The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey returned to the top of the box office on Friday, crossing the $200 million mark in the process. The $250 million Warner Bros. release grossed an estimated $10.7 million on Friday, putting it on pace for a $31 million weekend, which would bring its total to about $221 million and lift its worldwide cume past $600 million.

In second place, Django Unchained continued its terrific opening week, bringing in another $9.7 million. By weekend’s end, the R-rated Western will have earned about $27 million more, giving it a six-day total of $60 million. Based on…

For this short holiday week, TJ recaps what’s going on with Jack Reacher, Joseph’s review and how he thought Joseph was a bit harsh on the film — as well they also talked about the film in the most recent episode of ‘The MovieByte Podcast’, Kristen Stewart has been confirmed to return to the ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ sequel, which seems like a good thing, Carrie Underwood will be staring as Maria in ‘The Sound of Music’ TV remake, which makes TJ cringe, GLaDOS voice makes an appearance in the ‘Pacific Rim’ trailer, JJ Abrams turned down the directing gig for Star Wars VII, a TV spot for ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’, ‘The Avengers’ gets a new behind the scenes featurette showing how one of the more difficult CGI sequences was made, Roger Ebert names Argo the best film of 2012, and finally a recap of what you might be interested in seeing in the theater this weekend.

Here’s your weekly guide to what’s in theaters that you may want to see. There’s a lot of good stuff to choose from, you may need to hit the theater more than once this weekend. And what better time than the Christmas/New Year holiday? Get ready, here we go.

New Films

Promised Land
There is something interesting about this film. I love a good drama, although I am concerned about what propaganda may be in this film. But I will certainly give it a chance. I’m not sure when I personally will get to see it, but you can be sure I will.

Les Misérables
Get yourself to the theater and see…

The good news is that I’ve seen the films of one of the best recent years in cinema. I wrote more than 300 reviews in 2012—a record—and it was unusually difficult to leave out many of the quote-unquote “best” films in 11th place.

Here are the Best Films I saw in 2012:

1. • “Argo”

Though not my personal top film, it is well deserved. Argo is a fine film and I have no problem with it being names the top film of 2012.

Of course as usual, some of the films on this list I either haven’t heard of, or didn’t feel like it deserved the time of day. But that’s Ebert for you.

Well, it looks like this movie is on it’s way to the box office, despite my better judgement. I expect this film to be really horrible, but they are certainly pushing it. I’ve seen the trailer in front of several movies this year, and now they’ve released the first four minutes and I have it here for you in case you need a morning dose of stupid.

ILM has posted to their YouTube account a new behind the scenes featurette showing how one of the longest and most difficult CGI sequences was put together. What made the particular shot such a massive undertaking is that it’s a long moving shot going from avenger to avenger without cutting, showing them fighting the enemy in New York.

While “The Avengers” posed many visual efffects challenges, one of the larger challenges was pulling together the “tie-in” shot during the third act of the film. Rather than frames, this single shot is measured in minutes on screen and is one of the…

Having quietly stolen the show in Thor with his conniving villainy, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was a worthy adversary for the Avengers in their big-screen debut earlier this year.

However, despite the character’s undoubted charisma and boo-hiss nature, Hiddleston thinks it unlikely that he’ll be returning to the Avengers sequel in 2015.

“I don’t know, and that really is the honest answer,” said Hiddleston when asked whether he would be returning. “I suspect not, only because I think that probably the audiences are tired of Loki being the bad guy. Maybe the Avengers need somebody else…

In this episode, TJ gives some really brief thoughts on ‘Les Miserables’ (next week’s episode will be all about ‘Les Mis’), and some follow up on last week’s episode pertaining to ‘The Hobbit’, then they talk about GLaDOS’ voice in ‘Pacific Rim’, and a little about the trailer, then they discuss the horrifying idea of Carrie Underwood as Maria in ‘The Sound of Music’ TV remake, as well as a ‘Cars’ spin-off, ‘Planes’ and their fears and trepidations for that upcoming film as well as some general feelings about Pixar and the direction their films have been going. And the main topic this week is ‘Jack Reacher’, the crime/action/thriller featuring Tom Cruise. TJ found it quite enjoyable, Joseph less so, but still rated it positively. They talk likes, dislikes, Tom Cruise’s performance, what could have been done better, and more.

You want to get me into trouble, don’t you? (laughs) Okay, the movie takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand. My character is at his lowest. He is supposed to be able to heal himself, but he may encounter someone who has worked out a way to really hurt him.

I remember that Last Stand ended with Magneto discovering that he hadn’t completely lost his powers. I guess Wolverine would be shattered after having to kill Jean Grey/Phoenix, so I suppose the new movie will see him doing some soul searching in Japan.

Jackman added,

And there is a cameo from one of the past X-Men in it.

I…