Quentin Tarantino started his feature film career with a string of crime films, but then changed gears with the eclectic mix of Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, and Django Unchained.  Now it looks like his next movie will see him sticking to the Western genre.  During an interview on The Tonight Show, Tarantino said “I haven’t told anyone this publicly, but I will say the genre: It’s a western,” but wouldn’t go into any more details other than to say, it wouldn’t be a sequel to Django Unchained.  Tarantino explained, “I had so much fun doing Django, and I love westerns so much that after I taught myself how to make one, it’s like ‘OK! Let me make another one now that I know what I’m doing,’”

Hit the jump to check out video of the interview, and for speculation on what the Western could be.

Having missed it during its highly successful theatrical run, I made an early trip to the video store (remember those?) this past Tuesday to pick up The Purge on Blu-ray. Like many, I was intrigued by the premise of a dystopian future America in which an annual night of crime-free killing known as “The Purge” is the key to the new U.S. of A.’s unprecedented prosperity. For an elevator pitch, my last sentence is intriguing stuff that leaves you wanting to know more about the world created by writer/director James DeMonaco. Unfortunately, I found the stellar logline to be the best thing going for The Purge as a majority of the film’s execution felt flat. I cared little to nothing about the Sandin family, was taken out of the movie during long stretches of characters searching aimlessly around the house with a flashlight, and felt the pic exchanged discernible commentary on societal violence for an all-out bloodbath that was not as much scary as it was a welcomed break from said extensive flashlight searching. Final verdict? Watch The Purge for the interesting premise, but don’t expect much in the way of scares or social commentary.

All new to home video discussion aside, this week’s Top 5 is filled to the brim with Captain Phillips interviews with Tom Hanks and more, a new trailer for Ben Stiller‘s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty including Matt and Steve’s impressions of the film, 106 lost episodes of Doctor Who potentially popping up in Ethiopia, a new trailer for David O. Russell‘s American Hustle, and Quentin Tarantino‘s top 10 films of 2013 to date. As you may be expecting, a brief recap and link to each of the above awaits after the jump.

There’s no telling when we’ll see the next film from Quentin Tarantino, but the filmmaker has become quite chatty as of late with regards to what 2013 had to offer by way of new films and comic book movie news.  Last week, Tarantino revealed a list of his top 10 films of 2013 so far, and the compilation was unsurprisingly a grab bag of everything from indies to blockbusters; in addition to pics like Gravity and Frances Ha, the filmmaker included This Is the End and The Lone Ranger.  Many were a tad disappointed that Tarantino didn’t elaborate on any of his choices, but now the director has decided to comment on his list, specifically focusing on his criticisms of The Lone Ranger.  While he was at it, he also chimed in on the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman.  Hit the jump to read on.

Quentin Tarantino loves, loves, loves movies.  The filmmaker has made this abundantly clear not only through the various and obscure influences gleaned in his own films but also in his many lengthy discussions on any number of topics relating to film.  Tarantino makes a point to go to the movies as often as possible, and recently he has taken to publicly publishing a list of his Top 10 movies from each year.  He took 2012 off since he was understandably busy working on Django Unchained, but his 2011 and 2010 lists were gleefully varied, with movies like Midnight in Paris and The Social Network ranking right up there with The Three Musketeers and Jackass 3D.

It appears that Tarantino plans on publishing another full Top 10 list later this year, but he’s gotten a jump on things and released a list of his 10 favorite films of 2013 thus far.  As expected, there are more than a couple of surprising choices.  Hit the jump to take a look.

Several years ago, Colin Firth was set to play legendary producer and director Roger Corman in Joe Dante‘s biopic The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes.  The film is now back on, and the production has done a 180 when it comes to the Corman role by casting Quentin Tarantino.  The story will be about Corman directing The Trip in the 1960s, which is about LSD and starred Jack Nicholson in one of his early roles.  As Corman notes in his interview with The Telegraph, “It was very controversial but it was the only American picture invited to the Cannes Film Festival that year.”  Corman says he will be making a cameo in the film as “the executive who didn’t want me to make the film.”

Hit the jump for why Tarantino is a good choice for the role. [Update: Joe Dante says (via TOH) "there is absolutely no truth to the stories in the press and on the web that he is going to play Roger Corman in my upcoming film".  Oh well.]

For those who are upset that genre films are never recognized at the Oscars beyond sound and VFX categories, the Saturn Awards are for you.  The Saturns recognize accomplishment in sci-fi, fantasy, action, and horror for movies and TV shows that rarely receive any consideration from the Oscars and Emmys, although there is some crossover.  For example, among the TV nominees, Breaking Bad led with “Best Presentation on Television”, Best Actor for Bryan Cranston (tying with Kevin Bacon for The Following), and Best Supporting Actor for Jonathan Banks.  Over on the movie side, The Avengers netted four wins including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Director (Joss Whedon), Best Supporting Actor (Clark Gregg), and Best Visual Effects.  Among the other genre categories, Life of Pi won Best Fantasy Film, The Cabin in the Woods took home Best Horror/Thriller, and Skyfall earned Best Action/Adventure film.  Like any awards presentation, there’s bound to be debate about the winners, but it’s great that at least one long-running awards ceremony recognized Jonathan Banks and Clark Gregg.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of winners.  In the days ahead, we’ll have plenty of interviews with actors and filmmakers who attended the event.

When does self-indulgence trump talent? Plenty of directors have tested that boundary to their detriment: witness the litter of auteurial “visions” that almost destroyed the studio system in the late 1970s. Quentin Tarantino hasn’t gotten there yet. His voice shines too bright and his visions are too singular to let their increasing flabbiness bother us. But while his epic Django Unchained remains a terrific entry in his canon, one wonders how much farther it would have gone if the director could just get out of his own way. Hit the jump for my full review of Django Unchained on Blu-ray.

Will Smith was Quentin Tarantino‘s first choice to play Django in Django Unchained.  It was a great opportunity for the actor to finally take a chance in his safe career, but he decided to pass on the role.  In November, Tarantino said that while he met with Smith, “It just wasn’t 100 percent right, and we didn’t have time to try to make it that way.”  Smith is slightly notorious for coming in and rewriting scripts, but no one gets to rewrite Tarantino.

Smith has now commented on his side of the story, and why he chose to pass on the Oscar-winning picture.  Hit the jump for more.

I just finished live-blogging the Oscars.  My brain hurts.  It wasn’t a very good show, and it was a ceremony unworthy of all the great films we saw in 2012.  Briefly, the prognosticators were correct and Argo took Best Picture.  Ang Lee won his third Oscar and his second Best Director Oscar for Life of Pi, a film that also took home awards for Best Cinematography, Best Score, and Best Visual Effects.  In the acting categories, Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor for Lincoln, Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook, Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for Django Unchained, and Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for Les Miserables.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of winners.

Quentin Tarantino has teased a third film to complete his Rewritten History trilogy, following up on Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Last night, Saturday Night Live made a strong pitch for what that film could be with the parody Djesus Uncrossed.  On the third day after his crucificxion, Jesus returns to life, rolls away the stone in front of the tomb, and sets out on a vendetta against the Romans who crucified him.  Or “Row-Maans,” as St. Peter (Taran Killam impersonating Brad Pitt) calls them when he leads the apostles to join in the fight.

It works in large part because I could see Tarantino making a revenge-based version of the Christ story that would be just slightly less wacky.  The production designer gets in a lot of nice stylistic touches in, too, including more blood and gore than I was expecting for a broadcast comedy, even after midnight.  Check it out after the jump.

Is an Argo Best Picture win now inevitable?  The 2013 British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA Awards) were handed out this evening, and director Ben Affleck’s thriller continued its domination of awards season by landing the Best Film and Best Director prizes.  The BAFTAs have always been an important bellwether for predicting Oscar, but they may be even more in tune with the Academy this year as a rule change allowed the entire BAFTA voting body to vote on every award (like the Oscars), instead of writers only voting for screenplay, actors only voting for acting, etc.

Les Miserables won the most BAFTAs of the night, taking home four trophies including Best Supporting Actress for Anne Hathaway (duh) and Best Production Design (over Anna Karenina? Really?).  The winners actually lined up pretty closely with my current Oscar predictions, though most were surprised to see David O. Russell take home the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar over Lincoln and Argo.  Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence were also overtaken in Best Actress by Emmanuel Riva for Amour, who has emerged as a strong possibility in a tough category.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

With 2012’s Django Unchained, writer/director Quentin Tarantino once again focused on an important period of time in history as told through his one-of-a-kind lens.  Though we don’t yet know what subject the filmmaker will be tackling for his next project, it appears that he’s interested in once again going back in time to complete his unofficial “rewritten history” trilogy that began with Inglourious Basterds and continued with the swell Unchained.  Hit the jump to see what Tarantino had to say about the prospect of another period film by way of QT.

The 2013 Golden Globes have just wrapped up.  I only watched the last hour of the ceremony because the Globes no longer have their awards season power due to voting schedule changes.  Reading tweets and Facebook posts, it seems like it was a fairly entertaining show (keep an eye out for Jodie Foster‘s acceptance speech for her Lifetime Achievement Award).  As for the winners, they were very “Globes” in that they were more populist choices that are unlikely to have much bearing on the Oscars.  Argo may have had a good night at the Globes by winning Best Picture (Drama) and Best Director, but I still think Lincoln is the picture to beat when it comes to the Academy Awards, especially since Ben Affleck was snubbed for the Best Director Oscar nomination.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

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 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.