One aspect of The Missing that I haven’t yet mentioned is that it is yet another entry to the “one director” trend on TV that has yielded exceptional results.  Others have included True Detective (Cary Fukunaga) and The Knick (Stephen Soderbergh); like True Detective, The Missing also features the same writer (or pair of writers: Harry and Jack Williams), which adds a really beautiful cohesion to the material, both visually and narratively (which is so important given its dueling timelines).  Hit the jump for why guilt is a cancer.

Available now on VOD is director Igal Hecht‘s documentary The Sheik. Funny at times and jarringly raw at others, the film offers a look at the life of Khosrow Vaziri, better known by his fans as The Iron Sheik. In only 95 minutes the film does an admirable job of spanning Vaziri’s life before, during, and after his legendary professional wrestling career. This approach leaves you invested in Vaziri as a person rather than just as a wrestling/social meda icon, making the highs feel sweeter and the lows all the more tragic as a result. There’s much to like about The Sheik but, as a kid who grew up watching wrestling, the most interesting parts of the film for me were those dedicated to Vaziri’s time in the WWF (now WWE). Seeing the way that the Iran hostage crisis helped fuel The Iron Sheik’s ascent in pro wrestling as the sport’s greatest villain/heel is a fascinating example of the way Vince McMahon has used social issues and xenophobia to help build an entertainment empire. Hearing Vaziri talk about the offers he had from individuals who wanted him to go against McMahon’s plan and beat Hulk Hogan is yet another highlight. All told, The Sheik is a highly entertaining doc that anyone with a shred of pro wrestling nostalgia should go out of their way to see.

Recommendations aside, this week’s Top 5 will attempt to make up for last week’s absence by featuring hits from this week and last including the first trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the news that Roberto Orci is no longer directing Star Trek 3, the first trailer for Terminator: Genisys, Bond 24 getting an official title and casting announcements, and the first trailer for Universal’s Jurassic World. Keep reading for a brief recap and link to each of the above.

Just yesterday, Warner Bros.’ massive DC Comics movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice wrapped principal photography, but it appears that Marvel also had one of its own features complete filming the same day.  Director Peyton Reed announced on Twitter that principal photography on Marvel’s Ant-Man movie is now complete.  Considering the rocky road the film had towards production, it’s actually kind of impressive that it’s in the can.  The project lost its co-writer/director Edgar Wright back in March, but Marvel scrambled and reworked the film in time to start filming this past July.  More after the jump, including a full recap of the film’s somewhat bumpy road to fruition.

20th Century Fox has released three clips and nearly 20 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage from director Ridley Scott’s Biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings.  The film is, of course, Scott’s take on the Bliblical story of Moses, with Christian Bale playing the former Egyptian prince and Joel Edgerton filling the role of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses.  If nothing else, the film certainly looks to be visually impressive, as Scott returns to the scale of his previous period epics like Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven.

Check out the new Exodus: Gods and Kings clips and behind-the-scenes footage after the jump.  The film also stars John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Ben Mendelsohn, Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley.  Exodus: Gods and Kings opens in theaters in 3D and 2D on December 12th.

By the time the Academy Awards nominations are announced every year, there’s already been so much prognosticating and discussion about the race itself that in actuality, there aren’t a great deal of surprises.  Sure, every now and then you’ll have something like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close getting into the Best Picture race or Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow being left off the Best Director shortlist (that one still baffles me), but by and large, things mostly seem to fall into place as expected.  Where you can find many of the true surprises, though, is in the Supporting Actor and Actress categories.  This is where beloved character actors can finally get their due, or burgeoning newcomers can find themselves nominated alongside acting veterans; and these kinds of nominees actually have good shots at winning.  This year, the bench for the Best Supporting Actor category is yet again deep with talent, offering plenty of opportunities for some pleasant surprises.

After the jump, I run down the current state of the Best Supporting Actor race in this week’s edition of Oscar Beat.

The chilling new Starz drama series The Missing follows the aftermath of what happens when five year-old Oliver Hughes disappears while on holiday in France with his parents.  As you descend deeper into the mind of a father (James Nesbitt) desperate to locate his lost son, and getting help from a now retired detective (Tchéky Karyo), you follow the obsessive, nearly decade-long search to find his son and those responsible for his disappearance.

During this exclusive interview with Collider, actor Tchéky Karyo talked about how he got involved with The Missing, why he found the story so moving, getting a full arc for his character, the authenticity of the relationships, the difference between Julien Baptiste in 2006 and in 2014, the very human resolution to the season, and why he enjoys getting to build a character over time.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

Though Frank Capra is known for his humanist films that are often about great men who fight for social justice, one of his best works is (arguably) the first screwball comedy that backgrounds class issues for a rollicking adventure about a dizzy heiress and a hard-boiled reporter.  That film is It Happened One Night, and it’s rightfully received a place in the Criterion Collection.  Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert star, and my review of the film on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

NBC’s Constantine has already dabbled in voodoo, demonic possession, and ancient Welsh fairy folk, but tonight’s episode “Blessed Are the Damned” get to Hellblazer’s bread-and-butter: the battle between Heaven and Hell.  In this hour, a struggling preacher finds himself apparently blessed with an incredibly powerful artifact that grants him healing abilities.  While it allows him to grow his following substantially, it also has some pretty awful side effects.  What’s causing all of this chaos?  Well, as Manny keeps reminding us, it has a little something to do with the “rising darkness.”

Hit the jump for our Constantine recap.

Inherent Vice’s December 12th limited release is just a week away now, so Warner Bros. just unveiled a slew of brand new images from the film.  Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest stars Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello, a pot-smoking private eye who agrees to help an ex (Katherine Waterson) track down her new lover, real estate tycoon Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts), and runs into a number of curious characters in the process.

Hit the jump to check out all the new Inherent Vice images featuring Phoenix, Waterston, Roberts, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro, Martin Short, Sasha Pieterse, Joanna Newsom and more.  Inherent Vice will open nationalwide on January 9th.

Christopher Nolan might not be the only director in the running for Ready Player One.  It’s being reported that Robert Zemeckis, Matthew Vaughn, Edgar Wright and Peter Jackson are all being considered as well.  (Looks like you got your wish, Brendan!)

The film is based on Ernest Cline’s award-winning book of the same name.  It takes place in the year 2044. The world isn’t in great shape thanks to the exhaustion of Earth’s fossil fuels, but at least people can escape the energy crisis and overpopulation by logging in to OASIS, a video game getaway.  Hit the jump for more on the directors who are supposedly in the running to bring OASIS to the big screen.

Fletcher’s (JK Simmons) band and the New York Symphony are two very different things, but after Whiplash, I’m eager to see more orchestra performances on screen and that’s exactly what Amazon is delivering on December 23rd.  The new original series Mozart in the Jungle is based on Blair Tindal’s memoir and stars Gael Garcia Bernal as Rodrigo, the new conductor and musical director of the New York Symphony who’s committed to his art but very concerned about his image as well.

There’s definitely something appealing about getting a behind-the-scenes look at leading a symphony, but the new Mozart in the Jungle trailer does feel a bit disjointed courtesy of the abrupt shift from Rodrigo’s story to Lola Kirke’s character, Hailey, a young woman determined to build a career as a professional oboist.  It doesn’t play particularly well in the trailer, but pairing Rodrigo’s brash behavior with the sensitivity that Hailey seems to bring out could create a nice balance for the character.  We’ll find out if that’s the case when all 10 episodes of Mozart in the Jungle arrive on December 23rd.  In the meantime, check out the new trailer after the jump.

We only just shared that first Insurgent image, but we’ve already got more Divergent Series news to report.  It seems as though Lionsgate is happy with director Robert Schwentke’s work on Insurgent because he’s coming back for film #3, The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Part 1.  Neil Burger was the man behind the first film, but after news broke that he would not return to helm the sequel, it was announced that Schwentke would take over.

Hit the jump for more on Schwentke and the future of the Divergent franchise.  The Divergent Series: Insurgent arrives in theaters on March 20, 2015 and stars Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ansel Elgort, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Jai Courtney, Miles Teller and Zoe Kravitz.