Arrested Development returns this Sunday for a fourth season after a seven-year absence.  Ever since the announcement of season four (and a possible movie), I’ve felt a mix of excitement and anxiety.  Season 3 ends on a great note.  It brings the series full-circle, and has Michael (Jason Bateman) realizing that there’s really no saving his family, and it’s time to start the Bluth legacy anew with the timid but good-hearted George Michael (Michael Cera).  Will Season 4 find a way to reopen this story?  Will it find a way to at least meet the thematic strength of the final episode?  And most importantly, will it possess the same qualities that made the show such a hit?  We know these characters, and we can all quote our favorite lines, but Arrested Development is so much more.

Hit the jump for six things we might expect from the upcoming season of Arrested Development, which will air all 15 episodes at once on Netflix starting at midnight on Sunday.

Yesterday, Rob Thomas launched a Kickstarter for a film adaptation of his cult TV series, Veronica Mars.  The goal was 30 days to reach $2 million.  The Kickstarter quickly reached its goal in less than a day, and of this posting has received $2.8 million in donations.  Some people celebrated this not only as a way to finally get a Veronica Mars movie, but as a new dawn for financing mainstream feature films.  Personally, I felt everything about it was a bit…off.  I couldn’t quite place my finger on it, but as I’ve spoken with more people and read other editorials discussing the Kickstarter’s success, I’ve become more inclined to believe that Warner Bros., the studio that owns Veronica Mars, has gamed the system, misled fans, and opened a door to diminishing the spirit of Kickstarter in order to serve corporate interests.

If you haven’t already written me off for being an inherently pessimistic person, hit the jump for why I’m against Kickstarting Veronica Mars.

Over the weekend, I tweeted that Kevin Spacey was a shoo-in for a Best Actor Emmy for his performance on House of Cards.  Adam informed me that Spacey was ineligible because House of Cards didn’t meet the Emmys’ definition of broadcast television.  I imagine five years from now, the Emmys and the old-guard TV establishment it represents will finally catch on to the changing landscape of modern viewing habits.  The age of “appointment television” is almost completely dead, and “must-see-TV” has become “I’ll-see-it-when-I-damn-well-please-TV”.  Shows and networks are pushing the boundaries of when we can see them, where we can see them, and as House of Cards showed us this past weekend, how we can see them.  However, we might not have as much power over our viewing habits as technology would lead us to believe.

Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite films this year, but I’m not ready to declare the best film I’ve seen this year.  Even though 2012 isn’t over, there have been other films that I enjoyed more and worked slightly better for me.  But Cloud Atlas is definitely the most important film I’ve seen this year in terms of what it represents from an industry perspective.  It is an independent film with a major budget.   The film had the technical resources to meet its grand ambition.  The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer have been able to successfully craft their vision and do so outside the Hollywood system, which is good because Hollywood never would have made a movie Cloud Atlas.  And if Cloud Atlas tanks, they never will.

You have the power to change that.

The baseball season has begun, the NHL is in the middle of the race for the Stanley Cup, and the NBA is about to begin its endless playoff season.  But at the multiplex, it’s always the off-season for kids’ sports films.  When I was growing up, there was a boon of sports movies for kids.  From 1991 to 1995, studios released a steady stream of movies featuring kids playing sports.  Films released in these four years included (in chronological order): The Mighty Ducks (1992), The Sandlot (1993), Rookie of the Year (1993), D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994), Little Big League (1994), Angels in the Outfield (1994), Little Giants (1994), and The Big Green (1995). There were other sports movies that kids could go see (like A League of Their Own), but these movies in particular featured kids playing sports and/or being die-hard fans of the sport.  These movies don’t get made any more, but it’s not like kids stopped playing sports.  So why have these movies died off, and is there any hope of seeing them again?

With 2011 coming to an end at the stroke of midnight, we thought it might be nice for our weekly “Top 5″ to celebrate the season. So, after months minutes of deliberation we decided that this, the “Top 5: End of the Year Edition”, is best suited for said task. After the jump, you’ll find the five stories covered in previous “Top 5″ iterations that we think withstand the test of time and best represent the spirit of what we hope “Top 5″ to be. I promise, there’s nothing from The Dark Knight Rises here…unfortunately.

The theater experience is already going to hell in a hand-basket.  It doesn’t need any encouragement from the actual theater, but that’s what the Tateuchi Center in Bellevue, Washington will offer.  According to the New York Times [via Cinemablend], the theatre (set to open in 2014) is trying to woo “younger audiences” by removing cell phone restrictions and allowing patrons to talk and text their hearts away.

Hit the jump for an explanation of this madness and to watch me go mental over the decline over the theater going experience (again).

This Friday will be the start of the heaviest shopping weekend of the year.  People rush to get the best deals they can find and they will find plenty.  Some will upgrade their DVDs to Blu-rays.  Old games will be left on the shelf as gamers go for the new releases.  The stack of old trade paperback comics will grow higher as readers opt for the latest collections or go for digital versions.  So what happens to the old DVDs, video games, and comic books?  Usually, they’ll be forgotten, sold on eBay, or traded in for store credit.  But this is a time of year where we should not only give to our friends and family, but to those who would greatly appreciate the entertainment we no longer use.

As a volunteer working in the Family Library at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, I can tell you our selection of movies, video games, and comic books would be cherished more than you can know.  While we treat this entertainment as a fun diversion, to patients and their families it’s a needed comfort and distraction.  Hit the jump for details on how you can donate and help not only children and families this holiday season but for years to come.

Look back on this week.  How many times did you directly or indirectly reference a movie or TV show you like?  Did you wear a T-shirt with some sly reference or did you simply make an offhanded quote?  Our world has become drenched in allusions to the entertainment we enjoy and it can dominate our dialogue as our identity becomes more and more entrenched with brands and our identities entwined what we enjoy.  A recent study published in the Journalism of Consumer Psychology [via BoingBoing] concluded that criticism of a brand caused personal offense to the supporters of that brand.  Or, as Devindra Hardawar put it, “Fanboys explained.”  It’s the same way religion functions except now zealots worship at the altar pop culture and, even more fervently, entertainment that landed outside the mainstream.

This editorial will explore the latter and the irony of how a fandom’s fervent devotion and popularization of a cult property can drive off an original adherent.

There’s never quite been a movie constructed like The Avengers.  No major mainstream movie (or at least none I can think of) has ever been both the sequel to and the cross over of three different franchises.    Furthermore, this vision has not come from a single writer or director but rather from a studio who wants to translate their business model for comics on to the big screen.  That model demands that characters and plotlines carry over between different stories and therefore the consumer must draw from multiple products in order to understand the larger narrative.  However, each story contributing to the collaboration must also stand on its own.

But there’s been a cost to this ambition and that cost has been felt in the plotting of Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger.  We normally feel miffed if a film provides a presumptuous cliffhanger but these three films have gone one step further by gearing elements of their plot towards a final product.  Has Marvel damaged three movies in order to build the biggest superhero movie of all-time?  Hit the jump for more.

Netflix is one of the biggest online success stories of the past decade.  After years of Blockbuster dominating the rental market, Netflix first entered the fray by selling a mail-order DVD selection that went far beyond what any single store could offer.  But their real triumph was when they began streaming their movies online and then expanded to hardware like TiVo, Roku, and gaming consoles.  Now they’ve moved into the mobile market and their streaming library continues to expand.  While cable companies and studios struggle to compete with their own VOD services, Netflix offers a variety and breadth of titles far beyond its competitors.

So I was shocked and dismayed when there was a backlash to the company’s recent announcement that they would be raising their prices.  Hit the jump for my explanation of why Netflix needs to charge more in order to stay competitive and to keep the massive streaming library that made it so popular in the first place.

Earlier today, I was forwarded what appeared to be an official press release from Warner Bros. about new casting for The Dark Knight Rises.  In my haste, I simply looked at the casting of the roles, posted the “story”, and didn’t think critically about the source or the wording of the release itself.  Had I done so, I would have realized it was false, and not posted the news.

This error is entirely my fault.  I don’t consider myself a journalist, because A) I have no journalism degree; B) no professional journalism training; C) it’s kind of an insult to actual journalists who worked hard at both A and B.  However, just because I don’t count myself as a journalist, that doesn’t make me exempt from their ethics or practices.  I write about movies, but I always aim to do so with the highest amount of integrity and intelligence.  We’re keeping the Batman story up because of our commitment to that integrity and the intelligence of our readers.  Hit the jump for more.

For better or worse, Denzel Washington and Tony Scott have brought their creative minds together on numerous occasions. Over the span of 15 years they’ve tackled revenge, terrorism, time travel and, in a sense, nuclear war. This week’s Unstoppable marks their fifth collaboration together, and so we thought it’d be fun to have a look back at the duo’s track record, covering the highs and lows of their lucrative, sometimes even sensational partnership. Hit the jump to revisit their previous films.

Now that Paranormal Activity 2 has emerged as a bona fide box office smash, it’s time to consider possible outcomes for the inevitable threequel that is sure to come our way in the not-too-distant future. While confirmation has yet to surface regarding a second sequel to the most profitable film of all time, it’s a safe bet that Paramount Pictures will fast track one as soon as possible. So where does the series go from here?  I’ve come up with four possible outlines for the third film and you can check them out after the jump.

For my money (and it does get my money), Netflix is far and away the best way to rent movies.  Its “Watch Instantly” service is fantastic and their overall library contains so many movies that you can rent films that aren’t even available for sale like Ishtar and Mr. Frost.  It’s a service that’s constantly trying to expand its availability as well as its digital distribution.

However, there are some frustrating problems that I think could be easily fixed with some programming tweaks and no need for major overhaul of their impressive navigation or recommendation system.  After the jump, I’ve listed three ways that Netflix could be even better for customers and take another step ahead of its competitors.  Keep reading for my suggestions on how Netflix can improve customer queue organization, provide information on demand for a title, and notifications of title expiration.