Oscar moments we’d like to forget

The Academy Awards are all about glitz and glamour, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few hiccups. In 1959, host Jerry Lewis was caught flat-footed when the awards ended 20 minutes early, forcing him to wing his way through the end of the broadcast. In the 1970s, the show was interrupted by a streaker, and Marlon Brando famously sent an American Indian activist to accept his award for him. Here’s a look back at eight of the most infamous moments from Oscar’s last 30 years.

Originally published on msnbc.com Feb. 11, 2010. Read the complete article.

A guide to the 2010 Oscar nominees

A quick look at the nominees in the major categories for this year’s Academy Awards. (I still think Sam Rockwell got robbed for his performance in Moon.)

Originally published on msnbc.com Feb. 2, 2010. Read the complete article.

Quiz: Test your knowledge of “Avatar”

20th Century Fox

Bluer than blue: Test your knowledge of the planet Pandora, the Na’vi people, and their human friends—and enemies.

Originally published on msnbc.com Jan. 28, 2010. Read the complete article.

The world of Harry Potter: A guide to the major characters

A guide to the characters in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, published in advance of the Order Of The Phoenix movie.

Originally published on msnbc.com July 7, 2009. Read the complete article.

Who should be the next Batman villain?

Perhaps no other superhero has undergone such drastic reinventions over the decades as Batman. The Caped Crusader was invented in 1939 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger as a night-stalking noir detective who used his fearsome bat-inspired costume to terrify criminals.

When comic-book violence became a political hot potato in the 1950s and 1960s, the mandate was whimsy above all, and Batman was softened into a cheerful, colorful hero whose exploits were often downright silly.

He got even sillier in the 1960s TV show starring Adam West, a series that so successfully satirized Batman that for many years the character was synonymous with the goofiest side of superheroes. But since Frank Miller’s landmark 1986 miniseries “The Dark Knight Returns,” Batman has returned to his dark roots.

Director Christopher Nolan embraced that version of Bruce Wayne with 2004’s “Batman Begins” and the new “The Dark Knight,” with a gritty, realistic approach to superhero storytelling that stays as far away as possible from the comic approach of the TV show or the goth-campy movies kicked off by Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman.”

As such, Nolan has to be careful about what characters to draw on for his version of Batman: It was no mistake that he chose the terrorist leader R’as al Ghul and the fear-spreading Scarecrow as the antagonists for “Batman Begins.”

“Dark Knight” brings in two of Batman’s most popular villains, The Joker and Two-Face, and reinvents them in a grimmer, more frightening mode. It’s a near-certainly that “Dark Knight” won’t be the final installment in Nolan’s series, and with that in mind, here’s a look at which villains in Batman’s roster would fit Nolan’s un-whimsical vision — and which wouldn’t.

Originally published on msnbc.com July 14, 2008. Read the complete article.

Why Raiders succeeds where Temple doesn’t

With the long-awaited fourth movie in the Indiana Jones series hitting theaters this week, the obvious question is: Will Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of The Crystal Skull be a worthy successor to the iconic Raiders of the Lost Ark? The answer, of course, will be up on the screen, but in thinking about what creators Steven Spielberg and George Lucas need to do to recapture the early Indy magic, it’s worth looking back at how the previous stories have succeeded — and sometimes failed.

Originally published on msnbc.com May 4, 2008. Read the complete article.

Quiz: Is your ‘Iron Man’ knowledge iron-clad?

Joining Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, the Hulk and other Marvel Comics superheroes, armored crime fighter Iron Man makes his movie debut May 2. Robert Downey Jr. stars as arrogant but charming mechanical genius Tony Stark, who builds a suit of high-technology armor and runs into conflict with his rival Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), a scheming billionaire who steals the Iron Man blueprints for his own nefarious purposes. How well do you know Iron Man and his story? Take our quiz and find out.

Originally published on msnbc.com May 4, 2008. Read the complete article.

Land before time: 11 great prehistoric flicks

On March 8, moviegoers will jump back in time to an age of mammoths, saber-tooth cats and Stone Age humans fighting for survival in “10,000 BC,” the latest movie from director Roland Emmerich. It probably won’t be a paragon of scientific accuracy, judging by Emmerich’s previous track record on “Independence Day,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Godzilla.” But Hollywood has a history of mining prehistory for entertainment value over archaeological exactness — or, as legendary animator Ray Harryhausen once put it, “professors probably don’t go to the cinema anyway.” To extend your travels through the ancient world, here are some earlier high points of Hollywood’s trips back to the ages of cavemen and dinosaurs.

Originally published on msnbc.com March 10, 2008. Read the complete article.

Code of the Coens: How to succeed in filmmaking

From their audacious 1984 debut Blood Simple onward, filmmaker brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have built a remarkably consistent and unmistakably personal body of work.

Their latest, a hard-edged adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country For Old Men, is one of the frontrunners at this year’s Oscars, tied with There Will Be Blood with eight nominations, including best picture.

While it clearly ranks alongside Fargo and The Big Lebowski as the brothers’ best work, No Country has an unusual place among their movies, in some ways perfectly typical of their style and in others an unexpected reinvention of it. Here’s a quick look at some of the characteristic hallmarks of the Coen brothers’ success.

Originally published on msnbc.com Feb. 19, 2008. Read the complete article.

When monsters attack! The movies’ best beasts before “Cloverfield”

Something very big and very angry stalks the streets of New York City in Cloverfield, being released in theaters this week. The brainchild of producer J.J. Abrams (of the TV hit Lost and the upcoming Star Trek remake), Cloverfield aims to revitalize the giant-monster genre with a Blair Witch Project-style filming approach; the big beast’s victims film their flight from New York’s destruction with handheld video cameras.

But Cloverfield, of course, has some pretty big shoes to fill if it wants to be King of the Monsters: Giant monsters have been a cinema staple since at least 1925, when audiences thrilled to dinosaurs battling to the death in The Lost World.

If you want to get caught up on the genre, it’s not hard—400-foot fire-breathing monsters leave a trail that’s easy to follow. Here’s a few of our favorites.

Originally published on msnbc.com Jan. 14, 2008. Read the complete article.