With less than $300,000 separating the top three films this weekend, the final order of the domestic top ten has been difficult to call. Sunday’s estimates have End of Watch and House at the End of the Street tied for first with $13 million each. Warner Brother’s Trouble with the Curve is not far behind, however, so more definitive results will have to wait until Monday. One thing we can say for sure? Dredd 3D is off to a rough start.

Clint Eastwood has morphed from being an action director and a man’s man to the leading purveyor of Oscar bait. It seems now that every year Eastwood has a new film that designed to provoke the Academy voters into rewarding him yet again. And for 2011’s J. Edgar, he assembled an Oscar super group. Working with Brian Grazer as his producer, Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black as his writer, and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer and Judi Dench, you’ve got an all-star team that screams Oscar gold. They assembled to make a bio-pic of J. Edgar Hoover, but created one of Eastwood’s worst films. Our review of the Blu-ray of J. Edgar follows after the jump.

A staple of any awards season is the obligatory “If These Movie Posters Told the Truth” mock-up. However, just because the gimmick is trite doesn’t mean it’s not amusing. This year’s line-up of Academy Award nominees isn’t lacking in Oscar-bait material, with everything from The Iron Lady to The Artist. The fact that films like these so blatantly seem to fit into the category of “Oscar nominee” makes them ripe for this kind of ribbing. We’ve amassed a number of “honest posters” for films like The Artist, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Descendants, as well as a few “almost Oscar nominated” films like Shame and We Need to Talk About Kevin. Hit the jump to check them out.

As the 84th Academy Awards move closer, we’re starting to get a better sense of how things will pan out. We recently shared the 39 songs that will contend for the Best Original Song category, and now the Academy has announced the 97 original scores eligible for the Best Original Score award. AMPAS is notoriously picky when it comes to eligibility in this category, and as we feared the scores for both Drive and Attack the Block have been deemed ineligible. Also disappointing is the ineligibility of Alexandre Desplat’s mesmerizing score for The Tree of Life.

While it’s upsetting to see some of the year’s best work side-lined, there’s plenty to be happy about. I was a huge fan of Howard Shore’s work in Hugo and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as well as The Chemical Brothers’ brilliant work in the criminally underseen Hanna. Hit the jump for the full list, as well as who I think will make the cut.

Fans of Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar will want to go ahead and skip to the jump, as will admirers of the work of three-time Oscar-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, Oscar-winning writer Dustin Lance Black and Armie Hammer. Oh, and history buffs of the Hoover-era of American government will likely want to hit the jump to, as there you’ll find almost eight minutes worth of behind-the-scenes footage, a Q&A with the above-mentioned gentlemen and further insight into the man that was J. Edgar Hoover. With a little more than a month to go until the 84^th annual Oscar nominations are announced, it’s a safe bet that J. Edgar’s cast and crew will be in the running for some hardware on February 26^th at the Kodak Theatre. Hit the jump to check out the video.

The National Board of Review has announced their honors for 2011.  As always, the wide selection allows the NBR to technically have a say in directing awards season, and their picks remain solid.  While I didn’t go nuts over Hugo, a lot of people did and so it’s not surprising NBR gave it Best Picture and named Martin Scorsese as Best Director.  For the most part, I like all of NBR’s choices.  I’m glad any time Drive gets attention, the acting picks are all worthy, and I’m happy Crime After Crime and 13 Assassins got some love.  Notable snubs include Young Adult, Moneyball, and Martha Marcy May Marlene.  Of course, anything Clint Eastwood does has to make NBR’s Top 10 so that’s why a spot is wasted on J. Edgar.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

Continuing on with our look at the 2012 Oscar race, today we delve into Best Animated Feature and the technical categories. As Pixar’s Cars 2 was the studio’s worst-received feature to date (it currently sits at 38% on Rotten Tomatoes), we’ve got ourselves an actual competition in the Animated Feature category. Not only that, but if all 18 films that were submitted to the Academy are deemed eligible, we’ll have a total of five nominated films. This leaves us to debate the merits of Rango and The Adventures of Tintin against the likes of Puss in Boots and Arthur Christmas.

Additionally, we’ve taken a stab at Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, and the technical categories. As these are incredibly tricky to predict this far out (and my picks would be doomed to haunt me come February), I’ve simply listed a couple of frontrunners in each category instead of going in depth. Though it’s still early, we’ve got an overall picture of how things look like they’ll stack up; so hit the jump to check out the state of the race so far. If you missed our previous preview articles, be sure to take a look at our picks for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, and Best Actor and Best Actress.

Yesterday we unveiled our picks for the top contenders in the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories for the upcoming 84th Academy Awards. Today, we’re taking on Best Actor and Best Actress. Though it’s still relatively early in the race, we’ve got some surefire contenders and a couple of clear frontrunners for the top acting categories. In addition to Academy darlings like George Clooney and Meryl Streep, we’ve seen some extraordinary performances from relative newcomers likes Elizabeth Olsen and Michael Fassbender. As I stressed yesterday, it’s still pretty early so things can definitely change between now and February, but there are certainly some clear frontrunners in these two races already. Hit the jump to see find out how everyone stacks up.

Jack and Jill gained some ground on Saturday, though not enough to slay the Immortals.  The 3D action/fantasy film finished first with an estimated $32 million from 3,112 locations. Considering that the film’s distributor was expecting a top opening of $26 million that has to be seen as a win.  And even if the film’s total does look somewhat anemic compared to past 3D hits, with the year we’ve had I’d prefer to focus on the positive.

Surprise! After two financially bruising weekends, things are looking up for the American box office. With estimates for Friday’s top five coming in higher than expected, it looks like this weekend should easily top 2010 levels. But that’s not the surprise. The surprise is which film is leading the charge. Relativity Media’s Immortals was Friday’s breakout hit – taking in an estimated $15 million from 3,438 locations. That puts the 3D action title on track to earn $35 million by Sunday, a figure that significantly beats the film’s most optimistic early projections. In fact, a few days ago the smart money was on a third place finish for Immortals behind Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill and two-time champ Puss in Boots. Instead, Jack and Jill is tracking well below Sandler’s recent comps, taking in $9.8 million on Friday for what should be a $24 million weekend. And, after its limited release on Wednesday, director Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar took in an estimated $4.2 million from its expanded run in 1,901 locations.  Details tomorrow.

With director Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar now playing in limited release, I recently got to speak with screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk).  Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial founding director of the FBI, the film boasts a great supporting cast including Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench, Josh Lucas and Ken Howard.  You can watch the trailer here.

During my exclusive interview, Lance Black talks about how he prepared to write the screenplay, why he wanted to tell the story, his reaction to Eastwood directing his screenplay, how they cut out a lot of the first act in the editing room, and how he wanted the script to be faithful to the truth.  In addition, he talked about The Barefoot Bandit, which is based on the true story of Colton Harris-Moore, and after he finishes he’ll move on to Under the Banner of Heaven, which is based on Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book about Mormon fundamentalists.  Hit the jump for more.

Clint Eastwood paints a broad, meticulous, and shallow portrait of controversial FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in the new biopic J. Edgar.  As seen by Eastwood’s past output from at least the past several years (and arguably even further), the Hollywood veteran seems content to glide along the surface of his subject rather than probe deeper and ask tough questions.  The result for J. Edgar is a movie where at the end of two hours and nineteen minutes you shrug and go, “Yep.  That’s a Napoleon Complex.”  Despite Leonardo DiCaprio acting his heart out as Hoover, and a fine supporting performance from Armie Hammer, J. Edgar is fascinated with its title character but the fascination runs skin-deep.

With Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar opening this week, we’ve been given some cool stuff to giveaway to some of our readers.  We’ve got a number of Blu-rays (Body of Lies, Blood Diamond, Inception), a Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros. DVD Set, a J. Edgar branded black leather messenger bag, and some J. Edgar hats.  Hit the jump for what you can win and how to enter.  J. Edgar stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench, Armie Hammer and Josh Lucas.

You are intrigued by J. Edgar.  Leonardo DiCaprio stars as J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial founding director of the FBI.  The supporting cast—Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench, Josh Lucas, Ken Howard—is more than solid.  And director Clint Eastwood is a reliable octogenarian.  Barring unexpected critical disappointment, J. Edgar is a lock for a Best Picture nomination come Oscar season.

To satisfy that intrigue, Warner Bros. has released 72 (count ‘em, 72) new images from the film.  The collection includes quite a few of DiCaprio in old age makeup (a sight that fascinates me), and several behind-the-scenes shots of Eastwood working out a scene. J. Edgar opens in limited release on November 9, and expands nationwide on November 11.  Bask in the period detail of 72 photos after the jump.

FX’s psycho-sexual thriller American Horror Story, from executive producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, revolves around the Harmons, a family of three who moved from Boston to Los Angeles as a means of reconciling personal anguish and getting a fresh start. But, they quickly discover that their new home comes with its own kind of baggage, as numerous heinous and terrifying acts have occurred there, and the property itself seems to have a strange effect on its residents.

During a recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, actor Denis O’Hare talked about the mysterious burned man that he plays on the show, how he sees Larry Harvey as both sympathetic and scary, the more than three hours of detailed make-up work he goes through to bring the character to life, and how he sees this as a show about our deepest fears. He also talked about how excited he is now that the door has been opened for Russell Edgington to return to True Blood in Season 5, his love for his character on The Good Wife, the experience of doing a role in Clint Eastwood upcoming drama J. Edgar, and that he’s preparing for a one-man show. Check out what he had to say after the jump: