Relativity Media has released the first trailer for director Luc Besson’s (The Fifth Element) comedic actioner The Family (previously known as Malavita).  It’s nice to see Robert DeNiro back in mobster mode, even if The Family is closer to Analyze This than Goodfellas.  The movie manages to get the whole family in on the dark humor as they bring their own brand of American mafia justice to the French countryside.  Besson’s signature blend of action and quirky comedy are on display, so for fans of his previous films – and films like Red, True Lies and The Whole Nine Yards, which seem to have a similar vibe - The Family should be on your radar.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron (Glee), and John D’Leo (Wanderlust).  The Family opens on September 20th.

Opening this weekend in limited release is director Peter Webber’s (Girl with a Pearl Earring) historical drama Emperor.  The film takes place during the days following the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II and stars Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas MacArthur, the de facto ruler of Japan as Supreme Commander of the occupying forces.  Matthew Fox plays a leading Japanese expert on the staff of MacArthur who is tasked with deciding whether or not Emperor Hirohito should be tried as a war criminal.  Fox’s mission becomes more complicated as he searches for a school teacher (Eriko Hatsune) who first drew him to Japan years before the war.  For more on the film, watch these three clips.

A few days ago, we got to speak with Jones.  He talked about the research he did, what surprised him about MacArthur, collaborating with Peter Webber to make sure the film was an accurate depiction and not a Hollywood version of the events, script changes, and more.  In addition, Jones talked about The Homesman, which he’ll be directing next month.  Hit the jump to watch.

Roadside Attractions has released three new clips from director Peter Webber’s upcoming historical drama Emperor.  Based on a true story, the film takes place in the immediate aftermath of World War II and stars Matthew Fox as General Bonner Fellers, an expert in Japanese who is assigned to assist General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) in investigating whether or not the beloved Japanese Emperor should be punished for war crimes.

Hit the jump to watch the clips.  The film also stars Eriko Hatsune.  Emperor opens on March 8th.

We’re only a short week away from the 85th Academy Awards, and with the close of Oscar season approaching, we’d thought this would be a nice opportunity to take a look back at how some of the races have played out, chronicling the ebbs and flows of the past 12 months or so that got us to where we are today.  We’re kicking things off with one of the more open categories: Best Supporting Actor.

One important thing to keep in mind when looking at the Oscars is that the race is incredibly fluid.  A film could be the clear frontrunner in a category one week, then might stumble to second or even third place in the ensuing weeks.  With this series of articles, we’ll be looking at exactly how much each race has changed, starting with Best Supporting Actor.  Hit the jump to read on.

The Oscars picture is starting to emerge.  Last night, Argo won the Producers Guild Award for Best Picture, and tonight Ben Affleck‘s drama has won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.  With tonight’s win, Argo is slowly moving towards being the first film since Driving Miss Daisy to win Best Picture at the Oscars even though the director didn’t pick up a nomination.  Like Driving Miss Daisy, Argo will have managed the incredible task of directing itself.  The night’s other film actor winners included Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence, Tommy Lee Jones, and Anne Hathaway.  It will be interesting to see how these will match up with the Oscar winners.  Over on the TV side, Downton Abbey broke Homeland‘s awards-streak by picking up Best Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

The first trailer for director Peter Webber’s historical drama Emperor has been released online.  Based on a true story, the film takes place in the immediate aftermath of World War II and stars Matthew Fox as General Bonner Fellers, an expert in Japanese who is assigned to assist General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) in investigating whether or not the beloved Japanese Emperor should be punished for war crimes.  The film looks a bit like A Few Good Men: WWII Edition, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.  The Fellers role gives Fox an opportunity to show some range, and Jones seems right at home as MacArthur.  The only issue I have with the trailer is that it appears to show nearly the entire movie in two and a half minutes.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer, and click here to read Steve’s interview with Fox about the film.  The pic also stars Eriko Hatsune.  The film is currently without a release date, but Roadside Attractions promises that it’s “coming soon.”

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.

At last, Oscar is upon us.  Back in November I shared a look at the early awards season race by way of our 2013 Oscar Preview articles, and now nearly two months later there’s still quite a bit up in the air.  This truly is one of the more exciting awards races in recent years, as 2012 is so stacked with quality that there are a surprising number of uncertainties this close to the Academy Awards ceremony.  Nevertheless, I am once again foolishly going to attempt to predict how the Oscar nominations will shake out when they’re announced tomorrow morning, January 10th.  Hit the jump to check out my predictions.

Director Kathryn Bigelow’s drama Zero Dark Thirty continues its dominant critics awards path, as it has picked up two more Best Picture wins from the New York Film Critics Online and Boston Society of Film Critics groups, adding to its previous wins from the New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review.  Bigelow also won Best Director from both organizations, while Daniel Day-Lewis took home Best Actor for Lincoln.  Emmanuelle Riva won Best Actress from New York and Boston, while she shared the award in a tie with Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Los Angeles broke from the mold a bit by naming director Michael Haneke‘s devastating French-language film Amour the Best Film of the year.  They also awarded Paul Thomas Anderson Best Director for The Master and Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Dwight Henry the Best Supporting Actor honor in a couple of pleasant surprises.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners from all three critics groups.

Oscar season is in full swing, folks.  2012 has been a fantastic year in film so far, and with merely weeks to go before 2013 begins there are still a couple of highly anticipated films that have yet to be seen.  Just like last year, I’ll be running down a preview of the upcoming Oscar race during this fine Thanksgiving week, giving readers a look at what the state of the race looks like right now.  To be clear, this isn’t a personal list but rather an objective look at how things look to be shaping up.  I’ve divided each category into frontrunners, likely to be nominated, and other contenders in order to parse out where things stand at the moment.  There are multiple strong contenders in nearly every category, so this is looking to be a rather heated run to the finish line.

We’ll be looking at a couple of different major categories each day over the next four days, and we’re kicking things off with the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories.  Hit the jump to read on.

Although the last quarter of this year is positively stacked with fantastic films, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln should be on your short list. The period piece is less a cut-and-dry biopic of America’s 16th President, played perfectly as always by Daniel Day-Lewis, and more of an examination of the burdens placed on Lincoln to keep a nation from falling apart while abolishing slavery and attempting to hold his personal life together.  While the film is excellent overall (you can read my review here), a highlight of Lincoln is the excellent supporting cast.  A previous selection of clips focused mainly on the President, but this new batch  shows off snippets of the performances by Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader and David Strathairn to name a few.  Hit the jump to check them out.

Lincoln, also starring Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lee Pace and Hal Holbrook, opens November 16th.

As I write this review, we here in the States are approaching an historic Presidential election.   For many, the voting decision comes down to individual beliefs related to the economy and civil rights.  So it was with a familiar national context that I approached Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, a film as much about the man himself as it is about the fight to approve the 13^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery and thereby put an end to the Civil War.  Much as our 16^th President was equal to the task, so too was Spielberg in his effort to bring this story to the screen, complemented by the absorbing lead performance of Daniel Day-Lewis and the dynamic writing of Tony Kushner.  While the film missed on a few marks, Lincoln remains an engaging story full of heart, humor and conviction that remains culturally relevant even today.  Hit the jump for my review.

Three new clips have gone online for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.  The clips provide glimpses of conversational scenes throughout the film and feature President Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis), Mrs. Lincoln (Sally Field), Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and Robert Lincoln (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).  Taken individually, the clips give a nice suggestion of tone, visual aesthetic, character interaction and a bit of plot.  However, taken together, they reflect a core principle of the film, one that stresses the balance that Lincoln had to maintain, not only in his Presidential decisions, but in his role as a husband and a father.  Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tony Kushner’s dialogue and the superb performances all around make this a must-see movie.

Also starring David Oyelowo, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace and Jared Harris,  Lincoln opens on November 16th.  Hit the jump to view the new clips.

Just in time for Election Day, a new international trailer for director Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln has been released, and it’s by far the best one yet.  This trailer actually delves into the central focus of the long-in-the-works drama—the passing of the 13th Amendment—and gives us a much better idea of what kind of biopic Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner have crafted.  Much of this trailer is reminiscent of The West Wing, with Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln and his advisers working to secure enough votes to ensure that the amendment will pass.  The trailer also teases the multitude of strong performances from the ridiculously talented ensemble, and I can’t wait to see the whole thing unfold onscreen.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Oyelowo, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace and Jared Harris.  Lincoln opens on November 16th.

Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln just premiered as the secret screening at the New York Film Festival. We gathered up a bunch of the tweeted reactions of those who saw the film: professional critics, regular folks, even a semi-coherent Whoopi Goldberg. The response was mixed, running the gamut from “the best film Roberto Rossellini never made” to “best movie ever made for A&E?”. But virtually everyone liked the acting. Daniel Day-Lewis delivered his expected great performance, but the highest acclaim was reserved for Tommy Lee Jones, whose Oscar campaign for Best Supporting Actor apparently starts tonight.

Hit the jump for the tweets. Lincoln hits limited release on November 9, and opens in wide release for the rest of us on November 16.