One of the great performances in recent memory. | Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage If you somehow missed There Will Be Blood in theaters, pick up the DVD today and watch one of our finest actors give his finest performance. Nothing more really needs to be said. Walk Hard got knocked around at the box office over Christmas, but I really liked it. For any fan of the Apatow brand, it's a no-brainer buy.......

Photo courtesy of Miramax When was the last time an actor executed a more profound career turnaround than Casey Affleck? Gone Baby Gone is his second superb performance of the year. If you don't see it for him, see it for Amy Ryan's breakout, Oscar-nominated turn. The mere presence of the divine Anne Hathaway makes Becoming Jane worth renting. James McAvoy was better in this than in the over-hyped (but still good) Atonement. No......

Despite the presence of a fine cast, compelling material and a promising director, Reservation Road is further proof that there's a certain amount of alchemy involved in the creation of a good movie. While Reservation Road isn't terrible, it is relentlessly mediocre which--considering the high level of talent involved--can only qualify it as a deep disappointment. The script hits a profoundly false note so early in the film that you spend the rest of......

In a shocking upset, Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married easily topped the box-office with a much higher than expected $21.5 million haul. Ordinarily, I'm on the side of the underdog, but Perry's movies are so aggresively mediocre that I'm not looking forward to the glut of his product that is now certain to follow. Then again, Why Did I Get Married is hardly worse than The Game Plan which finished second in......

It's a strong weekend for new releases. After a long break, Jim Gray is back in the director's chair with We Own the Night. Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix star as brothers on opposite sides of the law. Reviews have been 50/50, but critics were equally blase about Gray's last flick, The Yards, which I loved. Cate Blanchett is back as Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Reviews have been weaker than those......

The opening scene of We Own the Night with Eva Mendes fingering herself on a couch making out with Joaquin Phoenix had me at hello. Thats the thing about movies sometimes, the first scene (or the trailer) gets you in good and then the rest of the film doesn't live up. Needless to say, this film did just that. The trailers and that first scene, and the second scene of Phoenix walking through a......

After a raucous couple of weeks we're settling in now. We know what sucks (Moonlight and about a jillion other programs) and what's pretty good (Chuck and just a handful of others). It's a matter of choosing a couple to follow now as we wait for the delayed series like Nip/Tuck, etc. 7:00pm The Pride of the Yankees TCM - The Gary Cooper classic is followed by Anthony Perkins in Fear Strikes Out, yes, it's......

During the Academy Awards some boring guy always comes out and explains how they voted and who guarded the results and we never pay attention. But the upshot is that people that are in The Academy get to vote on the nominees. And believe it or not, starring in "Police Woman" gets you into the Academy. Angie Dickinson was overheard in Hollywood talking about the Best Actor Category. Philip Seymour Hoffman, she rationalized, will......

9:40 Jake and Heath stumble and laugh over the sappy script written for their Brokeback Mountain intro. They look darling, don't they? 9:45 Reese Witherspoon is gasping for breath as she accepts the best actress award for Walk the Line. She says June Carter Cash deserved to be brought out of the shadow and into the light. She thanks Joauqin: Wihtout your John, there was no June. Yep, that Reese Witherspoon is hitting all......

Blogwatching the Golden Globes (it's not liveblogging if it's tape-delayed, right?) We forgot to write down times, but trust us, this is (mostly) chronological. We blogged the red carpet, too. Supporting actor starts things off: George Clooney for Syriana. Clooney's acceptance speech: "I thought Paul Giamatti was going to win. It's early -- I haven't had a drink yet.... I want to thank Jack Abramoff, I don't know why, just because. Who would name......

We're bouncing back and forth between the NBC and E! red carpet broadcasts. Woah, Dean Cain is carpeteering for NBC and he still looks like Scott Peterson. Dean, it's time to lose the highlights. At the other end of the spectrum, Matt Dillon looks perfect. Really. Just perfect. In the post-Dawson's Creek runoff, Michelle Williams has easily trumped Katie Holmes for best career, best father of her child, best husband. Look how cute she......

Horseraces! Handicaps! No sooner had we posted about the not-quiet-announced Oscar host than the SAG Award nominees were announced. The biggest surprise must be the nomination of Hustle & Flow in the "best performance by a cast" category (SAG's version of "best picture"), while none of the cast members were nominated individually. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Terrence Howard was robbed. Other than that, it's what you'd expect. Both leads......

The number of film festivals held in this town seems only slightly outnumbered by the number of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf outlets. But tomorrow, AFI Fest 2005 (Nov. 3-13) opens -- and in its 19th year -- this is one that shouldn't be ignored. A few of the week's highlights include: Walk the Line: The Johnny Cash biopic, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Man in Black and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash,......

LAist knows that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery -- but with what's coming out in theaters this weekend, well, someone has completely gone off the deep end. Shark Tale: A CGI film about the underwater world of fish -- with Will Smith and Jack Black playing the title roles of a fish and shark, respectively. There's comedy, action, suspense (there's a little mob mentality thrown in here) and a little bit of......