I would argue, however, that the hire of Catching Fire director Francis Lawrence can not be overlooked as we begin to measure the success of the Hunger Games film franchise. He might not attract as many eyeballs as the pop-culture-savvy J-Law, who’s entrenched – at the moment – as the media’s darling. But his contributions behind-the-scenes are ensuring that those “eyeballs” are satisfied with what they are seeing … and will continue to be satisfied as the series progresses.

I agree. As was mentioned on The MovieByte Podcast Episode 70, Lawrence showed us how good The Hunger Games could be…

The vocal performance by the actress in Spike Jonze’s new romantic drama Her has been ruled ineligible by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for a supporting actress bid, according to sources close to the submission process. The final decision came today after an appeal from distributor Warner Bros.

Just last week, the Rome Film Festival gave Johansson its Best Actress award for the film. 

In the Her, which opens in limited release Dec. 18, Joaquin Phoenix plays a meek man in the near future who falls in love with the artificial intelligence program who helps run his computer…

Set to air on December 10th will be The Bridge, listed as the first in a two part story. Looking at the roster of returning actors you’ll see that J. August Richards, Ajani Wrighster, Cullen Douglas and Ruth Negga are all scheduled to return.

I’ve never been unhappy with the show yet. Indeed, it’s one of the highlights of my week. But even as I’m happy with it, I see room to grow and more potential for the show so I’m excited to seem the start to pull an wider story arc together and to bring back some characters we’ve already met and almost forgotten about.

In a shocking cliffhanger…

James Mangold and Hugh Jackman have been pretty vague so far about the “really cool ideas” they’re considering for the upcoming sequel to The Wolverine, especially because they haven’t settled on any one concept just yet. But one thing we now know for certain is that it’ll be based on an existing comic book storyline.

Mangold let the fact slip in a recent interview, during which he also discussed when, exactly, the movie might take place.

Asked by I Am Rogue whether the sequel would be based on a comic book arc, Mangold answered:

Absolutely. I can tell you that in determining where we…

Exceeding already great expectations as the highly-anticipated sequel to “The Hunger Games” (which opened with $152.5 million), “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” made a jaw-dropping, predecessor-surpassing $161.1 million (already making back its reported $130 million budget domestically) and averaged $38,704 per theater. This opening weekend marks not only the top opening for star Jennifer Lawrence (beating out her previous bests “The Hunger Games” and “X-Men: First Class” with $55.1 million) and Lionsgate (beating out “The Hunger Games” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2” with…

Guys, I just don’t know about this one. I don’t know why I’m supposed to care or what the movie is even really about. This clip doesn’t actually help. Is the film about a guy and his daydreams? Beceause if it is, that’s just weird. Like I said, who really cares? I don’t think I do.

I also understand that it is getting bad cricital reviews…

“We do very much have the ambition about creating a bigger universe around Spider-Man. There are a number of scripts in the works,” Sony Pictures Entertainment chief Michael Lynton said. And again, this isn’t exactly Earth-shaking news. There is already a “Venom” movie in the works with Josh Trank attached (though obviously, his first priority is “Fantastic Four” over at Fox), and with Sinister Six already teased pretty heavily and countless other Spidey characters from the canon to tackle, it’s clear the studio is looking at the Marvel model…

I just… I don’t even… sigh…

It’s like, “Oh…

Some of you are not looking forward to this weekend. I know because I have interacted with you in the comments, on Facebook and the like. For others of us, we are expectant and hopeful. This is the week that we catch fire!

New This Weekend

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire — PG-13

While I found the book series was not without its flaws, I did enjoy them quite a bit. I could quibble stylistically with the books, but the story is sound. It was pretty decent cultural commentary. Where is our reality TV culture headed? Could it possibly come to this?

The first film was a good adaptation of…

Hey, this looks really good! Of course it stars two good actors too — Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth — so perhaps it’s no surprise.

I admit I did not have any knowledge of the events this film is based on prior to reading for about sixty seconds just now on Wikipedia, but it looks like the film deals with some sticky issues, heartbroken parents, false convictions etc. I’m certainly interested to see if this film is any good.