Opening this weekend is director Michael Bay’s fantastic dark comedy Pain & Gain.  The film is based on a crazy true story and stars Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson as two bodybuilders who get caught up in an extortion ring and kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.  Pain and Gain also stars Anthony Mackie, Rebel Wilson,  Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Ken Jeong, and Bar Paly.  For more on the film, watch some clips or the red-band trailer.

Recently, I landed an exclusive phone interview with Johnson  and Wahlberg.  We talked about how the craziest stuff is true, the way they prepared for the role, whether they were nervous to play these characters, collaborating with Michael Bay, future projects like Ted 2, Hercules, G.I. Joe 3, and more.   In addition, I asked Wahlberg if we can get Johnson walking around in the background of Transformers 4 so that there can eventually be a G.I. Joe/Transformers movie.  Hit the jump for what they had to say.

Opening this weekend is DreamWorks Animations’ The Croods. Directed by Kirk De Micco (Space Chimps) and Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon), The Croods centers on a prehistoric family embarking on the world’s first  road trip through an uncharted, fantastical and dangerous world.  The film features the voice talents of Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Nicolas Cage, Clark Duke, Catherine Keener and Cloris Leachman.  For more on The Croods, you can watch 8 clips here.

At the New York City press junket, I was able to speak with Ryan Reynolds and Emma Stone.  We talked about how the story and their characters changed during production, what surprised them both during the recording process, favorite video games, Reynolds Ted cameo, R.I.P.D., and I tried to get Stone to talk about The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  Hit the jump to watch.

Opening this weekend is Disney and director Sam Raimi’s fantastic prequel to The Wizard of Oz, Oz The Great and Powerful.  The film centers on a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics (James Franco) who finds himself transported to Oz and drawn into a battle between the three witches Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams).  Loaded with incredible visuals, amazing 3D, and a beautiful world created by production designer Robert Stromberg (Alice in Wonderland, Avatar), Oz is the type of movie that definitely should be seen on a movie screen and it’s absolutely worth the extra charge to see it in 3D.  Oz The Great and Powerful also stars Zach Braff and Joey King.

Recently, I got to speak with Kunis.  We talked about what it was like to walk on the yellow brick road for the first time, her reaction to the finished film, 3D, the Ted sequel, and the Wachowskis‘ upcoming film, Jupiter Ascending.  Hit the jump to watch.

If the promos are any indication, we could be in for an entertaining Oscars ceremony with Seth MacFarlane as the show’s host.  This year’s Academy Awards will feature a tribute to James Bond, and a new promo has MacFarlane mocking Bond’s famous and nonsensical drink order.

Hit the jump to check out the promo.  In other Oscars news, a recent press release confirms an earlier story that Mark Wahlberg and Ted will co-present as this year’s ceremony.  “I’m excited to present an Oscar with Mark Wahlberg,” says Ted. “I’m spending the next month learning to pronounce ‘Quvenzhané.’”  The Ted spotlight will be even brighter with Norah Jones singing the Oscar-nominated song from the film, “Everybody Needs a Best Friend.”

Since Seth MacFarlane is hosting this year’s Oscars, it’s not much of a surprise that his Ted co-star Mark Wahlberg will be making an appearance alongside the foul-mouthed teddy bear.  Ted was one of the biggest hits of 2012, and it would almost be a letdown to not see the duo show up in some capacity.  Wahlberg confirmed the appearance on the talk show Anderson Live, and I’m curious to see if they’ll be presenting an award, or if it will just be a comic bit.  Either way, this year’s ceremony is shaping up to be pretty entertaining with MacFarlane as the host.

Wahlberg also confirmed that writing is underway on the script for Ted 2.  In a recent interview with Steve, Wahlberg says he plans to shoot Transformers 4 and then move on to Ted 2.  Hit the jump for Wahlberg’s appearance on Anderson Live.

The 85th Annual Academy Awards announced its slew of nominations yesterday, but today the American Cinema Editors guild has released their nominations for excellence in editing for 2012.  Nominees for the 63rd Annual ACE Eddie Awards in the dramatic category include Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, and Skyfall, while the comedy or musical category includes Best Picture hopeful Silver Linings Playbook and Seth MacFarlane’s R-rated comedy Ted.  Argo and Zero Dark Thirty seem like the formidable competition in the dramatic category given how expertly both films layer and manage tension throughout their running times, and coincidentally they both share one of the same editors: William Goldenberg.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees in the dramatic, comedy or musical, and animated categories, as well as documentary and television categories.  The 63rd Annual ACE Eddie Awards will be held on February 16th.

Now that the nominations have been announced, the fact that Seth MacFarlane is hosting the 85^th Annual Academy Awards on February 24^th has become that much more real for the funnyman.  The creative force behind the animated series Family Guy and co-creator of American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, MacFarlane made his feature directorial debut last summer with Ted, which he also co-wrote, produced and voiced the title character for, and that went on to be one of the highest-grossing films of the year.

While talking to TCA members after the nominations were announced, MacFarlane said that they can get more specific in their jokes, now that they know who the nominees are, how he never thought he’d be offered the hosting gig, that he hopes to talk to former host Billy Crystal before showtime, that he figures there will be some singing involved, and even shared his own past Oscar memories.  He also said that, although a sequel hasn’t officially been signed off on yet, a sequel to Ted looks promising and that everyone involved wants to do it.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a whirlwind of nominees.  As expected, Lincoln landed the most nominations with 12, followed with Ang Lee’s Life of Pi which nabbed 11.  The big story here, though, is the Best Director category.  Shockingly, only two (two!) of the DGA nominees for Best Director made the Oscar cut: Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg.  The rest of the category was filled out by Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, and Michael Haneke for Amour.  It was almost guaranteed that Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow would be landing nominations for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, respectively, but shockingly neither made the cut.  Apparently those films just directed themselves.  Based off today’s nominations, it now looks like it’s (surprisingly) down to Lincoln vs. Silver Linings Playbook for the big win.

Hit the jump to check out the list of nominees, and click here to check them against my predictions (somehow I predicted the Best Picture and Supporting Actor categories perfectly).  The 85th Academy Awards will take place on February 24th.

Someone needs to explain Seth MacFarlane to me, because whatever he’s got, I’m not buying it. (I say this out of the gate because I know he has legions of fans, who may now disregard this review as they will.) Every now and then, I heed the “comic genius” labels and tune in to Family Guy or American Dad. Every time, I come away disappointed. MacFarlane carries the air of a bullied child who decides it’s his turn, looking for easy targets and claiming the “outrageous” label to disguise plain, old-fashioned cruelty. In our post-truth pop culture stew, anything that garners attention is acceptable. The release of Ted on Blu-ray can’t even justify that. Hit the jump for the full review.

It’s January 1, 2013, which means that 2012 is now officially in the rear-view mirror.  Quality-wise, it was a stellar year in film, and with over a month to go before the Oscars there’s still an exciting air of unpredictability surrounding the awards contenders.  2012 wasn’t so shabby box office-wise either, and we thought today would be a nice time to take a look back at the year’s highest grossing films, lowest grossing films, and everything in between.  This year saw a few comedy surprises, the highest grossing Steven Spielberg drama in a long time, a couple of superhero megahits, and the glorious disaster that was Oogieloves.  Hit the jump to take a look at 2012’s Box Office in Review.

While I stuck to my genre-loving guns in my Top 10 Films of 2012 and Top 10 Trailers of 2012, I’m happy to branch out a bit more with respect to the year’s ten best movie posters.  Here’s where I get pretentious.  Posters have the difficult task of attracting attention, holding it long enough to convey a message and getting that message across without the use of sound or motion (normally).  I prefer posters that are minimalist in nature and leave you with an iconic image that you’ll forever associate with the film.  Bonus points are given to those posters that offer layered meanings tied into the movie in question and which inspire curiosity in the picture.  What follows are the year’s ten best posters from a mix of big budget and lesser known movies.  Hit the jump to check them out.

As we wind down to the final days of the year, the internet is flooded with countless “Top 10” lists consisting of pretty much everything that ever existed in the past 12 months.  YouTube is getting in on the fun, but their list is unique in that it’s a Top 10 list compiled using statistics instead of subjective opinion.  The site has unveiled the “Top Trailers on YouTube for 2012,” which they compiled based on view count, view rate (how much of a given trailer people chose to watch), and organic views.

The resulting list may surprise you, as a whopping four spots belong to the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II alone.  There’s also one television show and five films that rank among 2012’s highest grossing films, though a major 2012 release is notably absent.  Hit the jump to take a look at the Top 10 Trailers on YouTube for the year.

Opening January 18 is director Allen Hughes’ (The Book of Eli) political thriller Broken City.  The film stars Mark Wahlberg as a private detective who is hired to identify the lover of a powerful politician’s wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones).  Russell Crowe plays the morally ambiguous politician.  The film also stars Jeffrey Wright.  For more on the film, here’s the first clip and the brand new trailer.

Over the weekend I sat down with Wahlberg for a fun interview.  We talked about how he got involved in Broken City, putting together the great cast, the way he produces, and upcoming projects like Pain & Gain, Ted 2, and Transformers 4.  However, while it was great to talk about his film projects, the best part was hearing him talk about the New England Patriots and getting to attend the game last week with his son.  While I thought about editing out his comments on the Patriots after the disappointing loss last night, I thought some of you might like to see it.  Hit the jump to watch.

Mark Wahlberg is quite a busy guy, and his schedule doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.  The actor hit the comedy jackpot this summer in Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s feature directorial debut Ted, which already has a sequel in the works, and he’s also poised to delve into franchise fare as the lead in Michael Bay’s upcoming Transformers 4.  Steve recently got to interview Wahlberg in anticipation of the upcoming political thriller Broken City, and the actor gave updates on Transformers 4 and a sequel to Ted, and talked briefly about Bay’s small-scale black comedy Pain and Gain.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

This week on Blu-ray Bourne comes home, a Judd Apatow-produced 90s favorite gets an update, and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s big-screen debut hits home video.  Briefly:

• The Bourne Legacy (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) – $19.99 (43% off)
• Dick Tracy (Blu-ray + Digital Copy) – $18.99 (28% off)
• Following (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] – $20.99 (47% off)
• Futurama: Volume 7 [Blu-ray]- $19.99 (50% off)
• Girls: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) – $22.99 (54% off)
• Heavyweights [Blu-ray] – $17.28 (14% off)
• Ice Age: Continental Drift (3D Combo Pack) [Blu-ray] – $24.99 (50% off)
• Ice Age: Continental Drift [Blu-ray] – $21.99 (45% off)
• Les Miserables [Blu-ray] – $14.99 (25% off)
• Ted (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) – $19.99 (43% off)

Hit the jump for all the details.