Lionsgate has released the first trailer for director Francis Lawrence‘s (Water for Elephants) sequel, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.  The darkness and melancholy of the first film has only intensified, but this trailer only tells half the story.  We’re shown the victors’ tour, and how President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is trying to tear down the hope-inspiring image of Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) before killing her.  Only at the end of the trailer, do we hear about the second part of the story, which is the “Quarter Quell”, a special Hunger Games where past winners will be forced to fight to the death.  I assume they left this out because it’s the more effects-heavy part of the story, and that footage is moving through post-production.

The film also stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, and Amanda Plummer.  The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opens on November 22nd in IMAX and traditional theaters.

Though the first trailer for the highly anticipated sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is set to debut later tonight, Lionsgate has unveiled a couple of new images from the Francis Lawrence-directed adaptation to tide fans over these next few hours.  These new images give us a look at a few returning characters like Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss, Elizabeth Banks’ Effie, and Donald Sutherland’s President Snow, but we also get a new look at Philip Seymour Hoffman as new Head Gamesmaker Plutarch Heavensbee (the names don’t exactly get better as the series moves along).

Hit the jump to take a look at the new images, and check back here on Collider later tonight to watch the first trailer.  The film also stars Josh Hutcherson, Sam Claflin, Woody Harrelson, Liam Hemsworth, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright and Amanda Plummer, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opens on November 22nd in IMAX and traditional theaters.

The first trailer for director Francis Lawrence’s (I Am Legend) highly anticipated sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is set to debut during the MTV Movie Awards later this month, and now a promo for the event has been released online that gives us our first look at footage from the film.  The video teases a look at the “Victory Tour” that Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss and Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta embark on at the beginning of Catching Fire as part of their duties as Hunger Games victors.  Liam Hemsworth will introduce the two-and-a-half minutes of footage during the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday, April 14th at 9pm ET/PT, so check back here on Collider at that time to watch the full trailer.

Hit the jump to watch the promo.  The film also stars Sam Claflin, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, and Amanda Plummer.  The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opens on November 22nd in IMAX and traditional theaters.

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.

Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s perplexing drama The Master was certainly one of the most thought-provoking films of 2012, and now you can continue to (attempt to) unravel the puzzle at home with the Blu-ray and DVD release.  The Weinstein Company announced today that The Master will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 26th.  The combo pack’s special features include “Back Beyond,” which is a collection of outtakes and additional scenes edited to music by composer Johnny Greenwood, “Unguided Message,” which is an 8-minute short/behind-the-scenes look at the film, and a group of teasers and trailers which as we all know included footage not shown in the film.

As a bonus, an additional special feature will be added to the combo pack by way of John Huston’s fantastic 1946 documentary about WWII veterans Let There Be Light.  Hit the jump to check out the full press release and cover art.

The Broadcast Film Critics Association announced the winners of the 18th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards tonight.  While Ben Affleck was noted as the lesser of the Best Director snubs when Oscar nominations were announced this morning, the BFCA named Affleck Best Director and his Argo Best Picture.  They feature genre awards—action, comedy, and sci-fi/horror all have their own Best Picture category—so there’s a bit of an “everybody gets a trophy” philosophy.  But that allowed Jennifer Lawrence to pick up two trophies: Best Actress in an Action Movie (The Hunger Games) and Best Actress in a Comedy (Silver Linings Playbook).  Silver Linings Playbook earned four total; the Best Comedy winner brought Lawrence’s co-star Bradley Cooper Best Actor in a Comedy and the rest of the cast Best Acting Ensemble.

The four primary acting awards went to major Oscar contenders Daniel Day-Lewis, Jessica Chastain, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Anne Hathaway.  But the BFCA also found room for Collider favorites Skyfall, Looper, and Cloud Atlas.  See the full list after the break.

The marketing campaign for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire kicked off in earnest yesterday with the first images from the film, revealing the return of Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth as well as our first look at Sam Claflin as fan-favorite character Finnick.  Another batch of images has landed online today, giving us a peek at Philip Seymour Hoffman as new Head Gamesmaker Plutarch Heavensbee (yes, the names are increasingly ridiculous) and the return of Woody Harrelson as Haymitch.  Moreover, director Francis Lawrence has revealed three characters from the book that didn’t make it into the movie.

Hit the jump for the images and info.  The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opens on November 22nd.

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.

In past years for my “Best of” list, I’ve been able to provide fun categories like “Best Kill” and “Best Quotes”, but sadly, that won’t be happening this year.  I keep notes throughout the year, but in July, my hard drive crashed, and because I am a foolish person, I didn’t back up the notes to a separate drive.  However, I do have enough information to do the traditional categories as well as Breakthrough Performance, “A Very Good Year”, Best Villain, Best Surprises, Biggest Disappointments, and a new category, “Best Movie You Probably Missed This Year.”  One final note: unlike previous years, the film had to come out in 2012; festival-only flicks don’t count, so that’s why there’s no love for The Place Beyond the Pines on this year’s list.

Hit the jump to check out my miscellaneous “Best of 2012″ picks.  Be sure to keep checking back this week as we’ll be running Top 10 lists from Adam, Dave, and me.

Paul Thomas Anderson‘s The Master got a bit of a boost in the awards race as two critics organizations heaped honors upon the film.  The Toronto Film Critics Association named The Master best film of the year, and the movie also picked up Best Supporting Actor (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Best Director (Anderson), and Best Screenplay (Anderson).  Meanwhile, the London Critics Circle bestowed seven nominations on The Master as well as Michael Haneke‘s Amour.  Since the Academy is allowed to nominate up to ten films, it looks like The Master and Amour are well on their way to grabbing Best Picture Oscar nominations.

Hit the jump for the list of awards and nominations.  The London Critics Circle will announce their winners on January 20th.

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.

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.  A Late Quartet opens today in limited release.]

I love it when films help me to understand a new culture. Usually, I visit these new cultures through documentaries, but Yaron Zilberman‘s non-documentary feature A Late Quartet captivated me with an introduction to the world of orchestral music. More impressive, he uses a technical explanation as a gateway to the conflict between his central characters. Their instruments are thoughtful metaphors for their personalities, and we see how the pursuit of personal expression through a musician’s art can both divide and unite his or her group. The movie does hit a false note when it forces a conflict between two characters, but for the most part, the cast, the story, and the setting play together in perfect harmony.

Today, we’re pleased to bring you an exclusive clip from the upcoming film A Late Quartet.  The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Christopher Walken, and Mark Ivanir as members of a string quartet whose relationship is thrown into disarray when one of them is forced to retire.  In this clip, Imogen Poots, who plays the daughter of Hoffman and Keener’s characters, expresses her displeasure at having to take lessons from Ivanir’s exacting violinist.  This clip illustrates what I like best about the movie: it takes a relatable situation (a daughter sharing a problem with her father) and then infuses it with the unique world these characters inhabit (professional classical musicians).

Hit the jump to check out the clip, and click here for my full review from TIFF.  A Late Quartet opens tomorrow in limited release.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master expanded to a rather wide number of theaters this past weekend, but a final trailer for the film has just now landed online.  Anderson confirmed that he cut and released the previous trailers himself, and this nearly 5-minute long final trailer is appropriately titled “Last One/Thank You.”  The clip features a great deal of unseen footage and extended scenes not in the finished film, so it’s a fruitful watch for those that are still ruminating on the incredibly dense pic (like myself).  It’s rare these days that we get a film that sparks so much discussion and so many varied opinions on what it all means, and I have a feeling we’re gonna be talking about The Master for years to come.

Hit the jump to watch the extended trailer, which is NSFW.  The film stars Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams.