter Travers Picks Five Summer Movies to Skip

The Hangover Part III, however, is a big stinker. Despite Travers fondness for the first film in the series, this latest update in whichZach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper sort out a classic mixup with Ken Jeongs Leslie Chow and stolen goldfalls completely flat. In an early scene, Galifianakis character Alan Garner takes a selfie with a photograph of his father at his fathers funeral. That made me laugh, Travers says. That was the first time and the last time that I really laughed.

Its a poor effort all around. Nobody seems to be trying in this movie, Travers says. I felt like I had a hangover.

Trouble in the Homeland

The funniest moment in the Homeland season premiere comes when a hysterical Carrie (Claire Danes) freaks out over the phone, and Saul (Mandy Patinkin) says, Calm down. Now you tell her, dude? Homeland leapt so far off the rails last season, its hard to tell if there are any rails left to come back to. Like the homeland-security mania of the 2000s, the Showtime CIA drama had a dizzy rise and instantly looked like a permanent fixture nobody was willing to question. But by the time people started noticing all the silliness, it was too late now were stuck with it.

Relive the 12 Best Moments From Homelands Bad Second Season

As the third season slooowly begins, Fortress America is reeling from a terrorist attack on CIA headquarters. (Damn that lax security! When are we going to get the constant government surveillance our citizens are demanding?) Saul hunts for Brody, the rogue Marine-turned-terrorist whom Carrie chased all the way into bed. Brodys daughter still has her annoying, narrative-killing teen problems. And Carrie testifies before a Senate investigation, with her ever-wobbling lip and quivering chin. Why exactly would anyone let this basket case take the stand? Homeland needs a dramatic adrenaline shot as soon as possible otherwise, Carrie and Saul are headed for all-out comedy spy-soap territory.

This story is from the October 10th, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.

Oscars 2019: Who Should Win, Who Will Win

Theres a crisis at the Oscars this year and its not about #OscarsSoWhite or #TimesUp, though those inclusion issues still deserve attention. Lets call this catastrophe #OscarsSoMoney.

Its a year in which the Academy seems less interested in the quality of films than in the numbers they can attract to watch their Oscar telecast on Feb. 24th. According to Variety, a 30-second ad on the awards show can cost as much as $2.6 million if the show brings in high ratings. Thats the problem. The ratings can vary each year depending on the mix of nominees. When the contenders are mostly art-house films that attract older audiences, the ratings can plummet as low as 32 million viewers, like in 2008 when No Country for Old Men won Best Picture. Compare that 1998, when the blockbuster Titanic took the top prize and the audience soared to 55 million. No wonder the Academy is more obsessed than ever with the bottom line.

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And dont forget that the suits had planned to create a category this year titled Best Popular Film, a lamebrained idea that was fortunately discarded. Since the eight nominees for Best Picture this year include three films (Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born) that grossed over $200 million, popularity is already in the mix. Audiences, especially the lucrative 18-to-49 demographic, have shown they dont want to stay up to watch another boring awards show: See the 2018 Oscars, which clocked in at a mammoth three hours and 53 minutes, and then drew a record-low 26.6 million viewers. Determined to never let that happen again, the Academy promises to keep this years ceremony under the three-hour mark. Theyve also done away with the host (partially out of necessity), practically threatened winners to keep their acceptance speeches short and made the decision to give out awards for cinematography, editing, live-action short and makeup and hairstyling during commercial breaks.

Those guilds went to war, as they should.The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro, last years winner for Best Picture, tweeted that cinematography and editing are at the very heart of our craft. They are not inherited from a theatrical tradition or a literary tradition: they are cinema itself. Under the threat of mutiny, the humiliated Academy again backed down from a commerce-trumps-art decision it never should have made in the first place.

And for what ratings? Isnt Hollywood enough of a business already? Does it really need to reduce and monetize the one night a year when it allegedly rewards the best of its output? Worse, this push to glorify box-office bounty over artistic achievement discounts the whole idea of an Academy, which is supposed to be an institution that promotes and maintains standards in a particular field. We already have the Peoples Choice awards to suck up to popular taste. Yeesh.

So lets look at 14 Oscar categories from the point of view of who should go home a winner and who may have the the stuff to make it a real race to watch.

Best Picture
BlackKklansman
Black Panther
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green BookRoma
A Star Is Born
Vice
How to explain why the critically sniffed-at Bohemian Rhapsody made the cut while the widely praised First Reformed and Eighth Grade did not? And is First Man not on the list of eight candidates because it bellyflopped at the box office? A Star Is Born lost its early momentum as a Best Picture favorite still a mystery and Roma, Green Book, The Favourite and Vice arent bringing in the big bucks. The profit king is Black Panther ($1.3 billion worldwide), which matched its commercial success with a filmmaking artistry that gave underserved black audiences the chance to relate to superhero characters who looked and sounded like they did.
FAVORITE:Roma
The simple reason is that Alfonso Cuarns poetic odyssey through his childhood in Mexico City stands head and shoulders above any film this year. But is being the best enough? The dialogue in this black-and-white memory piece is spoken in Spanish and no foreign-language film in 91 years of Academy records has ever won Best Picture. Plus, Roma was released by Netflix, the streaming service that pisses off Hollywoods big-studio elite, which may clear the field for
SPOILER:BlackKklansman
It gives Oscar a chance to do the right thing and reward Spike Lee, a cinema giant only now getting his first Best Picture nomination. But history can also be made by a win for Marvels hugely popular Black Panther, the first comic book movie to ever be nominated as this award and a classic of its kind. Were down with any of these three game-changing possibilities.

Best Actor
Christian Bale,Vice
Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Willem Dafoe,At Eternitys Gate
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
How Ethan Hawkes career-best performance in First Reformed is not on this list defies explanation, unless you factor in his films below par box-office take, which shouldnt be factored in at all. Some say Bradley Cooper, the only one of the five nominees not playing a real person, may win sympathy votes for not being nominated as Best Director. Nah. We think it comes down to a two-man race.
FAVORITE:Rami Malek
Even people who grouse about Bohemian Rhapsody as a movie are justifiably over the moon about Maleks electrifying, tour de force performance as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. The actor captured Mercury right down to his overbite, wearing prosthetic teeth and channeling his every movement and gesture.
SPOILER:Christian Bale
After winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy, Bale thanked Satan as his inspiration for playing Dick Cheney, arguably the most powerful and dangerous Vice-President ever. He put on 45 pounds for the role and voters love that. More crucially, he found the simmering rage under the Dicks deceptive quiet.

Best Actress
Yalitza Aparicio,Roma
Glenn Close, The Wife
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
As impressive a lineup of actresses as voters could wish for. It could cost the stellar Colman that her role is considered more supporting than lead. (Wake up, people, she plays the Queen!) And it may hurt that Aparicio, a Mexican schoolteacher, has never acted before. In another year, McCarthy proving she can do drama and comedy might have won. But its not another year; its the 2019 where a seasoned vet is taking on a serious-contender newcomer.
FAVORITE:Glenn Close
In the era of #TimesUp, Close finds the tormented heart and soul of a woman whos had to live in the shadow of her ungrateful husband. Its her seventh acting nomination and shes never won. She will now, if theres any justice.
SPOILER: Lady Gaga
A debut performance that lights up the screen. Gaga can act as well as she sings, which is really saying something. Bette Midler was in the same position when she lost the Oscar for her brilliant 1979 starring debut in The Rose. It wont make it hurt less.

Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Adam Driver, BlackKklansman
Sam Elliott, A Star Is Born
Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Sam Rockwell, Vice
We would have picked 22-year-old Timothe Chalamet for Beautiful Boy in a tie-with 32-year-old Michael B. Jordan for Black Panther but neither actor was even nominated, so [sigh]. The good news: This is the first nomination for 74-year-old Elliott, an underrated gem of an actor who spun gold out of the few scenes he was given as Bradley Coopers brother. Two more scenes and he could have won this thing. Rockwell has even less screen time as Dubya in Vice, but he just won last year for Three Billboards. And it wont sit right if Driver, the white guy, wins for BlackKklansman. So heres whats going down.
FAVORITE:Mahershala Ali
Oscar voters seem to love Green Book, despite carping about its purported lack of accuracy in portraying real-life characters. To show that love, the Academy will probably honor Ali with a second Oscar to bookend the one he already won for 2016s Moonlight. You got a problem with that? We didnt think so.
SPOILER: Richard E. Grant
As Melissa McCarthys drunken partner in crime, this Swazi-Brit actor again demonstrates the comic and dramatic skills hes been showing since his 1987 film debut in the classic Withnail & I. Amazingly, this is the first acting nomination for Grant. Note to the Academy: Youve got a lot to make up for.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Vice
Marina de Tavira, Roma
Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
Working actors were so pissed that Emily Blunt wasnt nominated for A Quiet Place that they gave her the Screen Actors Award to shame the Academy. Blunt shouldnt feel bad: Adams has been nominated six times without winning. Will her turn as Lynne Cheney in Vice change that? Unlikely, but not impossible. With apologies to first-time nominee De Tavira and past Oscar-winner Stone, things look to break down this way.
FAVORITE:Regina King
As King naysayers like to point out, she wasnt nominated by her peers in the Screen Actors Guild or by the British Academy, nor did the low-grossing If Beale Street Could Talk make the Best Picture cut. Whatever. King rules as a mother fighting to save her daughters fiance from trumped-up rape charges.
SPOILER: Rachel Weisz
The Favourite tied Roma with a record 10 nominations this year. And theres been mounting support for Weiszs delicious take on a lady of Queen Annes court wholl stop at nothing sex, revenge, violence to show how a woman can win power in a mans world. As themes go, this ones as timely as a Trump tweet.

Best Director
Alfonso Cuarn, Roma
Yorgios Lanthimos, The Favourite
Spike Lee,BlackKklansman
Adam McKay, Vice
Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War
The nomination for Pawlikowski, the gifted Polish director whose 2013 movie Ida won an Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film, strikes some as an excuse to cut Bradley Cooper out of the mix for A Star Is Born. (Just like the Academy did with Ben Affleck in the same year Ida won and yet Argo still went on to nab the Best Picture award anyway.) Has the Academy developed an animus against movie stars who direct? The Directors Guild had included Cooper among its five nominees, along with Green Books Peter Farrelly, whose rep for Dumb and Dumber silliness may have offended the Academy sense of seriousness. And no knock on the gents included, but can someone in the Academy boys club please mansplain to us why no female directors this year met their alleged standards?
FAVORITE: Alfonso Cuarn
No contest.
SPOILER: Spike Lee
Spikes long overdue, and his first nomination in this category is probably concession enough from an Academy who barely recognize persons of color in the directing division. Hes luckier than Oscar reject Ryan Coogler, whose multi-nominated Black Panther presumably directed itself.

Best Original Screenplay
The Favourite
First Reformed
Green Book
Roma
Vice
No one expected the forward-fearing Academy to recognize Boots Riley for Sorry to Bother You or Bo Burnham for Eighth Grade. And the Academy did not disappoint, running from originality, youth and defiance with its customary speed. Even the nominated Roma will likely be dismissed for its lack of narrative momentum.
FAVORITE:The Favourite
Screenwriters Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, with an uncredited assist from director Yorgos Lanthimos, hit the cultural moment on the head by spinning 18th-century court intrigue into a pointedly funny take on women wrestling with male dominance and coming out on top.
SPOILERFirst Reformed
In a perfect world, the peerless Paul Schrader would have a shelf full of Oscars from such defiantly ambitious screenplays as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Hardcore and Blue Collar. The brilliance of his crisis-of-faith script for First Reformed is beyond question. Yet this is the 72-year-old auteurs first Oscar nomination in a career that spans five decades. Not only should he win Academy voters should carry him to victory on their shoulders. It wont happen, even during a commercial break.

Best Adapted Screenplay
A Star Is Born
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
BlackKklansman
If Beale Street Could Talk
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Its encouraging to see that the Academy found room for a woman, as Nicole Holofcener cowrote the funny and touching script for Can You Ever Forgive Me? And how about that surprise nod for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Netflix western from Joel and Ethan Coen, the brothers whose indifference to award competitions is well known. Still, the tight race in this category will come down to:
FAVORITE:BlackKklansman
Spike Lee and his script collaborators did an incendiary job adapting Ron Stallworths memoir about a 1970s-era black cop (John David Washington) who infiltrated the KKK into sharply satiric take on racism then and now.
SPOILER:If Beale Street Could Talk
Moonlight Oscar winner Barry Jenkins didnt feel much love from the Academy for the grace he brought to his adaptation of James Baldwins 1974 Harlem romance. But the soulful urgency of his script could be just the place to make up for the films omission in the Best Picture race.

Best Cinematography
The Favourite
Never Look Away
Roma
A Star Is Born
Cold War
Remember last year when the Academy neglected to nominate Call Me By Your Namecinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom? Well, the dopes turned a blind eye again to the Thai masters work in Suspiria. They also ignored Kyung-pyo Hongs lighting majesty in South Koreas Burning. And Rachel Morrison the first woman ever nominated for cinematography, for last years Mudbound was overlooked for the epic skill she brought to Black Panther. Clearly, the sexist Academy boys dont want women getting overconfident. We could go on, but lets give praise to .
FAVORITE:Roma
At first, director Alfonso Cuarn was ready to reteam with his brilliant DP Emmanuel Chivo Lubezki to shoot his tale of growing up in Mexico City in 1971. But when Chivo became unavailable, Cuarn took on the job himself and created black-and-white images of such striking clarity and emotional depth that it seems impossible that anyone else could win this award.
SPOILER:Cold War
If anyone can best Cuarn in this category, it will be Lukasz Zal, the Polish cinematographer whose black-and-white images in Cold War, a feverish love story that spans decades, achieve a monochrome intensity that takes your breath away.

Best Documentary Feature
Free Solo
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Minding the Gap
Of Fathers and Sons
RBG
All together now: WTF happened to Mr. Rogers?! Wont You Be My Neighbor, Morgan Nevilles inspiring doc on childrens TV icon Fred Rogers, was beloved by audiences and critics. But not, apparently, by the Academy, who notoriously left off Jane, Brett Morgans hugely popular look at primatologist Jane Goodall, from last years list. The doc committee that chooses the nominees are infamous screw-ups. Luckily, a few goodies slipped past their cloudy gaze.
FAVORITE:Free Solo
Apologies to Minding the Gap, the superb skater doc from filmmaker Bing Liu, but Free Solo is the one to beat. This National Geographic head-spinner focuses on Alex Honnold, a climber who sees no need for such niceties as rope, harnesses, pitons or even cliff-scaling companions. Its a portrait of a person who rejects the odds against surviving that come with the job. You watch him in a state of shock and exhilaration.
SPOILER:RBG
Besides Mr. Rogers, whos more beloved than Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a.k.a. the Notorious RBG? This doc from Julie Cohen and Betsy West gives you the skinny on this judicial and feminist superhero. Watch it and try not to cheer.

Best Foreign Language Film
Capernaum, Lebanon
Cold War, Poland
Never Look Away, Germany
Roma, Mexico
Shoplifters, Japan
Is it just us or does it seem like rank stupidity not to see South Koreas Burning on this list. Director Lee Chang-dong knows how to burn images into your memory. The actual nominees have their own share of sizzle. Still, the question is if Roma wins Best Pict can it still win Best Foreign-Language Film? Or, in the interest of sharing the wealth, should the Oscar go to another nominee?
FAVORITE:Roma
We dont care how many Oscars Alfonso Cuarons memory piece wins it deserves all of them.
SPOILER: Cold War
In a year without Roma, Pawel Pawlikowskis Polish fever dream would win in a walk, with Japans heart-piercing Shoplifters breathing down its neck in a close race. But this is a year with Roma, so viva Cuarn!

Best Animated Feature
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
What was once a dutiful category is now a place where animated talents often put their live-action brethren to shame. Brad Bird certainly fought off the sequel jinx with Incredibles 2, and though Disney/Pixar has won this award for the past seven years, expect some exciting changes this time.
FAVORITE:Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Sony Animation proved it can play with the big boys with this visually innovative and thunderously exciting take on the Webslinger, now a mixed-race, teenager street artist out to prove theres a superhero in all of us. Its a true breath of fresh air in the animation game.
SPOILER: Isle of Dogs
Wes Anderson draws on inspiration from the films of Akira Kurosawa, Kon Ichikawa and Yasujiro Ozu for this Japan-set tale of canines imprisoned on an island. Cultural appropriation? Maybe, but Andersons stop-motion animation works like a charm, building a joy ride that also works as political metaphor.

Best Original Score
Black Panther
BlackKklansman
If Beale Street Could Talk
Isle of Dogs
Mary Poppins Returns
In you listened carefully to any film scores this year, youd know that the magisterial work of composer Justin Hurwitz for First Man is best in show by a mile. And yet his name is nowhere to be found among the nominees. Is it because the Neil Armstrong biopic tanked at the box office? Or is it just plain ignorance? Wed prefer to believe the latter.
FAVORITE:If Beale Street Could Talk
It turns out that the ravishing and resonant score by Nicholas Britell is just as crucial to the success of this Harlem-set romance as the acting, writing and directing. Like the Academy cares. Its a miracle theyre not presenting this award during a commercial break.
SPOILER:BlackKklansman
Did you know that Terence Blanchard whos scored the majority of Spike Lees movies and is one of the most talented film composers working today has never been nominated for an Oscar until now? Crazy, huh? And the New Orleans jazz virtuoso is at his best catching the moods in BlackKklansman. Theres a chance Ludwig Goranssons Afropunk compositions for Black Panther could sweep in and surprise. Would we protest? Nope.

Best Original Song
All the Stars, Black Panther
Ill Fight, RBG
The Place Where Lost Things Go, Mary Poppins Returns
Shallow, A Star Is Born
When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The only big news besides Lady Gaga and Shallow is that the great Kendrick Lamar got involved in the Black Panther juggernaut. The other contenders are negligible or worse and the Mary Poppins Returns ditty about finding a dead parent among lost toys and umbrellas is downright creepy.
FAVORITE:Shallow
With Gaga and Bradley Cooper showing up in person to sing their Grammy-winning power ballad before a global TV audience they wont air this event during commercials the prime movers behind A Star Is Born get their best chance to grab an Oscar. And damn, do they deserve it.
SPOILER:None
In a year where ratings are king, do you think the Academy is going to miss this chance to show off celebrity royalty? The voters may shut A Star Is Born out of the seven other categories for which its nominated. But not this one. The popular choice wins.