The holidays are upon us! There’s Christmas in the air.

Between now and the 26th, the site is going to be pretty quiet. For me, I have an all day Christmas event at Church on Saturday, a big day of worship and a special service on Sunday, traveling on Monday, and a big family Christmas day on Tuesday.

I don’t know Joseph’s exact plans, but I know he will be busy with family and friends as well.

We’ll be back to a semi-normal schedule on Wednesday where we’ll post a few things, and of course, record The MovieByte Podcast live at 6:30 PM Central Time. We hope you’ll join us then.

In…

TJ wraps up the week with news of the ‘Jack Reacher’ red carpet premiere cancelation due to the Newtown shooting, as well as some irritation at the perceived pandering of Paramount over guns in the film later in the week, Anthony Pascale’s shot by shot analysis of the ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ trailer, as well his his thoughts on the IMAX nine minute preview. Anthony also guested on ‘The MovieByte Podcast’ this week. We then move on to ‘The Smurfs 2’ trailer, which looks stupid, the filmography 2012 video, which is wonderfully edited, Cinema Sins’ ‘Everything Wrong with The Avengers in 3 Minutes’ video, the relaunch of Movieology as a podcast (be sure to check it out), TJ’s review of ‘The Hobbit’, Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean in ‘Les Mis’, Dreamwork’s ‘Turbo’ trailer, which looks lackluster, and what to see this weekend. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

On this week’s episode of In the Queue TJ and Alex discuss the pilot episode of Revolution and it’s implications for the rest of the series. We also give a quick update on what’s new in the Netflix Instant catalog.

Join yours truly and Alex Arena as we talk about the Revolution pilot episode.

I’ve also taken over the editing and mastering of the show, I think you’ll like the audio quality better in this episode than the first episode. And I also found some cool show music! Check it out and let us know what you think! Also be sure to rate us in iTunes! It helps!

In the Queue on…

Les Misérables is bound to take the box office by storm, but it’s a musical. Are musicals allowed to do that? Under the right circumstances, such as in Tom Hooper’s film, they stand the chance to. I’m really looking forward to Hugh Jackman’s performance as Jean Valjean. Hugh describes the working relationship with Tom Hooper and more in this interview.

“He’s so bold. He just takes so many risks,“ Jackman says. ”You don’t win the Oscar and take on a movie musical. Movie musicals are the riskiest things in the world. Are you kidding me? So, singing live. Making it fully sung through.…

Wondering what you might want to see this weekend? We’ve got several new releases as well as some popular films still in theaters that will make great options for you.

Let’s dive in.

New Films

The Guilt Trip
Looks terrible. Possibly funny at time, but terrible.

Monsters, Inc. 3D
Coming back to theaters in 3D ahead of Monsters University. Personally I’ll pass because, while Monsters is a find film, I just don’t like 3D.

Jack Reacher
I’ll be seeing this tonight. it looks awesome to me! We’ll soon find out.

This is 40
Please avoid this one at all costs — ALL COSTS!

Zero Dark…

2012 didn’t want for long-awaited blockbuster releases, what with The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, Skyfall, The Hunger Games, and The Hobbit all opening this year. But the one YouTube visitors spent most time poring over, it turns out, wasn’t a movie at all.

The first to on the list are for the game Call of Duty, but the third is trailer #3 for The Dark Night Rises. This isn’t really surprising since Nolan built up a lot of anticipation for the film. Skyfall falls right in place at #4. The Hunger Games is #6, and Revolution #7. Revolution is the only TV show represented. It’s worthy!

Thanks to friend of the site Benjamin Johnson.

This seems a fairly accurate representation of the source material for the films and possibly why The Hobbit feels a bit bloated to me.

This looks really really stupid. I don’t think I am interested at all. I’d be happy to be surprised.

Frankly, Dreamworks doesn’t usually put out good animated films. There are notable exceptions (like Shrek for instance), but I’m not seeing this as one of them.

The most definitive opinion piece I’ve read comparing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in these formats: HFR 3D, Standard 3D, and 2D:

So with all of this here’s the “Master Class” that I took away, and that Peter Jackson shared with every filmmaker out there that is willing to study these 3 versions of the same film:

1. Film is just as much about what you DON’T show the audience as with what you DO. Shallow depth of field, motion blur, lack of sharpness, and movement all help to create movie magic. If images are too sharp and you see too much detail…that’s not always a good thing. The…